El baile de Natasha

In a scene from War and Peace, the European-educated Countess Natasha hears a Russian folk dance and instinctively throws herself into dancing. This exciting literary moment with which she opens Natasha's Dance symbolizes the shared and often contradictory sensibilities and impulses that gave rise to one of the most dazzling cultures in the world. In this masterpiece, Orlando Figes explores with elegance, rigor, and marvelous storytelling talent the powerful and complex cultural forces that created and united one of the world's most vibrant nations. He analyzes the birth of the cultural identity of a country as immensely large and heterogeneous as Russia, and reveals how writers, artists and musicians grappled with its character, its spiritual essence and its destiny. To do this, he takes us from the splendor of 18th century Saint Petersburg to the rise of Stalinist propaganda, from folk crafts to the magical rituals of Asian shamans, from the works of Pushkin and Dostoevsky to the music of Mussorgsky and Stravinsky, from art from Chagall to the Eisenstein films. Figes reveals the strength of a unique temperament that held the Russian people together and made them capable of surviving his own history. A fascinating tale and celebration of the greatness of Russian culture and the extraordinary lives of those who shaped it.