Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (Anthem Series on Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies) Book

The Age of Alexander II is both history and story, interweaving the personal and public lives of Alexander II, and other leading lights of the age. Including amongst others Bakunin, Dostoevsky, Herzen, the Soloviev family, Tolstoy, Turgenev, the revolutionary Sophia Perovskaya, this book is unique in its incorporation of the lives and ideas of the period's great writers and thinkers into the story of Alexander's turbulent reign. It offers some reflections on the tragic consequences of his reign in an era of hopes raised but then dashed, of confusion, conflict, and alienation, but also one of yearning for love and a sense of community. This combination of considerable biographical material with the presentation of the main ideas of the era's chief writers and thinkers not only provides history that is more readable, but more existential, more grounded in everyday reality, and, therefore, more relevant.Read More