Subjects:  1. Campaigns    2. History    3. History - Military / War    4. Military    5. Military - Strategy    6. Military - World War II    7. Romania    8. Soviet Union    9. World War, 1939-1945    10. Battles & campaigns    11. European history: Second World War    12. Second World War, 1939-1945   

Reviews (3)

Operation Overflight: A Memoir of the U-2 Incident
This book is certainly a must have for the Cold War, Military Aviation and Spy afficionados out there!While the authors did their best to make the most of what little details Powers did/could provide them - especially about the actual missions he flew for the CIA - they failed to do justice to the historical significance of the event. Powers' actual flights and missions in the U-2 are not discussed in great detail (they never even mention the plane's actual altitude, there are no details about the U-2 except for some hearsay info on its imagined structural integrity (or lack thereof), and they assigned less than a page to discuss the other "special missions"), and there are very few details about the mission the book was actually written about.What you will nevertheless be able to read in detail about are his time spent in Russian prisons, the KGB interrogations, or his kind Latvian roomate Zigurd in Vladimir prison.The final section of the book is spent on the well-justified trashing of the CIA (afterall they gave him the shaft the same way NASA did to the Apollo 13 crew), and Powers provides some great insights into the personal dealings of the Agency.Reading it today, Powers' observations were way ahead of their time! You'll appreciate Powers Jr's epilogue that puts the entire book in perspective.Overall it is a great book, the only first-hand account of the U-2 incident you'll ever have, and as a matter of fact, I'll go and read it again!

The U-2 Incident with Francis Gary Powers:
The Flt of the U-2 is a most inspiring book. I sat on the edge of my seat while reading it and finished it in one sitting wishing there was more to read, but happy that the Russians got their "just day in court" and finally Francis Gary Powers was exchanged for Rudolph Abel. Such a high flying plane, to be shot out of the skies, is unreal to me - what went wrong? No matter what Powers' wrote, we will never know the complete truth, will we? Thank God he came home safe, as he *almost* gave his life forhis country. A well done book and may he rest in peace as his son recounts his father's service to his country. God Bless. Trish Schiesser, whose brother SSGT Phil Noland served in the USAFSecurity Service during the time Powers took off and went missing in Russia.
An espionage reader
Enjoyed it immensely. A hard to put down, revealing look at thishistorical, military, political event of the 1960's. Covering some of Power's CIA training, U2 overflights, downing & capture, Russian trial(farse), imprisonment, possible Oswald & other defectors connection to the U2 shoot down, repatriation through a trade of a pro Russian, US held spy and some of Power's life afterwards. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1929-    2. Aerial Operations    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Cold War    5. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    6. History    7. History: American    8. Intelligence Operations    9. Military    10. Military - Aviation    11. Military - Intelligence/Espionage    12. Military Science    13. Powers, Francis Gary,    14. U-2 Incident, 1960    15. Air forces & warfare    16. American history: postwar, from c 1945 -    17. Biography & Autobiography / Military    18. Biography: historical    19. Military intelligence    20. Powers, Francis Gary    21. USA   

Reviews (1)

Place as a Historical Document
What a resourceful document on a subject that the general public knows so little about!!!!The author has detailed much little known research by the average person into an easy-to-read book for anyone who has interest in the Star Wars arena.It is an invaluble resource for students of USA/Soviet History; students in all of the War Colleges; National Defense University; or just in a general interest in history.It contains interesting anecdotal information and is not written in a strict academic style.
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Subjects:  1. Ballistic missile defenses    2. History    3. Military    4. Military - General    5. Military Science    6. Modern - 20th Century    7. Nuclear weapons    8. Soviet Union    9. Strategic Defense Initiative    10. Technology & Industrial Arts    11. United States    12. History / Military / General    13. International relations   

Reviews (9)

Outstanding Photo History
Rare is the book that provides pictures that are actually related to the text provided. Even rarer still are pictures that capture in sequence the entire event. Such is the case with this volume. From start to finish the reader is presented with a sequence of photographs that literally document aspects of the complete campaign for Kharkov in the winter of 1943.
Great Photo Book
Fabulous photos for students of the Eastern Front, Waffen-SS and modelers.What I found most interesting were the amounts of obsolete equipment (ie: Mk III tanks) used by this elite division.This certainly puts into question the acceptedtheory that the Waffen-SS received the latest equipment in quanity at the expense of the Heer (army).If this is the case, then it supports the notion that the men of the Waffen-SS were indeed superior soldiers.

