The Golitsyn Family in Stalin’s Russia
With an introduction by Dominic Lieven and translated by Nicholas Witter
With an introduction by Dominic Lieven and translated by Nicholas Witter
/ SYNOPSIS
The Golitsyns were one of Russia’s most powerful families until the revolution turned their world upside down and life became a battle to survive. Sergei Golitsyn was just eight-years old, his head full of stories about knights in shining armour, but the reality was a bowl of gruel for supper and panic when there was a knock at the door.
Golitsyn longed to be a writer, but in fear of his life he fled Moscow to work on remote construction sites deep in Siberia, before fighting with the Red Army across Europe to Berlin.
Written in secret, his memoirs paint a rich and colourful picture of life in Stalin’s Russia. Like Tolstoy, Golitsyn tells the story of a family saga – of love and happiness, terror and endurance – while also drawing a panoramic picture of a world that was about to be destroyed. Sergei Golitsyn wrote his memoirs secretly during the communist era with little expectation that they would ever be published. It was the translator’s grandmother who in 1918 invited the Golitsyn family to take refuge at their estate in Bogoroditsk as famine raged in Moscow. This is a family story to the end. Nicholas Witter, the translator, is Sergei Golitsyn’s cousin.
Golitsyn longed to be a writer, but in fear of his life he fled Moscow to work on remote construction sites deep in Siberia, before fighting with the Red Army across Europe to Berlin.
Written in secret, his memoirs paint a rich and colourful picture of life in Stalin’s Russia. Like Tolstoy, Golitsyn tells the story of a family saga – of love and happiness, terror and endurance – while also drawing a panoramic picture of a world that was about to be destroyed. Sergei Golitsyn wrote his memoirs secretly during the communist era with little expectation that they would ever be published. It was the translator’s grandmother who in 1918 invited the Golitsyn family to take refuge at their estate in Bogoroditsk as famine raged in Moscow. This is a family story to the end. Nicholas Witter, the translator, is Sergei Golitsyn’s cousin.
/ CHARITY
Part of the proceeds from the sale of Memoirs of a Survivor will be donated to the Bogoroditsk Museum – the former Bobrinsky estate that features in the first part of the story, and through its restored interior now offers a glimpse of Russia’s past.
/ PRESS REVIEWS
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Catalogue Details
11 November 2008
Trade Paperback Price: £14.99
ISBN: 978-1-906702-01-4
558pp
World Rights Excluding Russia
Reportage Press is a new publishing house specialising in books on foreign affairs or set in foreign countries; non-fiction, fiction, essays, travel books, old travel memoirs, or just books written from a stranger’s view.
Daniela Norris and Shireen Anabtawi in discussion - October 12th, London Jewish Cultural Centre
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