Sashenka (The Moscow Trilogy)

Ugh. Shallow. Trite. Couldn't make it past a few chapters. The "attractive teenage schoolgirl dressed all in white spends the night in the gulag for handing out communist papers" pretty much was an intolerable bore.

Somehow I missed this book when it was published, but I was excited when I heard about it. A big historical novel about Communist-era Russia seemed like it would be exciting, and I liked the concept of a three part story set at the beginning of the Bolshevik revolution, then during the Stalinist terror of the late 1930s, and finally looking back after the fall of communism.

Montefiore clearly knows his history, and his concept of Sashenka is well chosen. She is the daughter of a Jewish arms mogul who has been made a baron for his service to the czarist regime. His wife is a frivolous sensualist who spends her nights with the dissipated society elites. Sashenka, though, is a fervent Bolshevik, recruited by her uncle Mendel. She is delighted at the Bolsheviks' success, despite the heavy cost to her family.

Skip forward 20 years, and Sashenka is married to a comrade who is an important cog in Stalin's security apparatus, and she has two children she dotes on. She is the editor of a proletarian women's magazine, but she enjoys the material comforts brought by the longtime party service she and her husband have given. Her comfortable world falls apart when she begins a torrid affair with a writer and the Stalinist terror reaches her family.

Finally, in 1994, a researcher learns the outcome of Sashenka's tale, and the terrible choices she had to make when the terror came.

Sounds like it should be a terrific story, right? Wrong. The biggest problem is the Sashenka character. What an empty-headed brat. She begins as a spoiled child who falls in love with the idea of herself as a revolutionary so much that she can't be bothered to concern herself with the fates visited on her parents and her supposedly beloved governess, Lala.

In Part Two, with Sashenka as a grown woman, she is a doctrinaire party hack, who has her blinders permanently fixed on her head, refusing to see that all those former friends and colleagues who were arrested, tortured and exiled or executed weren't likely to be traitors. She doesn't even try to find out anything about the fates of people she loved dearly and who loved her. When she learns about horrific abuses in the system, she refuses to believe it.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, she falls into a passionate affair with a writer named Golden. It's supposed to be a love affair, but as far as I could tell from the way Montefiore presents it, it was just a midlife crisis sexual frenzy, and a tawdry one at that.

When the threat to Sashenka's privileged life hits home, all of a sudden she cares about the abuses of the Stalinists. I'm sure this is realistic, but it doesn't make for a sympathetic character, which Montefiore seems to have been aiming for. All I could think was that it wasn't much more than she deserved.

When we finally got to the big reveal about what actually happened to Sashenka and her family, I didn't care much anymore. It had little emotional resonance, because Sashenka had reaped the wind and sowed the whirlwind. However, I will say that Part Three took this read from a 1-star or 1.5 start to a 2.5 for me, because of its focus on tracing what happened to the characters through the old archives of the Communist Party, and the few witnesses left alive in 1994. I'm fascinated by these stories told through the records of the Bolsheviks, East Germany's Stasi and the Nazis.

Montefiore's prose is stolid, and his descriptions of Sashenka's sexual liaisons overly and un-erotically detailed. He also goes on for many more pages than necessary detailing Soviet torture and interrogations.

A note about the audiobook: Anne Flosnik is a dreadful narrator of this story. She gives Sashenka the voice of a very young girl, even when she is 40 years old. Her male characters all sound the same, with a cartoonish, yet uncategorizable accent. Her pronunciation of Russian words and names is laughable. Avoid the audiobook. After listening to the first two parts of the book, I went to the library and got the hardcover to read Part Three, rather than listen to this terrible narration.

Simon Montefiore is a historian of Russia and an award-winning author of "Potemkin: Catherine the Great's Imperial Partner," "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar," and "Young Stalin." With "Sashenka" Mr. Montefiore has applied his vast knowledge to the world of historical fiction. His expertise really enhances this novel, filled with characters that come to life on the page, along with an absorbing and moving storyline that spans the end of Russia's Tsarist regime, the Bolshevik Revolution, life under Lenin and Stalin, and, finally, to 1994, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The author's ancestors escaped the Tsarist Empire, an event which sparked his interest in Russia. In Sashenka he writes about a fictional woman and her family. However, he has stated that this book was inspired by "many stories, letters and cases that he found in archives and in interviews over a period of ten years."

It is 1916 when the reader meets Sashenka Zeitlin, the 16 year-old daughter of a wealthy Jewish arms merchant in St. Petersburg. Her father, Samuil, is the proprietor of the Anglo-Russian Naptha-Oil Bank of Baku and has ties to the Tsarist regime. In 1915, the grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaivich declared all Jews potential German spies and had them driven out of their villages. Although a Jew, Zeitlin has the right to stay in St. Petersburg because he is a merchant of the First Guild. Just before WWI he was elevated to the rank of the Emperor's Secret Councillor.