Great Book
This is one of the best books on the subject, with many wonderfull pictures.I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in this division, or the SS in general. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Campaigns    2. Germany    3. History    4. History - Military / War    5. Kharkov, Battle of, Kharkiv, Ukraine, 1943    6. Military    7. Military - General    8. Military - World War II    9. Pictorial works    10. Regimental histories    11. SS-Panzer-Division Leibstandar    12. Soviet Union    13. Waffen-SS    14. World War, 1939-1945    15. European history: Second World War    16. Photographic reportage    17. Second World War, 1939-1945   

Reviews (51)

Afghanistan
An excellent book!Lots of powerful pictures.Purchased the book from Amazon while serving in Afghanistan.Lots of flash backs/forwards in the story line, which I could have done without.But all together it's a well written, interesting book, which depicts a Soviet Solders tour of duty in Afghanistan.

a must for anyone interested in Afghan military history
As a paratrooper currently serving my second tour in Afghanistan (and third in the desert overall), I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Soviet conflict of the 1980s.The photographs provide insight into Afghanistan's terrain and climate, and I used this book to illustrate several points to my subordinates as we were preparing for this deployment.The author's writing is heartfelt.

The Real Thing
This is the most amazing book I have read all year! It's not just a story, in his own words, from a young Russian soldier in that terrible place, but it is a photo book full of the most beautiful but tragic black and white photos. You see the haunted faces of Vladimir Tamarov (the author and photographer) and his brother soldiers, many of which did not make it back. And as you read his haunted words, how he came back and could not ever be the same, how his friends who died there visit him in his dreams. They were eighteen and nineteen but they look sixteen. The title "Soviet Vietnam" is quite haunting. I believe if I met the author now I would be reminded of our own boys who were damaged by Vietnam. They also were just draftees (conscripts) in a place where they did not want to be. As for our soldiers who are now in Afghanistan, it's true they are fighting the same vicious enemy as Vladimir did! But, don't our men look ever so much better fed, and organized, and equipped, and trained, then those poor Soviet conscripts? I reccommend this book so highly, I would personally buy a copy for all my friends. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. History: World    2. History - Military / War    3. Soviet occupation, 1979-1989    4. Military - Other    5. Asia - General    6. Asian / Middle Eastern history: postwar, from c 1945 -    7. Battles & campaigns    8. Biography: general    9. Former Soviet Union, USSR (Europe)    10. 1965-    11. Personal narratives, Soviet    12. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    13. Afghanistan    14. History    15. Tamarov, Vladislav,   

Reviews (4)

The long awaited supplement to "Testimony"
When Dmitri Shostakovich's memoirs appeared in print under the title "Testimony" its compiler, Solomon Volkov, was widely excoriated and the authenticity of the text challenged. As a composer, being intimately familiar with how composers think and express themselves, the book rang true to me through and through. Some of the attempts to debunk it seemed to me then calculatedto challenge every statement. Some things, however, can not be faked - and, as Shostakovich himself often said, "music illuminates a man through and through," a composer's way of expressing himself is instantly recognizable to another composer. There are simply far too many clues buried in the text - too many buzz words and conceptual descriptions of the type typical of the composer's perception of things.
to the heart of things
This book is as much a penetrating portrait of Stalin's Russia as it is a fierce look at surviving as an artist in Stalin's hands.Apart from the rich legacy of his music, Shostakovich is a fine example precisely because he survived.Those of us who find Volkov's 'Testimony' a harrowing, revealing book will dive into these pages with gusto and fly through to the end. Those who suspect 'Testimony' to be a fraud might not bother with this book, and that's too bad because it provides a genuine fleshing out of Stalin and his closest henchmen (Zhdanov, especially, is afforded thorough treatment), some beautiful pages on Shostakovich's inner life, and not a few engaging views of a number of other important artists who lived and worked in a crucible of terror day after day.Volkov courteously dispenses with the ridiculous "holy fool" controversy in his prologue.The author is strongest when he composes life from inside the experience of survival in Soviet Russia.It's one thing to admire Shostakovich's genius, quite another to reach the underpinnings of a man who was more a gentleman fixed on physical (and therefore emotional and artistic) survival than he was a musical prophet.At that point, we're experiencing something well beyond biography.That is Volkov's unique gift.The focus is indeed Shostakovich, but the lessons reach farther.There are some fine photographs included - pen and inks of Akhmatova and Pasternak by Annenkov, the spiky, not often seen 1933 portrait of Shostakovich by Akimov, and an unforgettable photograph of a very young Shostakovich looking directly and defiantly at the camera, in which he seems to foretell all the pain and glory to come.If you're looking for a searing rehearsal of the meaning of freedom, I suggest this book.

