Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [0]
EDWARD RUTHURFURD
Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
Also by Edward Ruthurfurd
Preface
Names and Pronunciation
Summary
Acknowledgements
Map
Family tree
Forest and Steppe
The River
The Tatar
The Icon
Ivan
The Cossack
Peter
Catherine
The Duel
Fathers and Sons
Revolution
Coda
Epilogue
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781409039631
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Published by Arrow Books in 1992
20
Copyright © Edward Rutherfurd 1991
The right of Edward Rutherfurd to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 1991 by Century
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The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099635208
This book is respectfully dedicated
to those now rebuilding the monastic
community of Optina Pustyn.
RUSSKA
Edward Rutherfurd was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and educated at Cambridge University and Stanford University in California. His first book, Sarum was based on the history of Salisbury. London, Russka,The Forest, Dublin, Ireland Awakening and New York all draw on finely researched details of social history. Edward Rutherford has spent much of the last 30 years living in New York and Conneticut. He has an American wife and two American educated children and has served on a New York co-op board.
Also by Edward Ruthurfurd
Sarum
London
The Forest
Dublin
Ireland Awakening
New York
PREFACE
RUSSKA the PLACE
The two settlements named Russka in this story – the first in the south and its successor in the north – are both imaginary, although a small town bearing this name did once exist elsewhere in former times. Each of these imaginary Russkas is an amalgam of features drawn from their respective regions. In the northern Russka, where the principal action is set, the old town and monastery somewhat resemble, on a smaller scale, the ancient city of Suzdal, where part of the book was written. The magic springs I saw by the old fortress of Izborsk, in the north-west. The Bobrov country house is not unlike the country estate of the Pushkin family.
RUSSKA the NOVEL
Russka is a historical novel. All the families of Bobrov, Suvorin, Romanov, Ivanov, Karpenko, Popov, and the character Pinegin are fictitious. But in following their stories down the centuries, I have set them among people and events that did exist, or could have done.
For many reasons, despite the ever growing fascination with Russia in the west, the history and geography of this huge and sweeping land are only slightly familiar to most readers. Insofar as possible therefore, I have tried to provide a historical framework for the reader that I hope will be informative without being burdensome. Here and there I have allowed myself some very small telescoping of events to simplify the narrative, but none, I believe, that does violence to history.
In an attempt to convey something of the astonishing richness and the