Sashenka's unstable mother idolizes and socializes with the notorious mystic Rasputin, called the "Mad Monk" by his detractors. And Sashenka, influenced by her uncle Mendel, has become a staunch Marxist. Even at her young age, she is a Bolshevik operator who risks her life on more than one occasion for the upcoming and inevitable Revolution. Her motto is "All or nothing," taken from one of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's heroes. She firmly believes in "a class struggle that would progress through set stages to a workers' paradise of equality and decency."

Eventually, she is arrested for her activism and is subsequently pursued by a Tsarist officer who futily attempts to turn her into an informer. When the Romanov regime falls she becomes a secretary to Lenin.

The 2nd and longest part of the novel takes place in Moscow, 1939. Josef Stalin rules the country with an iron fist. During the late 1930s he had launched a great purge, (also known as the "Great Terror"), a campaign to eradicate the Communist Party of people accused of sabotage, terrorism, or treachery. He extended it to the military and other sectors of Soviet society. Targets were often executed or imprisoned in Gulag labor camps. The fortunate were exiled. In the years following, millions of ethnic minorities were murdered or sent into exile.

When this part of the narrative opens, Shashenka has become a beautiful woman, the wife of a senior Communist officer, Vanya, and the mother of two beautiful children. She is a model Soviet woman who works as the editor of the "Soviet Wife and Proletarian Housekeeping magazine." The family enjoys the privileges of their high rank in the Party. Oddly, their lifestyle is not dissimilar to the one Sashenka lived before the Revolution. Their friends and acquaintances are the amongst the Communist Party elite, and Stalin and Beria even attend one of Sashenka's and Vanya's parties - a tense situation at best. A stray word or false rumor could cost one his/her life, which seriously detracts from the pleasantries of the family's existence, indeed the existence of all Russians.

I don't want to include "spoilers," but let it suffice to say that the lives of Sashenka and her family change drastically during this period.

Sashenka's story is hidden for half a century when a young woman, a historian, is hired in 1994, to discover what happened to our protagonist and her family.

This is a tale of family, love, politics, injustice and heartbreak. Indeed, I was moved to tears at times. With the exception of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's novel "The Gulag Archipelago," I have never really understood the depths of horror that unfortunates faced in the forced labor camps, spread all over the Soviet Union, especially in Siberia. And what a blood-spattered history that is.

"Sashenka" is a gripping read. The plot is exceptional. This novel is historical fiction at its best and is certainly worthy of 5 stars!
Jana Perskie

"What British historian could ever tell me, the former USSR citizen, about Russia and its history, especially Soviet history?
This is what I thought before opening the book. I do not quite like historical novels in the first place. And after reading all range of Russian authors from Tolstoy to Shalamov I thought to have a right to be skeptical.
I was wrong." - said Vlad G. in his comment.

Well, I cannot understand how the former USSR citizen - at least an intelligent man or a woman who lived there as an adult, not a child, can find anything really new in this book. Yes, this book is pretty entertaining, it's sexually charged, it does not make blunders, obviously Simon Sebag Montefiore knows his topic, but it's really average, lightweight literature, which does not bring anything new, does not go any deep into complicated causes of the tragic Russian history of 20th Century. Just to compare it to Varlam Shalaomv's Kolyma Tales is a nonsense.

From New York Times review by DINITIA SMITH,
“He made her forget she was a Communist.” Well, good for him.
When “Sashenka” was published in Britain this year, this passage was a runner-up for The Guardian newspaper’s annual prize for bad writing about sex. Despite this and other overblown sex scenes and cartoonish dialogue..." ... and then Dinitia Smith begins to make futile attempts of finding anything deep and interesting in this shallow book....

This is an outstanding work from a serious scholar of Russian history. I'll be interested to try one of his nonfiction books. The author's knowledge of period details, mindsets, and customs really makes this novel stand out. There are so many fascinating little extras.
My summaries of the sections are deliberately vague, as I think it's essential to be in the dark about where the story is going for best enjoyment. All three of the parts are very nicely tied in with each other by the end of the novel.

Part I: 1916--Sashenka Zeitlin is a willful and reckless 16-year-old. Her father is wealthy and influential, so the family is allowed to live in St. Petersburg rather than in the Pale of Settlement with the other Jews. Sashenka rejects the excesses and debauchery of her Tsarist parents and becomes a Bolshevik spy.

Part II: 1939 Moscow--Sashenka is now married to a Party leader and has two small children. She has remained a loyal Party member for over 20 years and still supports Stalin and the Soviet system. Just when they think the purging and "The Terror" is over, the arrests and disappearances start up again. This time, Sashenka fears that she and her husband may be targeted.