Artistic sufferance under a totalitarian regime
The scope of the book goes far beyond the relation between Shostakovich and Stalin; it's a dramatic view into artistic life while living in an authoritarian regime. There is an immense list of great artists who where deported, killed or psychologically terrorized in Stalins regime. Shostakovich is only one of them, and seemingly one of the lucky ones, since he outlived the dictator. But his sufferance under Stalins terror was as trying for him as it was for any other artist. I don't entirely agree with the comment that Stalin is depicted as an idiot, but he is portraited as having a very one-sided, utilitarian view on arts.The given inside in one of the most horrible regimes that ever existed, must be mind blowing for every one in the democratic world.Read more

Subjects:  1. 1879-1953    2. 1906-1975    3. Biography    4. Biography & Autobiography    5. Biography / Autobiography    6. Biography/Autobiography    7. Composers    8. Composers & Musicians - Classical Composers    9. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    10. General    11. Heads of state    12. Historical - General    13. History & Criticism - General    14. Music    15. Music History And Criticism +    16. Political aspects    17. Russia - History - 1917 To 1991    18. Shostakovich, Dmitrii Dmitrie    19. Soviet Union    20. Stalin, Joseph,    21. Biography & Autobiography / General   

Reviews (5)

Interesting but Not Compelling
THE JEWS OF LITHUANIA serves well as a general introduction to one of the most diverse, vibrant Jewish communities to have flourished anywhere at any time. This is a general History with a lot of errors.
This is a poorly written general History.The title of the book is misleading.The book concentrates on the modern era.There is alot of imformation on the old Kehilla era of Jewish History.This is a periodfrom 1400 - 1700 at least.This book gives only the minimal description ofthis era.The authors idea of Jewish History in that pre-modern era, whichin Lithuania extended until the mid 1800's was to tell about therelationship that the ruler of that area had with the Jews.The reasonthat I gave this book such a low rating is that it is full of Historicalerrors.For example she writes that the Decembrist revolution happened in1827, it really happened in 1825.While many of her Historical errors areminor, like saying that the infamous, 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion',was written in 1928.When it comes to the History of the Orthodox and theYeshivot, the book is full of gross errors and misunderstandings. As anexampe, her attempts to explain the reason why there was a rebellion inSlobodka against the 'Alter' and his form of Mussar is so wrong that it iscomical.The 'Alter' had no official position in his own Yeshiva.A partof his form of Musar was allowing each student to develop on his own. Tight control was not part of this system.Saul Liberman, who later becamethe head of JTS - the Conservitive Seminary in the USA, learnt in Slobodka. Even though it was already known at that time that he had some liberalideas.One of the Alter's most promenant students, R. Avrohom Elya Kaplen,later became head of the Rabbinical School in Berlin and was one theRabbinical leaders of the Mizrachi movement.Another one of the Alter'sstudents was R. Aharon Kotler who founded the most promenant 'Torah' onlyYeshiva in the USA in Lakewood NJ. This is not the only gross error in thebook.Another example is that she only gives the last un-official chiefRabbi of Vilna, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky only one comment, and it isn'ta positive one.R. Chiam Ozer was once offered the official title, butturned it down.He was one of the leaders of Lithuanian Jewry for over 40years, and a fascinating and brilliant man.You would think that hedeserves more than one negitive comment.

