Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History Of Russia

Vast in scale and woven with extraordinary stories and characters, this book ranges from the splendour of eighteenth-century St Petersburg to the power of Stalinist propaganda, from folk art to the magic rituals of Asiatic shamans, from the poetry of Pushkin to the music of Mussorgsky and the films of Eisenstien, bringing to life an extraordinary cast of serf artist and aristocrats, revolutionaries and exiles, priests and libertines.

Figes's book takes its title from a famous scene in 'War And Peace', where the young and beautiful Countess Natasha hears a popular melody and, instinctively aware of the peasant rhythm and steps, begins to dance to it. Tolstoy shows that however grand and foreign-educated they might be, at heart the Russians are Russians.

Beautifully written and gloriously vivid, 'Natasha's Dance' is a triumphant assertion of the greatness of Russia's culture and the remarkable lives of those who have shaped it.