Part III: 1994 Moscow and London--Katinka, a young historian, is hired in London by Roza Getman to find out what happened to Roza's family in Russia during the years of Stalin's Terror. In the course of her research, Katinka stumbles upon Sashenka's story. This part of the book was what sealed the deal for me on the five-star rating. I could not stop reading. It's a great mystery with the clock running down and old-timers trying to keep their secrets safe.

Overall very well written and engaging. There is some awkwardness here and there where it's clear the author hasn't quite made that transition from nonfiction writer to novelist, but nothing glaring. Mostly just places where the thoughts or dialogue don't sound true to the way normal people think and speak. It doesn't detract from the story. It just stands out now and then.

"What British historian could ever tell me, the former USSR citizen, about Russia and its history, especially Soviet history?
This is what I thought before opening the book. I do not quite like historical novels in the first place. And after reading all range of Russian authors from Tolstoy to Shalamov I thought to have a right to be skeptical.
I was wrong." - said Vlad G. in his comment.

Well, I cannot understand how the former USSR citizen - at least an intelligent man or a woman who lived there as an adult, not a child, can find anything really new in this book. Yes, this book is pretty entertaining, it's sexually charged, it does not make blunders, obviously Simon Sebag Montefiore knows his topic, but it's really average, lightweight literature, which does not bring anything new, does not go any deep into complicated causes of the tragic Russian history of 20th Century. Just to compare it to Varlam Shalaomv's Kolyma Tales is a nonsense.

From New York Times review by DINITIA SMITH,
“He made her forget she was a Communist.” Well, good for him.
When “Sashenka” was published in Britain this year, this passage was a runner-up for The Guardian newspaper’s annual prize for bad writing about sex. Despite this and other overblown sex scenes and cartoonish dialogue..." ... and then Dinitia Smith begins to make futile attempts of finding anything deep and interesting in this shallow book....

Simon Montefiore is a historian of Russia and an award-winning author of "Potemkin: Catherine the Great's Imperial Partner," "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar," and "Young Stalin." With "Sashenka" Mr. Montefiore has applied his vast knowledge to the world of historical fiction. His expertise really enhances this novel, filled with characters that come to life on the page, along with an absorbing and moving storyline that spans the end of Russia's Tsarist regime, the Bolshevik Revolution, life under Lenin and Stalin, and, finally, to 1994, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The author's ancestors escaped the Tsarist Empire, an event which sparked his interest in Russia. In Sashenka he writes about a fictional woman and her family. However, he has stated that this book was inspired by "many stories, letters and cases that he found in archives and in interviews over a period of ten years."

It is 1916 when the reader meets Sashenka Zeitlin, the 16 year-old daughter of a wealthy Jewish arms merchant in St. Petersburg. Her father, Samuil, is the proprietor of the Anglo-Russian Naptha-Oil Bank of Baku and has ties to the Tsarist regime. In 1915, the grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaivich declared all Jews potential German spies and had them driven out of their villages. Although a Jew, Zeitlin has the right to stay in St. Petersburg because he is a merchant of the First Guild. Just before WWI he was elevated to the rank of the Emperor's Secret Councillor.

Sashenka's unstable mother idolizes and socializes with the notorious mystic Rasputin, called the "Mad Monk" by his detractors. And Sashenka, influenced by her uncle Mendel, has become a staunch Marxist. Even at her young age, she is a Bolshevik operator who risks her life on more than one occasion for the upcoming and inevitable Revolution. Her motto is "All or nothing," taken from one of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's heroes. She firmly believes in "a class struggle that would progress through set stages to a workers' paradise of equality and decency."

Eventually, she is arrested for her activism and is subsequently pursued by a Tsarist officer who futily attempts to turn her into an informer. When the Romanov regime falls she becomes a secretary to Lenin.

The 2nd and longest part of the novel takes place in Moscow, 1939. Josef Stalin rules the country with an iron fist. During the late 1930s he had launched a great purge, (also known as the "Great Terror"), a campaign to eradicate the Communist Party of people accused of sabotage, terrorism, or treachery. He extended it to the military and other sectors of Soviet society. Targets were often executed or imprisoned in Gulag labor camps. The fortunate were exiled. In the years following, millions of ethnic minorities were murdered or sent into exile.

When this part of the narrative opens, Shashenka has become a beautiful woman, the wife of a senior Communist officer, Vanya, and the mother of two beautiful children. She is a model Soviet woman who works as the editor of the "Soviet Wife and Proletarian Housekeeping magazine." The family enjoys the privileges of their high rank in the Party. Oddly, their lifestyle is not dissimilar to the one Sashenka lived before the Revolution. Their friends and acquaintances are the amongst the Communist Party elite, and Stalin and Beria even attend one of Sashenka's and Vanya's parties - a tense situation at best. A stray word or false rumor could cost one his/her life, which seriously detracts from the pleasantries of the family's existence, indeed the existence of all Russians.