A good introduction into the history of the Jews in Lithuani
I found this book to be a very good introduction into the history of the Jews in Lithuania.I would recommend it to anybody who is interested in the subject.Read more

Subjects:  1. Eastern Europe - General    2. Ethnic relations    3. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    4. History    5. History - General History    6. History Of Jews    7. History: World    8. Jewish - General    9. Jews    10. Lithuania    11. European history (ie other than Britain & Ireland)    12. History of specific racial & ethnic groups    13. Jewish studies    14. Modern period, c 1500 onwards    15. c 1000 CE to c 1500   

Reviews (27)

"No luck today, my lady Death..."
Eugenia "Genie" Semyonovna Ginzburg spent seventeen years in the Soviet prison system, escaping death, unlike millions of others.She never again saw her husband after being imprisoned.The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn, Man is Wolf to Man by Bardach, Kolyma Tales by Shalamov and Journey into the Whirlwind all include overlapping and similar information, but differ in format and style (although hers is most similar to Man is Wolf to Man in its telling).Her memoir of life in the Gulag is one of few written by women and so provides a unique and interesting perspective.All are fantastic books, well-written, often unbelievable and mesmerizing, but there is a noticeable difference between the multi-volume The Gulag Archipelago and Journey into the Whirlwind (seemingly short at just over 400 pages).
Excellent account about the Stalin Era
Think about it. You are completely devoted to a political ideal. You give your heart and soul for the cause of this ideal, only to be accused of Terrorism against the politics you stand for.
Incredible.Just Incredible.

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Subjects:  1. Biography / Autobiography    2. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    3. Historical - General    4. Social Science    5. Sociology    6. Sociology - General   

Editorial Review

"...the most eloquent chronicle of the Soviet empire's demise." --Read more

Reviews (35)

Shallow and sensationalist, but thorough
David Remnick's "Lenin's Tomb" is a book about the journalist's experiences just before and during the collapse of the USSR at the end of the 1980s. Using a chronological overview, Remnick describes what the Soviet Union was like under the reign of Gorbachov (or "Gorbachev" in US spelling) and his views on the various leaders, journalists, KGB officers, bureaucrats, dissidents and so on.
Great Book
Just a quick note, I really enjoyed this book. I was an adult when the Soviet Union fell, but I was very ignorant of what was really going on.Remnick's incisive portraits of the people on both sides of the fall of Communism bring the era to life.

IT'S A KNOCKOUT !!
Mr. Remnick has given us a masterwork.He seamlessly meshes intimate portraits of Soviet citizens within the larger landscape of the last days of the Soviet Empire.He has a rare ability to blend the micro and the macro in a soul-stirring narrative.This is a profound work that is filled with compelling stories.Lenin's Tomb is so superb that even those who avoid "history books" will relish it.Could not more highly recommend this book.The scads of glowing reviews below are all well deserved. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. 1985-    2. 1985-1991    3. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    4. General    5. Politics / Current Events    6. Politics and government    7. Sociology    8. Soviet Union    9. European history: from c 1900 -    10. History / Russia (pre- & post-Soviet Union)    11. Marxism & Communism    12. Russia   

Subjects:  1. Diplomatic History    2. Foreign Relations    3. General    4. International Relations - General    5. Political Science    6. Politics - Current Events    7. Politics / Current Events    8. Politics/International Relations    9. Russia (Federation)    10. Soviet Union    11. Diplomacy    12. European history (ie other than Britain & Ireland)    13. Former Soviet Union, USSR (Europe)    14. Political Science / General    15. Russia   

Subjects:  1. Armored Land Forces    2. History    3. History: World    4. Military - General    5. Military History - World War II    6. Military Science    7. Political Freedom & Security - International Secur    8. Tank warfare    9. Technology & Industrial Arts    10. Former Soviet Union, USSR (Europe)    11. Political Science / International Security    12. War & defence operations    13. World history: Second World War   

