Echoes of a Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village

by Serge Schmemann

Book Overview

Drawing on family and state archives and on conversations with aged villagers, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author recreates the vanished world of his forebears, a local tsarist gentry who had been... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679438106
• ISBN13: 9780679438106
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.6" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Well researched

A well researched history of a Western Russian village that provides great insight into Russian character, especially the impact of history on forming Russian character today. Written by a New York Times writer who spent ten years in Russia and is a descendent of the nobility that formerly lived in this village.

TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE

Amazing.The author comes from a family of Russian emigres who fled to the West as a result of the Russian Revolution. Before the Revolution, they were part of the minor nobility that supplied the Tsars with military officers in time of war and high- and mid-level government officials in time of peace. The book is mainly about how this family lived through the tumultuous period before, during and after the Revolution. The descriptions of Russian life during this period are vivid and engaging. The family portraits of people struggling to serve and save their country (and ultimately suffering the cruelest repudiation by it) are poignant. And the pages sparkle with objective analysis and insight. In spite of his family background, he does not grind axes or pine away for what was lost. And yet, although much was lost, his love for Russia and its people is clear. He sees clearly that the old order that was swept away in 1917 had its shortcomings, shortcomings that he warns may yet undermine contemporary Russia's latest experiments with constitutional democracy.

Russian Roots

Serge Schmemann has written a terrific book about his ancestors on his Mother's side, the aristocratic Osorgin family. He traces the estate in Sergiyevskoye (now Koltsovo) that Mikhail Osorgin acquired in a card game in 1843 to the present day. It is a facinating tale interspersed with a history of the country from monarchy to communism to today. Schmemann, the son of an noted Russian Orthodox priest, is emminently qualified to write such a book. He spent many years in the Soviet Union as a reporter for the New York Times prior to winning a Pulitzer for his reportage on the fall of the Berlin Wall. The book is well researched and balanced with little tears shed over how his family lost everything to the successors of Lenin. This is his first book and it is written as what one would would expect from a newspaperman. The balalaikas do not strum and the book does lack the flavor that a book writer would bring. Never-the-less, it holds ones interest for all 333 pages. Unfortunately, Schmemann is currently an editor at the Times, so one misses his excellent columns. We look forward to his next book.

It captures the real Russia historians often overlook.

The first half of this book is both leisurely and entertaining, giving us a rich and at the same time penetrating look at the life of a wealthy family, its estate, and the villagers who were their neighbors. The second half, concentrating as it does on post-Bolshavik experiences, both in the rural village area and elsewhere, including a gulag on the White Sea, cannot be more riveting. It's hard to remember that all this really happened; it is no fiction, or creative dramatization. At the same time, there is the sweep and intellectual vision that one does associate with the great Russian novelists of the early part of this century and before. I have sent this extraordinary book to friends of mine, and I am its ardent publicity agent!

A perceptive synopsis of Russia's tumultuous history

The reader of this book is offered an opportunity to be transported quickly and effortlessly into Russian history of the past two hundred years. Serge Schmemann provides this experience by meticulously describing the events and lives of people that transpired on his small ancestral part of Russia over a period of two hundred years. Using diaries and illustrations passed on from his relatives coupled with a judicious use of his exhaustive research the author weaves not only a history of his ancestors but effectively recounts Russian history. The benefit of this particular account is its focus on the effect on people. The reader has but to transpose the recounted experiences to all the other corners of Russia and one puts this book down with a sobering outlook on the past centuries life in Russia, particulary under the Soviet regime.