I don't want to include "spoilers," but let it suffice to say that the lives of Sashenka and her family change drastically during this period.

Sashenka's story is hidden for half a century when a young woman, a historian, is hired in 1994, to discover what happened to our protagonist and her family.

This is a tale of family, love, politics, injustice and heartbreak. Indeed, I was moved to tears at times. With the exception of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's novel "The Gulag Archipelago," I have never really understood the depths of horror that unfortunates faced in the forced labor camps, spread all over the Soviet Union, especially in Siberia. And what a blood-spattered history that is.

"Sashenka" is a gripping read. The plot is exceptional. This novel is historical fiction at its best and is certainly worthy of 5 stars!
Jana Perskie

Sashenka is a riveting story about a family in Russia during and after the revolution. Sashenka is a true believer. She is a Bolshevik, one of the originals. She is only 16 years old, and with the zeal of a teenager, she embraces a philosophy that will change the world. I have often wondered why thoughtful, educated, well-to-do people would subscribe to communism, and this story sheds light on that question. Sashenka's early influences include a father who is an arms dealer, a rich capitalist who profits from the misery of others. He loves her but has little time to display affection to her. Her mother is a socialite with the morals of cat. Her drunken excesses disgust Sashenka. Sashenka sees the problems in her society and believes the world should be organized other than the way it is. So when the revolution comes, Sashenka is ready. She is a major player in the end of the tsarist Russia and the rise of the communist party.

Sashenka, and others like her, truly believe they are right in what they do. They believe the suffering and death of the merchant class is proper and right, because it will lead to a more enlightened world. This belief is so strong, Sashenka barely flinches when she sees a good friend of hers killed by a mob and "reduced to a smear on the sidewalk". She never acknowledges any wrong in the death of enemies of state. As a true believer, she sees such things as necessary, not evil, and she never expresses any remorse or regret.

Eventually, as with so many people in Stalin's extended inner circle, it becomes Sashenka's turn to face the reality of what her grand revolution has become. She is arrested, sent to prison, beaten, tortured, tried, convicted, and executed. Sashenka, like so many of her peers, never acknowledges there is anything wrong with a state terrorizing its citizens, only that it made a mistake with her personally, since she is genuinely innocent. And like the others, she goes to her death declaring her loyalty to the state, and to comrade Stalin.

The revolutionaries of Sashenka's generation continued to be true believers until the bitter end. Even 80 years later, when it was clear their grand plan had utterly failed, they continued to keep their secrets and defend their ethical choices. So the question is, by embracing these moral values, does that make them good people or bad people? If someone honestly believes she is making the world a better place, even at the cost of torture and death of herself and others, is that a righteous position?

I don't really know the answer. I could never understand how such things could happen in the first place. But this book made it seem real to me. It helped me to see communist fanatics as people who thought they were the good guys. Sashenka's story is fictional, but it is based on events that actually happened to hundreds of thousands of people. It is very well done.

A great read, although the author seems to presuppose that the reader will have more than a passing knowledge of 20th century Russian history. The story skips between 1916, just prior to the Revolution, until 1939 toward the end of Stalin's purges, and then to 1994 in the modern post-Soviet era. The problem is that a reader really needs to be knowledgeable about the historical events that occurred during the intervening years to really understand how those events impacted the lives of the characters during the periods skipped over by the narrative.

For example, mention is made at some point of the civil war between the Red forces and the White forces. How many American readers are aware that such a civil war ever took place? Although the historical character of Trotsky is mentioned on several occasions, how many of today's modern readers will even know of him or why his supposed supporters were being hunted down by Stalin? I am not suggesting that the author needed to "dumb down" his narrative but am merely pointing out that the book might be somewhat confusing to the average reader. Nevertheless, anyone who does have an interest in the history of the periods in question will find the story a fascinating one. With regard to the story itself, my only criticism is the unexpected appearance toward the end of the book of one of the characters thought to have perished in the purges. Although he played a major unintended role in causing the death of the title character, there seemed to have been no real reason for him to have been resurrected by the author.

I do believe that anyone who has ever visited St. Petersburg or Moscow will enjoy reading the book because many of the events detailed therein take place near sites that are commonly visited by tourists. Although we rarely see a mini-series on television any more, this book would make an ideal one, although I would envision the story being told not in chronological order, but as a series of flashbacks with the story being told by the characters still alive in 1994.

I couldn't wait to read Sashenka. Simon Sebag Montefiore's prior nonfiction works (Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar and Young Stalin) are, arguably, the last word on Stalin. He's better than Deutscher, Volkogonov, and Conquest--I doubt that Stalin will ever squirm under a more penetrating eye, and I hope Sebag Montefiore tackles Trotsky next.