Reviews (15)

Cinema as an Art form
"Sculpting in Time" is truly an amazing work of art in its own right. Certainly filmmakers have written books about their artistic styles in the past. Philosophers have written elaborately on the subject of aesthetics as a whole in the past as well. And yet "Sculpting in Time" offers those with aesthetic interests something truly unique.
Instant Light
Thames & Hudson have triumphed with what collectors might regard as a limited edition, artist's book.This isn't the place to start chipping into Tarkovsky. It is more the devotee's piece - a touchstone which alludes to the magnificent ediface of his films: all which return the viewer to their world with a deeper, more spacious vision, an expanded present moment. In 'Rubelov','Solaris', 'Stalker', and,'Sacrifice', to name my favourites, he re-invented the epic with sustained inquiries into our transience without heady verbalism or vanity. To grapple with his own thinking about his achievements and how he positioned himself as an artist, one should seek out,'Sculpting In Time,'penned towards the end of his relatively short life. Recently, French documentary-maker, Chris Marker('Sunless') compiled a stunning homage to this Russian cinematic master. Bits of Tarkovsky's aforementioned book, and excerpts from his diaries appear with the reproduced polaroid snaps(the present book's theme)which fall into two geographic zones, Italy & Russia and are bookended with short tributes by two Italian friends. Every effort has been made in layout to convey the darkened atmosphere in which the illuminated materiality of these world's float to the viewer's eye. And in images barely larger than matchboxes this scale has some of the hallucinatory power of his movies. The layout & medium insist on episodic, fragmentary framing. Tarkovsky's films privilege the same exquisite framing with a sensual appetite for textures above narratives that makes us feel newly arrived at a primary experiencing of the world. These polaroids could have served as his flexing towards film projects: even their outtakes.

A true master book from master film maker!
Sculpting in the time represents one of the most expressive eloquents statements of one of the supreme masters in the cinema art as Andrei Tarkovsky was .
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Subjects:  1. Cinema/Film: Book    2. Film & Video - History & Criticism    3. Motion picture producers and directors    4. Motion pictures    5. Performing Arts    6. Film theory & criticism    7. Individual film directors, film-makers    8. Performing Arts / Film / General   

Reviews (4)

Triumph of the human spirit
We first became interested in Nelofer Pazira's work after seeing the powerful movie Kandahar, in which she played the lead role.At a time of facile generalisations and stereotypes about the Islamic world, this excellent and moving book gives us the Afghani women's perspective in all its complexity.Despite everything that has happened you emerge with a sense of the triumph of the human spirit.

A moving portrait of life in Afghanistan under occupation.
A Bed of Red Flowers is a moving and eye-opening story about a family, a people and a nation under foreign occupation. In the west, we tend to associate Afghanistan with war and terrorism and in one respect this book is about growing up and coming of age in a country under foreign occupation, not a situation most Americans have had the opportunity to experience. But this is also a story about love: Pazira's love for her country and her people, her father, and her best friend Dyana. To survive war without losing one's humanity, one's ability to love, that is the real story.
A wonderful, eloquent must-read book
This is one of the most eloquent books I have read in a while.Nelofer succeeds in writing about the tragic topic of Afghanistan with much grace and insight.I found her perspectives to be thought-provoking and refreshing on the subject of Afghanistan:it's wars, it's people and it's history.One of the best books I have read in a long, long time. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Afghanistan    2. Asia - History    3. Biography    4. Biography & Autobiography    5. Biography / Autobiography    6. Biography/Autobiography    7. History    8. Individual Actors And Actresses    9. Motion picture actors and actresses    10. Pazira, Nelofer    11. Personal narratives, Afghan    12. Political    13. Soviet occupation, 1979-1989    14. Women    15. Biography & Autobiography / Women   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Art    3. Art & Art Instruction    4. Art and society    5. Avant-garde (Aesthetics)    6. European    7. Fine Arts    8. History    9. History - General    10. History - Modern (Late 19th Century to 1945)    11. Modernism (Art)    12. Art / History / European    13. First World War, 1914-1918    14. History of art & design styles: from c 1900 -    15. Inter-war period, 1918-1939    16. Postwar period, 1945 to c 2000    17. Russia    18. Second World War, 1939-1945    19. Sociology, Social Studies   

