I have finished reading Orlando Figes' Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, and what a great book it was. Dealing with the likes of Rimsky-Korsakov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Mayakovsy etc, this book went under the skin of the Russian national sensibilities and quirks, containing many brilliant but little known Russian proverbs and trivialities. Great insight into the peasantry vs aristocracy, the capitalists vs the communists, the Old Belief versus Russian Orthodox etc, the Russian tongue vs French. Great especially to read pre War and Peace for example. Figes was educated at Gonville and Caius college, Cambridge, and his mother was the feminist writer Eva Figes.