At first glance, Sashenka is daunting to anyone who's ever contemplated writing a historical novel. Sashenka, the eponymously-titled story of a pampered young girl from St. Petersburg's Jewish aristocracy who becomes a rip-roarin' Red revolutionary, is jammed so full of precise historical details (right down to the peculiar vibrating chair that her father the Baron uses to aid his digestion)that any prospective historical novelist might well figure, "What's the use? No one'll ever do it better," and quit in despair.

But on second reading, Sashenka isn't nearly as threatening. Sebag Montefiore has peopled his heroine's family with stock images from the Russian Jewish Stereotype Store--the Idealistic Young Girl, the Parvenu Moneybags, the Grim Revolutionary, the Saintly Old Rebbe and his Equally Saintly Old Rebbetzin, the Gladhanding Bon Vivant (hey, Mr. Sebag Montefiore? Isaac Bashevis Singer's The Family Moskat called. It wants its character back) and most offensively, the Bored and Debauched Rich Housewife, a type already used to better effect by Sholem Asch and Isaak Babel. It's tough to believe that one family could contain all these stereotypes, but this one manages.

Sadly, Sebag Montefiore has substituted rich detail for actual character development, because none of these stereotypes ever really comes alive. Including, sadly, Sashenka herself. Which is too bad. Because I think if I got to know her better, I'd have had a real crush on her. She's pretty hot, in a Red sort of way.

The second part of the book, though, not all the rich detail in the world can save from sheer implausibility and a mawkish ending where everyone in the world is reunited more or less happily. Except for (spoilers deleted), because she croaked years ago. Oh well. Too bad, because she was pretty hot. In a Red sort of way.

Sashenka is great as worm's eye view history. To read it is to learn gobs about 20th century Russia. As a novel, it's shlocky. The literary devices are just a leetle too well-worn (Sashenka's actions, quel horreur, echo her detested mother's!), and the story, once it leaps to the present day, kind of lurches aimlessly off into silliness. Apparently, once he could no longer use all the rich historical details at his command, Sebag Montefiore sort of lost interest.

Mr. Sebag Montefiore, if we ever meet, please don't punch me in the face. I don't mean to be a shmuck, but I like you a heck of a lot better as an historian than a novelist. Now, can we talk about that biography of Trotsky? Because I'd climb mountains to read that.

Interesting characters and plot. I learned a lot about the Russian Revolution and the differing groups that were struggling to get out of oppression and to build a country that they could love. Gave me a new perspective on Russian heros and a greater respect for those people who gave their lives to build a better country despite the evilness of the ruling class.

Montefiore is a very talented nonfiction writer and has been in the forefront of the Stalin years winning several book awards with Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar and Young Stalin. In Sashenka, the author attempts to weave a story of fiction into the historical backdrop of three different time periods of tremendous change in Russia/Soviet history: 1916, 1935 and 1994. It might have been too much of a time frame to write about in just 500 pages. I do think that the story suffered from a lack of depth in the characters and the basic background of Russian history in the time periods for this story. I did not feel catapulted into the story (such as with The Alienst); and I expected more from this excellent historian.

The first part (1916) is a very well thought out storyline that follows the tale of the Zeitlin family. The father had bourgeois sentiments while the daughter had Bolshevik interests and then disavows her family in pursuit of these Communist tendencies. This part of the story is well done, even if the writing is only adequate. Part II is less a storyline but instead sets up the dramatic ending of the book. Part III is a follow up to uncover the secrets that are not told early in the story and to close the gaps in the plot. This is an excellent technique and it is used very well by Montefiore.

Montefiore might someday become a master story teller. He has already accomplished that in the world in nonfiction. However, his ability to find the right word or phrase or rhythm for the reader is just not there. There is no artistry in the prose. The writing is flat and lifeless much of the time. There are moments of truly good writing, but not the consistency that is needed to carry the book to a 5 star rating. It is difficult to move between writing styles and while this reader was certainly entertained by Montefiore's plot, I was disappointed in the execution. However, I look forward to his next fiction attempt and I hope that we see it soon.

This is a powerful novel that spans the 20th century, starting in Russia just before the Communists took power and ending just after the fall of communism.

The main character is Sashenka, the daughter of wealthy nouveau riche. This is the story of her embrace of communism in 1916, and what follows. We are then carried to her life in 1939, and finally, in the early 1990s we discover the fate of all the main characters.

It's no spoiler to say that Stalin was a dreadful, truly scary man that led Russia down some twisted paths.

This is just a wonderfully written book, and I truly cared about the fates of every single character. I loved the way the author structured the story, with flashbacks and slowly unfolding information.