Reviews (22)

Great Book Whether you love him or hate him.
This book would be great for a research paper about Lenin! I enjoyed reading it immensly. It is well researched and well written. (see below for more on that) Whether you love him or hate him, if you are looking to find out anything about the man behind the name, then this is for you.
Interesting... but Ultimately Disappointing
I approached this book with some enthusiasm as an introduction to a major 20th century figure about whom I knew very little.Now having completed the book I can say that I have a grasp of Lenin as a man, as a politician and as a historical figure but it took me a while to get there. Service paints a well rounded picture and clearly reveals Lenin's ruthlessness and intolerance and illuminates many other aspects of the man's character. Ultimately Lenin comes across as a monomaniacal egotist driven to impose his view of Marxism on others and uniterested in anything but politics.
Excellent overall
This is truly an excellent book, espically for a biography. Robert Service displays Lenin's life excellently. He presentsthe public figure, husband and family man, as well as the intellectual, private side of his nature. He has truly made public the three-demensional picture of Lenin.
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Subjects:  1. 1870-1924    2. Biography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    6. Heads of state    7. Historical - General    8. History    9. History & Theory - General    10. Lenin, Vladimir Ilich,    11. Political History    12. Presidents & Heads of State    13. Revolutionaries    14. Russia    15. Russia - History    16. Soviet Union    17. Biography: general    18. History / Russia (pre- & post-Soviet Union)    19. Lenin, Vladimir Il§ich    20. Marxism & Communism   

Reviews (8)

We didn't know that death could be so beautiful...
says an evacuee in Voices of Chernobyl, an absolutely riveting collection of oral histories ofpeople from all walks of life, affected for eternity by the nuclear accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor on April 26, 1986."A Solitary Human Voice," the prologue, recounted by a woman whose husband was one of the first on the scene as a firefighter, will lure you in and, once there, you'll feel compelled to continue to the end, painful as it may be.She's pregnant, newly married and very much in love when she hears the news.The doctors and nurses and try to no avail to keep her away from her husband once he's done his duty at the plant and then sent to a special hospital in Moscow for victims of radiation poisoning, along with six other firemen. Her baby dies.Her husband dies, horribly, the last of the seven of his crew.
Insight To Nuclear Power Disaster on Real Lives of Byelorussians
This is a must read for all those who keep hearing our president say nuclear power is "safe and clean."The liquidator, one of about 700,000 who came to "clean up" Chernobyl, who burned all his clothes and gave his little son the hat he had worn -- and his son developed a brain tumor; all the disbelief about the danger of radioactivity, that the people could not see or taste; the forest that turned orange from the reactor fire at Chernobyl; all the secrecy about the area and the secret reports; 200,000 abortions in Byeloruss in just 1993 alone, as claimed [not mentioned whether/how many were spontaneous and how many were medical procedures -- nevertheless, no one wants a deformed child, and the area is contaminated for at least 300-600 years because of the cesium to start with, cesium having a "half life" of 30 years, and a "hazardous life" of 300-600 years) by one teacher; the physicist who wrote everything down, the belief that nuclear power could make something out of nothing, nuclear engineers the elite of scientists with the most perks and pay; all of this coming down with the apocalyptic Chernobyl accident of April 26, 1986.Premature deaths and cancers probably running into the hundreds of thousands.Read this book.Just about each vignette/voice is very personal, touching, informative, and very important.Especially to the power hungry who care not for the truth, and what can happen with ANY nuclear power plant.
EXCELLENT
This is a must read for anyone and everyone.It brings to life the realities of a horrible disaster.It shows us that the rest of world has bigger problems than we do.Yet, it shows that the rest of the world has the same souls as we do.they love, they hurt, they cry, they live their lives and just try to get by.GET THIS BOOK. ... Read more

