Former People

Epic in scope, precise in detail, and heart breaking in its human drama, Former People is the first book to recount the history of the aristocracy caught up in the maelstrom of the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of Stalin s Russia Filled with chilling tales of looted palaces and burning estates, of desperate flights in the night from marauding peasants and Red Army soldiers, of imprisonment, exile, and execution, it is the story of how a centuries old elite, famous for its glittering wealth, its service to the Tsar and Empire, and its promotion of the arts and culture, was dispossessed and destroyed along with the rest of old Russia.Yet Former People is also a story of survival and accommodation, of how many of the tsarist ruling class so called former people and class enemies overcame the psychological wounds inflicted by the loss of their world and decades of repression as they struggled to find a place for themselves and their families in the new, hostile order of the Soviet Union Chronicling the fate of two great aristocratic families the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns it reveals how even in the darkest depths of the terror, daily life went on Told with sensitivity and nuance by acclaimed historian Douglas Smith, Former People is the dramatic portrait of two of Russia s most powerful aristocratic families, and a sweeping account of their homeland in violent transition. Download Former People author Douglas Smith – kino-fada.fr I m not so sure why people are so negative about this book, but I found it to be an extremely well written, captivating and eye opening account of the end of a class of people and how they struggled to adapt just to survive As always, stay here for the short discussion for a longer one move on over to my online reading journal by clicking here.At the center of this book are two families, the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns Count Sergei Sheremetev 1844 1918 descended from a line of aristocrat I m not so sure why people are so negative ...Fascinating subject which was also well researched The problem was the scope of information Too much too handle Smith gives us so many personal stories, but although this is important it s hard to keep track of all the names and events And still, interesting, chilling and tragic account of the last days of Russian aristocracy Fascinating subject which was also well researched The proble...Smith has written an interesting book which manages to both entertain and captivate the reader I literally could not put it down I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history, Russia or the Cold War I am even planning on suggesting that the Russian history professor at my college incor...It s interesting to read a history of the Russian revolution that does not focus on the pre Revolutionary excesses of the Russian nobility Smith s view of the Russian peasantry who murdered two million class enemies in the years after the war is pretty grim ignorant, angry, dirty, sadistic He has almost nothing good to say about Lenin, who despite being born into a noble family himself, was very explicit about the need to use state power to murder former people, those the Bolsheviks deem It s interesting to read a history of the Russian revolution that does not focus on the pre Revolutionary excesses of the Russian nobility Smith s view of the Russian peasantry who murdered two million class enemies in the years after the war is pretty grim ignorant, angry, dirty, sadistic He has almost nothing good to say about Lenin, who despite being born into a noble family himself, was very explicit about the need to use state power to murder former people, those the Bolsheviks deemed guilty of having exploited the working class in the past the wealthy, the middle class, the nobility, the intelligentsia, former state bureaucrats, in some places anyone who showed evidence of having bathed And Smith makes it clear that the Bolsheviks were merely putting an official stamp on the anarchic class violence, looting, and rape that occurred almost immediately after Nicholas II s abdication Smith is particularly interesting when he...Haunting reconstruction of the chaotic and prolonged expropriation of stuff and crushing of the former Czarist aristocracy by the Bolsheviks Using surviving documents, Soviet records and interviews with remaining family members in North America and Russia, Smith illuminates 1917 1935 through two families, the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns, as they attempt to navigate the new world of Revolutionary Russia He gives enough background that you know why the peasants want to kill them and destroy ho Haunting reconstruction of the chaotic and prolonged expropriation of stuff and crushing of the former Czarist aristocracy by the Bolsheviks Using surviving documents, Soviet records and interviews with remaining family members in North America and Russia, Smith illuminates 1917 1935 through...Information overload I consider myself to be erudite and scholarly, but this was like reading someone s thesis The book takes a truly fascinating subject and makes it dry Although there were family trees in the front, it was difficult to keep track of the different family members and time periods as things skipped around making everything disorienting The research was meticulous, but it was a difficult read, I was hoping for something that was accurate but told the overarching story of this Information overload I consider myself to be erudite and scholarly,...This book opens by telling us that Russian nobles were one of the first groups subjected to a brand of political violence that became a hallmark of the past century and the author uses the Sheremetev and Golitsyn families to illustrate the wide variety of experiences of the former nobility, ranging from execution, to exile in the U.S as a successful businessman, to moving in and out of the gulags multiple times during the decades between 1917 and 1945 The most striking thing was the way the This book opens by telling us that Russian nobles were one of the first groups subjected to a brand of political violence that became a hallmark of the past century and the author uses the Sheremetev and Golitsyn families to illustrate the wide variety of experiences of the former nobility, ranging from execution, to exile in the U.S as a successful businessman, to moving in and out of the gulags multiple times during the decades between 1917 and 1945 The most striking thing was the way the persecution could drag on for decades with resolution Being released from prison one year was no guarantee you wouldn t be picked up as a part of some other purge later, or exiled to the other side of the country with no way of contacting family left behind I did not expect to necessarily sympathize a great deal with the nobles, but the arbitrar...The fate of the Romanovs after the revolution has been well covered but that of the other nobles has not This book is the first that I know of to fill that gap It profiles the Sheremetev and Golitsyn Families Both had great wealth and for many generations were close to the tzars Their fate helps to tell the story of early 20th century Russia.The book begins with a list of family members, genealogy charts and some excellent maps At first, I flipped back to these as I read, but given the many The fate of the Romanovs after the revolution has been well covered but that of the other nobles has not This book is the first that I know of to fill that gap It profiles the Sheremetev and Golitsyn Fam...I confess when I first picked this up at the library, I was thinking it was going to be a Downton Abbey but with Russians kind of a book, and then it turned out to be aserious history, with historical analysis and everything, soof a dense read than I was expecting But still awesome And it will come in useful for at work when faculty ask me what I ve read lately, because this doesn t seem as weird as saying The Black Stallion Returns which is usually what I ve been reading.It primar I confess when I first picked this up at t...You may say oh, this is a book about rich idle people who got what they deserved Or why should I care about what happened to a bunch of rich guys whose estates got burnt to the ground Well yes, these were rich people Specifically, these were people from two branches of aristocracy, Sheremetev and Golitsyns two very powerful, very rich families Yet the book is heartbreaking You may think they got what was coming, but surely these people did not deserve the fate given to them by the Bo You may say oh, this is a book about rich idle people who got what they deserved Or why should I care about what happe...

• English
• 23 September 2018
Douglas Smith
• Hardcover
• 496 pages
• 0374157618
• Douglas Smith
• Former People