I just loved this book. I started reading it around 6pm and just fnished. It is now 1am, and it is a work night! But I couldn't put it down!

I thought the outline story of the novel was very good but the writing of it did not do the book justice. The characters were poorly outlined and no empathy was felt by me towards any of them. The scenes between Sashenka and Benya Golden are emotionally devoid of all feeling and abysmally written. They do not give any feeling of the tension and passion needed to make the reader believe that either of the characters are in love to the extent that they would take the risk of being exposed and their lives shattered. I felt that the book was distasteful and that it could have been so much better.

Great read. Done in three days. A page turner.
I want to love history but I have trouble reading anything with dates/numbers. This worked for me.
Googled as I went. Loved the afterword in which he asterisked which characters were real and which were fiction.

Wished the final connections/family genealogy didn't need coincidence and coy innuendo although he explains that that's how people under the old regime talked.

Loved the 90s punk references.

Wish there was a sequel so the author could explain Putin to me. Seriously.

if you like reading Russian novels, that are Historically based-you will not be able to put this down. How families are affected by war,poverty, and the horrible era of Stalin are conveyed so well, as to put you in their shoes.

I thought the outline story of the novel was very good but the writing of it did not do the book justice. The characters were poorly outlined and no empathy was felt by me towards any of them. The scenes between Sashenka and Benya Golden are emotionally devoid of all feeling and abysmally written. They do not give any feeling of the tension and passion needed to make the reader believe that either of the characters are in love to the extent that they would take the risk of being exposed and their lives shattered. I felt that the book was distasteful and that it could have been so much better.

This is a very well-researched fast and engrossing read. The language is simple. Great "escapist" reading. Enjoyed the book enough to order another book by Simon Sebag Montefiore. "Sashenka" is the only novel he's written. He's a historian by background.

Brings to life a unique historical period and how some
might have lived it.The blending of historical figures
and events with the characters are interesting.In some parts
the pace seems to lag and some situations challenge believability.
But overall the story more than compensates and makes for a
fascinating and absorbing read.
.

This is a powerful novel that spans the 20th century, starting in Russia just before the Communists took power and ending just after the fall of communism.

The main character is Sashenka, the daughter of wealthy nouveau riche. This is the story of her embrace of communism in 1916, and what follows. We are then carried to her life in 1939, and finally, in the early 1990s we discover the fate of all the main characters.

It's no spoiler to say that Stalin was a dreadful, truly scary man that led Russia down some twisted paths.

This is just a wonderfully written book, and I truly cared about the fates of every single character. I loved the way the author structured the story, with flashbacks and slowly unfolding information.

I just loved this book. I started reading it around 6pm and just fnished. It is now 1am, and it is a work night! But I couldn't put it down!

Brings to life a unique historical period and how some
might have lived it.The blending of historical figures
and events with the characters are interesting.In some parts
the pace seems to lag and some situations challenge believability.
But overall the story more than compensates and makes for a
fascinating and absorbing read.
.

This fictional book about the Soviet Union begins in 1916 with a young woman, the Baroness Alexandra (Sashenka) Zeitlin, being arrested at the Smolny Institute for Noble Girls for political activity. She is a dedicated Communist, enlisted and trained by her uncle Mendel Barmakid. The book is actually divided into three parts. The first part takes place in 1916 and 1917 and covers the Revolution and ends in the office of Lenin with the former baroness as a secretary to Lenin. The first part of the book is very good, engaging, and well-written. We proceed to the second section, in which the main character Sashenka confronts the Stalin Era Terror. She is arrested for spying for the British and the Japanese and the Trotskyites. The second section is hard to get through - the writing style is different and not anywhere near as skillful as the first part. The second section ends with Sashenka's two children surrendered for adoption. The third section is once again well-written with appreciable tension and skill. Overall, I enjoyed the book but I confess to almost quitting during the second part and this is the reason I am giving it only 3 stars.

It has been said that there were more Marxist/Leninist "true believers" on any American college campus than could be found in all of Moscow. Even today, if you visit a college campus or are a diligent reader, you will find no end of "academics" proudly proclaiming their adherence to Lenin, Stalin, Mao and other evil men. "Mistakes were made" a few of these academics may say in reference to the millions murdered and the tens, even hundreds, of millions enslaved.

All tryants want control of the children, so they can indoctrinate them. Whether it is the elementary school teacher or college professor or the left-wing uncle, the goal is to own the child's mind. "Sashenka" is the story of such a subverted child. And it is a story of tragedy.

Simon Sebag-Montefiore has written two magnificient histories of the left-wing idol, Josef Stalin, the man of steel, the tyrant who murdered millions of his own countrymen and imprisoned tens of millions more. Now, for those who can't be bothered with learning history, Montefiore attempts to convey it through fiction.

