Book Reviews
Spanning 1800 years of Russia's history, people, poltics, and culture, Edward Rurtherford, author of the phenomenally successful Sarum: The Novel of England, tells a grand saga that is as multifaceted as Russia itself. Here is a story of a great civilization made human, played out through the lives of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of their land. Rutherford's Russka succeeds....[He] can take his place among an elite cadre of chroniclers such as Harold Lamb, Maurice Hindus and Henri Troyat.
San Francisco Chronicle
Sarum, to the rich foreign soil of Russia. Though the structure and style mirror that of his first saga, Rutherfurd's close observation of Russia's religious and ethnic diversity give this epic a distinctive flavor. Focusing on the changing fortunes of the small town of Russka and its controlling families, Rutherfurd moves from the tribes of the steppes in the second century A.D. through Cossacks, Tatars, Tsars, revolution and Stalin to touch on a contemporary Russian emigre community near New York City. He weaves an expansive tapestry of Russian lore with a vivid exploration of the historical influences on the modern Russian psyche. Though thoroughly researched, the novel is diminished by occasional soap-opera twists in the narrative thread and present-day phrasing ("pin money," "red tape," "heads or tails") used in distracting asides to the reader.
Publishers Weekly
In his newest novel, Rutherfurd does for Russia what his last novel, Sarum, did for England. Focusing on a small farming community in the Russian heartland between the Dnieper and the Don at the edge of the steppes, he traces its growth through its inhabitants from the first Tatar raid on the Slavs through the Cossacks, aristocrats, and an emigre's recent return. These interconnected lives present a vast panoramic portrait of Russia and its history. However, abundance of historic detail, fascinating though it is, intrudes and overwhelms. Transitions from intertwined stories of succeeding generations are abrupt and the reader longs for more character and plot development. Recommended for devotees of James Michener and Sarum.
Library Journal
A well-written, episodic, dense, at times infuriatingly complex historical saga of Russia by the author of the similarly massive Sarum, which tries—often quite successfully—to re-create the evolution of a mysterious and backward nation riddled with war, political confusion, and religious upheaval. Crammed with exhaustive and obviously well-researched historical, geographical, and cultural detail, this epic novel traces Russia's quest for freedom and identity from A.D. 180 to the present. The primary storyline that finally emerges depicts three rival families who have ties in the quintessential village of Russka: the Bobrovs, gentried noblemen who ultimately lose their precious land to the very serfs they once owned; the cunning Suvorins who amass great wealth as merchants and industrialists; and their distant relations the Romanovs, peasant farmers-cum-revolutionaries. Through the intricacies of marriage, accidents of birth, and other twists and turns of fate, the ancestors and descendants of these proud people move from one century to the next, turning up as warring Alans, barbarous Tatars, bloodthirsty Cossacks, and eventually the more familiar Socialists, Bolsheviks, and Marxists. Rutherfurd's immense canvas allows a fictional cast in the hundreds to populate the same world as Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, Tolstoy, Voltaire, Pushkin, Lenin, Stalin, Shevchenko, Rasputin, etc., as they grapple with catastrophic events—such as ritual self-immolation, torture by knouting, cholera, and the pogroms. Despite the preponderance of names that repeat themselves from one generation to the next (the plot is littered with very old or very young Arinas and Maryushkas, for example)—a circumstance that may befuddle the casual reader—Rutherfurd's opus extraordinaire may captivate readers of the genre as well as serious history buffs.
Kirkus Reviews