Subjects:  1. Europe - Russia & the Former Soviet Union    2. History    3. History - General History    4. History: World    5. Modern - 20th Century/Nuclear Age    6. World - General    7. History / World   

Subjects:  1. 20th century    2. Art    3. Art & Art Instruction    4. Art, Soviet    5. Avant-garde (Aesthetics)    6. Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions - General    7. Criticism    8. Dissident art    9. Exhibition Catalogs    10. Exhibitions    11. History    12. History - General    13. Soviet Union   

Reviews (4)

a fierceness requited...
Vishnevskaya's reputation for forthrightness AND the sub-title she chooses here --A Russian Story-- indicate strong intentions for this book.Not 'MY Russian Story', but 'A Russian Story', because Galina Vishnevskaya tells an epic Russian story, honoring with a severe truth the Russia of sorrows of which her story forms but a unique part.This is no prima donna's idle tableau of a curtained career.Vishnevskaya's art comes of suffering, & she doesn't head down that road.She divulges her art generously, but her attitude never self serves.Her aim is always higher - she's interested to say not only what HAPPENED in Soviet life, but what WAS.and WHO!--- Vishnevskaya regularly excoriates with galvinizing abandon the soviet lackeys with whom she had to deal! She names names and motives, because it's the damned truth!The West in general and artists in particular owe a huge debt to Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya for the willing sacrifice of themselves in exile for the simple truth.Rostropovich garners the commentary in the West with the cello & conducting, but Galina is the heart of genius, and THAT seems the telling component in this book.Her depiction of Solzhenitsyn is heartrending, and stands as the book's axis; everything leads to it, and derives from it.Her friendship with Shostakovich, her brilliant feelings toward him-- an almost daughterly reverence informed by the highest artistic aesthetic. It's also through the part Shostakovich played in her life that we meet a musically learned Galina as well. She was a musician FIRST, singer second. How rare and wonderful - no wonder Slava fell in love!Galina dances with the shadows of Shostakovich throughout, & it's one of the book's endearing aspects.There are wonderful stories too of Britten and his music, & a surprisingly frank exposition of Furtseva, soviet Minister of Culture, whose enigmatic machinations both helped and ill-served Galina more than once.Vishnevskaya can sing AND write!The book ends when you don't want it to, leaving Russia... it's ultimately a love story -- Galina and Russia.Maybe she'll yet write her American story.

Galina: A Russian Story
Galina, n� Pavlova, has many interesting stories to tell about her remarkable life: as a baby abandoned by her parents, an army officier and a polish/gypsy mother, she was raised by her paternal grandmother. Galina overcame so many difficulties in her life, surviving the blockade of Leningrad during the war and so many hardships such as tuberculosis and starvation. Unlike so many singers' biographies, this intelligent artist shares more than anecdotes about the opera world and her many successes in the theatre. She speaks of her personal friendships with people such as composer Shostakovich her neighbor, scientist Andrei Sakarov, also a neighbor, and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a live-in guest in her dacha. There is much commentary written with not a little bitterness about the Soviet authorities who so often thwarted her career and blocked free expression in the arts within the Soviet country and in other countries where she was invited to perform. She writes very well and with much insight into philosophy, human relations, personalities, etc. I found the book very absorbing and hard to put down. Her close friendship with British composer Benjamin Britten also yields many stories of their memorable times together both at Aldeburgh and on vacation in Armenia and Russia. Her remarkable and at times stormy marriage to cellist/conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, her third husband, brought about big changes in her life, and their mutual courage and boldness to stand up for freedom against the Soviet regime cost them their citizenship.

"Everything was backwards..."
"...We were actors in real life and human beings on the stage."
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Subjects:  1. 1926-    2. Biography    3. Biography / Autobiography    4. Biography/Autobiography    5. Composers & Musicians - Classical Vocalists    6. Historical - General    7. Singers    8. Soviet Union    9. Vishnevskaia, Galina,    10. Vishnevskaëiìa, Galina,    11. Women    12. Biography: film, television & music    13. Composers & musicians    14. Russia