History

In this memoir, Lana Estemirova reflects on growing up in Chechnya during the wars between Russia and Chechnya, and on the profound influence of her mother, human rights activist Natalia Estemirova. Through personal memories, family history, and the realities of life under violence and repression, she recounts how conflict shaped her childhood and her understanding of courage, justice, and survival. In 2009, Natalia was abducted and murdered after years of documenting human rights abuses. Her death became a defining rupture in Lana’s life, leaving behind grief as well as a responsibility to preserve her mother’s legacy. Please Live is both an intimate coming-of-age story and a testimony to the human cost of war, political violence, and the struggle to speak the truth.

How did Russia move from presenting itself as a pioneer of women’s emancipation to embracing conservative values and authoritarian rule? In Motherland, journalist Julia Ioffe explores modern Russian history through the lives of the women who experienced, shaped, and survived its transformations. Combining historical research, personal memoir, and investigative journalism, Ioffe traces a century of upheaval, from the revolutionary promises of early Soviet feminism to the hardships of the Second World War and the contradictions of contemporary Russian society. She brings together the stories of her own Jewish-Russian family, feminist revolutionaries, women who fought on the front lines, single mothers who rebuilt their lives after the war, and modern activists challenging political repression. Rather than telling Russia’s story solely through its male rulers, Ioffe places women’s experiences at the centre of the national narrative. She examines how political ideals shaped women’s opportunities, how successive generations carried the burdens of social change, and how the failure of emancipatory promises contributed to the rise of modern authoritarianism. A finalist for the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction, Motherland offers a compelling exploration of feminism, power, historical memory, and the complicated relationship between personal lives and national identity.

I Love Russia brings together investigative reporting and personal essays to portray a country through the lives of people often excluded from its official narrative. Journalist Elena Kostyuchenko writes about sex workers, LGBTQ+ people, residents of neglected institutions, and communities affected by violence and political repression. Her reporting also follows the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, examining the human realities behind state propaganda and military aggression. Rather than presenting Russia as a single, uniform society, Kostyuchenko reveals its contradictions through the experiences of individuals whose stories challenge dominant political narratives. The book explores the complicated relationship between love for one’s country and the responsibility to criticise its government, presenting journalism as an act of witnessing, resistance, and moral commitment.

In 1985, a seemingly ordinary man walks through the streets of Moscow carrying a plastic shopping bag. Hidden in plain sight, he is Oleg Gordievsky, a senior KGB officer who has secretly been working for British intelligence for more than a decade. As one of Britain’s most valuable spies inside the Soviet Union, he has passed on critical information about Soviet intelligence operations, helping the West understand the Kremlin’s intentions during the final years of the Cold War. But Gordievsky’s double life becomes increasingly dangerous. While MI6 struggles to protect its most important source, the CIA grows suspicious and launches its own investigation to identify the mysterious British informant. Unknown to Gordievsky, the hunt for him leads to Aldrich Ames, a CIA officer secretly betraying American intelligence to the Soviets. When Gordievsky is recalled to Moscow, he faces interrogation, surveillance, and the possibility of execution. His only hope lies in an extraordinary escape plan that must unfold under the watchful eyes of the KGB. Drawing on extensive research and previously undisclosed details, Ben Macintyre reconstructs one of the Cold War’s most remarkable espionage stories. The Spy and the Traitor explores loyalty, ideological conviction, betrayal, and the extraordinary courage required to risk everything for one’s beliefs.

The Empire Must Die: Russia’s Revolutionary Collapse, 1900–1917 reconstructs the political and cultural upheavals that preceded the fall of the Russian Empire. Through the lives of writers, artists, politicians, revolutionaries, and members of the imperial family, Mikhail Zygar traces a society caught between the possibility of reform and the persistence of authoritarian power. The book explores Russia’s brief flourishing of liberal ideas, the growing dissatisfaction with the monarchy, and the pressures of the First World War that helped bring the old order to collapse. Drawing on historical research and vivid character portraits, Zygar presents the revolution not as an inevitable event but as the outcome of decisions, rivalries, and missed opportunities that transformed the country’s future.

The Nart sagas are among the great mythological traditions of the Caucasus, preserving the stories, beliefs, and cultural memory of the Ossetian people. In Tales of the Narts, scholars John Colarusso and Tamirlan Salbiev bring together a rich collection of legends featuring the Narts, a mythical race of formidable warriors whose world is filled with heroic feats, supernatural encounters, fierce rivalries, and complicated family relationships. These stories introduce memorable heroes and heroines, powerful adversaries, giants, monsters, and ancient gods. Although the Narts are celebrated for their courage and strength, they are also capable of jealousy, cruelty, and destructive ambition. Their adventures explore honor, fate, loyalty, conflict, and the consequences of human choices. Rooted in centuries of oral storytelling, the collection offers a window into the cultural heritage of the North Caucasus while revealing intriguing parallels with Greek, Norse, and other ancient mythologies. It is an important introduction to a distinctive literary tradition that has shaped the region’s collective imagination.