Bread of Exile

by Dimitri Obolensky and Dimitri Obolensky; Introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper

Book Overview

Bread of Exile tells a remarkable story of the Russian nobility both before and after the October Revolution. It draws on hitherto unpublished private diaries, memoirs and notebooks spanning almost... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1860465110
• ISBN13: 9781860465116
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Harvill Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.2" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Far away, long ago, glowing dim as an ember...

Most of this book is about bygone days of imperial Russia. However, instead of being a typical "Nicholas and Alexandra" book or "How the Royal Family Lived", the passages here are first person accounts, recorded as memories, or as the actual journal entries. Through this, the reader gets a picture of what it was like living in the upper echelon of society in the latter half of the 19th century, and the early 20th. It is striking and gorgeous.This is the land and the society that these people later had to flee, and the author, Obolensky, grew up in the Russian emigre community in France. There was a couple problems that found with this book. While the descriptions of these people's lives were fascinating, it wasn't a page turner, and for that reason, it took me a long time to actually sit down and FINISH this book.A major problem with it, too, was it's heavy reliance on French. I know that some things are not translateable, and I know the author knows French very well (besides English), and I know that French was the language of many courts and of international diplomacy in that day, but it seemed like there were so many times when the author's point would be punctuated by a phrase in French, which did absolutely no good for me, since I don't speak or read this language.The third thing that kind of irked me was that Obolensky spends probably 4/5 of the book in aristocratic Russia from 1875-1920, having many perspectives represented, but when it actually comes to the "exile" part, the only representation is his own experiences, and they seem, somehow, not to be nearly as in-depth. (Then again, he was jumping over HUGE periods of time.)Despite its flaws, this book does serve to recall a time which is fast fading in memory. Most of the "authors" of this book died more than 40 years ago, and this perspective is unique to try to comprehend.