Book
Russka
Across nearly two thousand years, the novel follows families living in and around a fictional Russian settlement as political centres, religions and social orders change. Their descendants experience early Slavic society, the rise of Kievan Rus, Mongol domination, Muscovite expansion, imperial reform, serfdom, the Napoleonic invasion and the revolutions of the twentieth century. Repeated conflicts over land, authority and identity connect village life to the formation and collapse of empires.
Because the same families recur through different regimes, institutions that appear abstract become questions of inheritance and survival. Conversion to Christianity, Mongol tribute, serfdom and imperial reform alter who controls land and labour without erasing older memories. The novel uses that continuity to show Russian history as repeated adaptation rather than a simple progression from one dynasty or ideology to another.
Historical Periods
Historical people
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