Baroness Alexandrsa Zeitlin, nicknamed Sashenka, is 16 years old, a budding intellectual, daughter of a rich Jewish capitalist in the St. Peterburg of 1916. Like so many bright young people, she is astoundingly gullible and has been reruited to the Communist Party by her uncle.

The story begins with her arrest. We quickly learn that she is known as Comrade Snowfox. Thanks to her father's connections, she is out of jail in a day, but that day will haunt her life forever.

The first of the three sections of the novel follows Sashenka through the return of Lenin, a time when she also comes into contact with Stalin and other future leaders and murderers of the glorious Soviet proletariat.

Sashenka is a true believer. Like all left-wingers, she is imbued with the belief that she and the leaders she follows are more intelligent than others and entitled to lead them, indeed compel them, to a "better" life.

Two decades later, Sashenka is in Moscow with her husband and two young children. Vanya, her husband, is an officer with the NKVD. To anyone with a knowledge of history, that means he wasn't as Boy Scout. To left-wingers, of course, the NKVD was the protector of the Party and State, both being the same under Communism. It is 1939 and the Terror (actually the Lesser Terror) has ended. Records released in the 1990s revealed that at least 1.9 million Soviet citizens were imprisoned for political offenses, with about 700,000 shot. Tens or hundreds of thousands of others died of torture, starvation, overwork or disease. You can find left-wing academics and others who continue to deny the truths of the Soviet archives or pass it off by saying the murders were justified.

Sashenka is still the true believer. But fanaticism has benefits. Sashenka need not wait in line for food; she - or her servants - shop at special Party stores. She edits a Soviet magazine. Her husband, who doesn't talk much about his work with the NKVD, works late into the night protecting Party and State from the enemies to be found everywhere.

At her May Day soiree, Sashenka has unexpected guests, the fading writer and possible enemy of the people, Benya Cohen, and late in the evening, Lavrenti Beria, the hesd of the NKVD and the Master himself, Comrade Stalin.

These unexpected guests bring disaster to Sashenka and Vanya.

The balance of this section plumbs the terrors of the left-wing worker's paradise. It is indeed unfortunate that so few young people being indoctrinated by their left-wing teachers and professors will never know of this book or Montefiore's even more intense histories.

Suffice it to say that Sashenka and Vanya become victims of the left and its political philosophy. But we don't know wht actually becomes of them. We do know, however, that their two small children have been spirited away, with the help of the rarest commodity: a true friend in the left-wing paradise of the Soviet Union.

The final section takes place in the 1990s. A young Russian historian, Katinka Vinsky, takes the assignment of searching for an old woman's family history. All she knows is that she was adopted. Katinka's only lead is the name of old man, one of the last of the Soviet Heroes.

He begins her on a journey of the former Soviet Union archives which reveals to Katinka - and the reader - the history of the Soviet Union generally and the fates of Vanya and Sashenka.

The trivial influences that led to their personsl disasters will strike the modern, historically ignorant, reader as unbelievable.

This is unfortunate since ignorance of the past condemns the people to repeat it. As you look around and see the left-wing seducing America's children into their cults, "Sashenka" serves as a reminder of what happens when true beleivers are given power over the lives of others.

"Sashenka" is a romance and a political novel. If Montefiore has a political point of view, he doesn't show it. Instead he has fashioned a gut-wrenching tragedy from indisputable facts. "Sashenka" is probably not intended to be a metaphor, but it is. Take a look around at the children who are fanatic proponents of this or that "-ism". Read the headlines as these zealots demand that citizens of certain countries be refused admittance or employment on college campuses or that scientists who don't buy into global warming should be tried for crimes against humanity.

"Sashenka" is a fictional remembrance of what once was and how millions had their lives destroyed. "Sashenka" is also a warning that it can happen again - and it can happen here.

It is a novel that can be read on many levels, but bear in mind that "Sashenka" is a tragedy, a tragedy that also serves as a warning of zealotry. "Sashenka" is the tale of a true believer who, in the end, realizes that the ideology she so blindly believed in will gladly consume her and all she loves. It is compelling, frightening reading.

Montefiore's characters are rich and his plotting almost impeccable. His prose reaches for richness, though it doesn't quite make it.

Overall, this is history and a door to the tragic past that far too few Americans are aware of.

Jerry

Tolstoy told us, All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. This might be true of novels, too, and Sashenka is a fundamentally unhappy, but uniquely brilliant (or, as the critics might put it, "moving"), tale. Oprah Winfrey would do well to echo of her selection of Anna Karenina by choosing Sebag-Montefiore's first work of fiction, a book that (all of my girlfriends and) I have been unable to put down. How is it that this male writer was able to go inside the lives and minds of not one, but two compelling heroines, 1916's Alexandra Samuilovna Zeitlin and 1994's Katinka Vinsky? Because he knows how women's minds work. And he knows how Russia's mind works, too. After all, the only year potentially more dynamic, dangerous and symbolically transformative in Russia than 1916 or 1994 is the one before us: 2009. Sashenka whets the appetite for the history about to unfold.

