What You Did Not Tell

A Russian Past and the Journey Home

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Pub Date Oct 17 2017 | Archive Date Oct 17 2017

Description

**NAMED FINANCIAL TIMES "TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR"**
**NAMED EVENING STANDARD "BOOK OF THE YEAR"**
**NAMED NEW STATESMAN "BEST BOOK OF 2017"**



A warm and intimate memoir by an acclaimed historian that explores the European struggles of the twentieth century through the lives, hopes, and dreams of a single family—his own.


Uncovering their remarkable and moving stories, Mark Mazower recounts the sacrifices and silences that marked a generation and their descendants. It was a family which fate drove into the siege of Stalingrad, the Vilna ghetto, occupied Paris, and even into the ranks of the Wehrmacht. His British father was the lucky one, the son of Russian-Jewish emigrants who settled in London after escaping the Bolsheviks, civil war, and revolution. Max, the grandfather, had started out as a socialist and manned the barricades against Tsarist troops, never speaking a word about it afterwards. His wife Frouma came from a family ravaged by the Terror yet making their way in Soviet society despite it all.

In the centenary of the Russian Revolution, What You Did Not Tell revitalizes the history of a socialism erased from memory--humanistic, impassioned, and broad-ranging in its sympathies. But it is also an exploration of the unexpected happiness that may await history's losers, of the power of friendship and the love of place that made his father at home in an England that no longer exists.
**NAMED FINANCIAL TIMES "TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR"**
**NAMED EVENING STANDARD "BOOK OF THE YEAR"**
**NAMED NEW STATESMAN "BEST BOOK OF 2017"**



A warm and intimate memoir by an acclaimed historian that...

Advance Praise

“The family memoir of a great historian and a subtle writer who is always attentive to humane detail.” —Orhan Pamuk, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature

“The family memoir of a great historian and a subtle writer who is always attentive to humane detail.” —Orhan Pamuk, recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781590519073
PRICE $25.95 (USD)
PAGES 336

Average rating from 2 members


Featured Reviews

I found this a really gripping combination of family memoir and a sweeping account of the turbulent history of left-wing Russian Jewry and the Bund, from the beginnings of the 20th century in Russia to the safe harbour of London and up to the present day. It’s a fascinating story. Through the lives and struggles of one family, his own, Mark Mazower explores the destiny of so many other individuals and families caught up in cataclysmic events. When he started his research, he had no idea about what he would discover. Silence, evasions, secrets – from pre-Revolutionary Russia to Stalingrad, the Vilna Ghetto to occupied Paris, from Franco’s Spain to the ranks of the Wehrmacht, all are part of the family’s history. Using his father’s diaries and conversations as his starting point, Mazower uncovers his family’s past and the trail takes him in many unexpected directions. An absorbing and compelling read.

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