The name of a recently published book on the cultural history of Russia?

Question by Sharona: What is the name of a recently published book on the cultural history of Russia?
I’m looking for a book title. The book is I think recently published (in paperback) in the UK. It’s a cultural history of Russia, I think written either by a Russian or someone with a Russian-sounding name. The introduction to the book speaks about how big a star worldwide Tolstoy was when he died. I just can’t remember the title. It was a book similar in content to “Natascha’s Dance”, but slimmer.

Thank you kindly for any help.

Answers and Views:

Answer by cipria
Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia

Price: $ 14.96

25 new from $ 7.00

Even if one takes nothing else away from this elegant, tightly focused survey of Russian culture, it’s impossible to forget the telling little anecdotes that University of London history professor Figes (A People’s Tragedy) relates about Russia’s artists, writers, musicians, intellectuals and courtiers as he traces the cultural movements of the last three centuries. He shares Ilya Repin’s recollection of how peasants reacted to his friend Leo Tolstoy’s fumbling attempts to join them in manual labor (“Never in my life have I seen a clearer expression of irony on a simple peasant’s face”), as well as the three sentences Shostakovich shyly exchanged with his idol, Stravinsky, when the latter returned to the Soviet Union after 50 years of exile (” `What do you think of Puccini?’ `I can’t stand him,’ Stravinsky replied. `Oh, and neither can I, neither can I’ “). Full of resounding moments like these, Figes’s book focuses on the ideas that have preoccupied Russian artists in the modern era

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