Great way to gain knowledge about Russian history circa 1914 - 1945. The author based the book on broad and deep research and cleverly wrote it in three parts to bring the story to the 1980s. Really difficult to put down! I'm currently reading Montefiore's biography, "The Young Stalin".

I agree with other reviewers that this novel got better as it moved along. The last section was riveting and I finished it very quickly unable to do anything else until I did. Others have gone over the story so I won't go on. I wasn't disappointed in the first section as some have been, but just thought it got better and better.

Growing up in communist country, this family tragedy story is related to my own family accounts. To me, Stalin and his Bolshevik thugs from the East was just another version of Hitler and Nazi of the West.
One of the best books I have ever read!

I ordered this book really looking forward to it. After all, it had a lot going for it that promised a good read -- Russian history, a young adult diving into political conspiracy, love stories, etc. Reading the cover flap had me all excited.

Reading the actual book, though, was a let down. The beginning of the book jumps every few pages to a different set of characters, almost all dialogue with very little description or action, not spending enough time with any of characters for me to really feel engaged. Each jump just left me feeling progressively more detached from the people and the story. Moving forward in the book, there just wasn't anything that grabbed me strongly enough to rectify this.

The actual plot of the book is incredibly interesting, and the historical backdrop add an excellent context -- but the execution just didn't work for me as a reader.

Sashenka is a cautionary tale about the heavy price that can be exacted by an adherance to ideological purity. Sashenka becomes a dedicated Bolshevik in 1916 as the party is rising to power and toward the revolution that overthrows the Russian monarchy.

This beautiful woman has no time for frivolity or even love. She only cares about the cause. By 1939 she is deeply embedded in the Soviet system, the paranoid Stalinist monstrosity that devoured millions of Soviet citizens.

Then Sashenka doesn't know what hits her when she discovers passion, even love. This second portion is for the doomed romance.

The third section of the book is a post-mortem and a mystery as the post-Soviet collapse allows secret documents to reveal what really happened under Stalin. The author pulls out a pile of surprises here and a throroughly chilling climax.

Bravo!

I found myself emerged in a world of lies, betrayal, and loyalty to an ideal against all reason. Sashenka was definitely a page turner and could not put it down. I feel that the writer did not allow readers to develop a true understanding of who Sashenka was and I would have like to understand her better. But, the detail and intrigue shown in this era of Russian Bolshevik thinking was truly riveting.

Found this for only $1 [thankfully] at a library sale; looked at the store reviews before buying and oh, my, were any above 2 generous stars wrong. A dollar thrown away. Must admit my fault re decision to purchase as, on the the store page for the book there was a tip off: "In the bestselling tradition of Doctor Zhivago and Sophie's Choice, a sweeping epic of Russia from the last days of the Tsars to today's age of oligarchs -- by the prizewinning author of..." "Bestselling" and "sweeping tradition" plus "prizewinning author" should have been neon light alerts to drop the book and walk away. I noted the warnings, did not heed [as in watching a thriller and wanting to yell at the young woman, "Don't you hear the change in background music? Don't open that door!"]. Shame on me. Ditto for noting that the store had lumped "Doctor Zhivago" and "Sophie's Choice" together into a single genre. Shame on me, again. Enough mea culpas. This book is just awful. After about two pages that read okeydokey, I began the rest of the book. And I had two thoughts: [1] that this was just a hideous translation from the Russian [of course not, silly] or [2] that I had mysteriously gotten a book with the same title and by the same author that was not the one that the 4-5 star the store reviewers had read [of course not, silly]. Then, I got to thought #3: it was written as a send-up/take-off/parody of a "great" Russian novel. Tolstoy & Co. rolling in their graves. The language, descriptors, style, pace, dialogue are abysmal, at best. I am a certified bookaholic and rarely even donate books to the libary. Have thrown away a few in my life, which I will do in this case - I want to save someone else from forking out $1.

There is in Russia a school of thought that asserts Communism was visited on Russians by the Jews as a revenge for the pogroms. Sashenka is ultimately a rejoinder to that - being the story of how even well-connected Jewish Bolsheviks and Communists were destroyed by the system.

It is for the most part a very readable tale. But, among other things, one can argue that the way some of the threads are wrapped up at the end throw away some of the punch - the irony and poetic justice - of the story line.

Thus, One is probably better off reading Mr Montefiori's non-fiction accounts of the period and wait for the movie version of his novel.