Russians use three names in a formal context: a first name, a patronymic (meaning son/daughter of) and a surname. Thus Sashenka’s formal name is Alexandra Samuilovna Zeitlin and Vanya’s is Ivan Nikolaievich Palitsyn. But Russians (and Georgians) usually also use diminutives as nicknames: Sashenka is the diminutive of Alexandra and Vanya is the diminutive of Ivan, etc.
In the Pale of Settlement, the Jews spoke Yiddish as their vernacular, prayed in Hebrew and petitioned in Russian. The Georgian language is totally different from Russian and has its own alphabet and literature.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
The names of historical figures are marked with an asterisk.
The Family: the Zeitlins
Sashenka (Alexandra Samuilovna) Zeitlin, schoolgirl at the Smolny Institute
Baron Samuil Moiseievich Zeitlin, St. Petersburg banker and Sashenka’s father
Baroness Ariadna (Finkel Abramovna) Zeitlin, née Barmakid, Sashenka’s mother
Gideon Moiseievich Zeitlin, Samuil’s brother, journalist/novelist
Vera Zeitlin, his wife, and their two daughters,
Vika (Viktoria) Zeitlin and
Mouche (Sophia) Zeitlin, actress
The Family: the Barmakids
Abram Barmakid, Rabbi of Turbin, Ariadna and Mendel’s father
Miriam Barmakid, Ariadna and Mendel’s mother
Avigdor Abramovich “Arthur” Barmakid, Ariadna and Mendel’s brother who left for England
Mendel Abramovich Barmakid, Ariadna and Avigdor’s brother, Bolshevik leader
Natasha, a Yakut, Mendel’s wife and Bolshevik comrade
Lena (Vladlena), only daughter of Mendel and Natasha
The Zeitlin Household
Lala, Audrey Lewis, Sashenka’s English governess
Pantameilion, chauffeur
Leonid, butler
Delphine, the French cook
Luda and Nyuna, parlormaids
Shifra, Samuil’s old governess
St. Petersburg, 1916
Peter de Sagan, Captain of Gendarmes, officer of the Okhrana, penniless Baltic nobleman
Rasputin,* Grigory the “Elder,” peasant healer and the Empress’s “friend”
Anya Vyrubova,* Empress’s close friend and Rasputin supporter
Julia “Lili” von Dehn,* Empress’s close friend and Rasputin supporter
Prince Mikhail Andronnikov,* well-connected influence-peddler
Countess Missy Loris, Ariadna’s American friend, married to Count Loris, St. Petersburg aristocrat
Boris Sturmer,* Premier of Tsarist Russia, 1916
D. F. Trepov,* penultimate Premier of Tsarist Russia, 1916
Prince Dmitri Golitsyn,* last Premier of Tsarist Russia, 1916–17
Alexander Protopopov,* syphilitic politician and the last Tsarist Minister of the Interior
Ivan Manuilov-Manesevich,* spy, con man, journalist and fixer for Premier Sturmer
Max Flek, Baron Zeitlin’s lawyer
Dr. Mathias Gemp, fashionable doctor
The Bolsheviks and Others, 1939
Vladimir Illich Lenin,* Bolshevik leader
Grigory Zinoviev,* Bolshevik leader
Josef Vissarionovich Stalin,* né Djugashvili, nickname “Koba,” a Georgian Bolshevik, later General Secretary of Communist Party, Premier and Soviet dictator
Vyechaslav Molotov,* né Scriabin, nicknamed “Vecha,” Bolshevik, later Soviet Premier and Foreign Minister
Alexander Shlyapnikov,* worker and midranking Bolshevik in charge of Party during February Revolution of 1917
Hercules (Erakle Alexandrovich) Satinov, young Georgian Bolshevik
Tamara, Satinov’s young wife
Mariko, Satinov’s daughter
Ivan “Vanya” Palitsyn, worker, Bolshevik activist
Nikolai and Marfa Palitsyn, Vanya’s parents
Razum, Vanya’s driver
Nikolai Yezhov,* “the Bloody Dwarf,” secret police chief (People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs—NKVD), 1936–8
Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria,* a Georgian, Stalin’s secret police chief (People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs—NKVD), 1938 onward
Bogdan Kobylov,* Georgian secret policeman, Beria’s chief henchman, “The Bull”
Pavel Mogilchuk, NKVD investigator, Serious Cases Section, State Security, and author of detective stories
Boris Rodos,* NKVD investigator, Serious Cases Section, State Security
Vasily Blokhin,* NKVD executioner, Major, State Security
Count Alexei Tolstoy,* writer
Ilya Ehrenburg,* writer
Isaac Babel,* writer
Klavdia Klimov, deputy editor of Soviet Wife and Proletarian Housekeeping
Misha Kalman, features editor, Soviet Wife and Proletarian Housekeeping
Leonid Golechev, NKVD commandant of Special Object 110, Sukhanovka Prison
Benjamin (known as “Benya”) Golden, writer
The Vinsky Family of the North Caucasus
Dr. Valentin Vinsky, a Russian doctor in the village of Beznadezhnaya Tatiana Vinsky, his wife
Katinka (Ekaterina Valentinovna), their daughter
Bedbug, Sergei Vinsky, Valentin’s father, a peasant
Baba, Irina Vinsky, Valentin’s mother, a peasant
The Getman Family of Odessa
Roza Getman, née Liberhart, widow from Odessa
Pasha (Pavel) Getman, Roza’s son, a billionaire oligarch
Professor Enoch Liberhart, Roza Getman’s father, Professor of Musicology at the Odessa Conservatoire
Dr. Perla Liberhart, Roza Getman’s mother, teacher of literature at Odessa University
Moscow, 1990s
Maxy Shubin, historian of Stalin’s Terror
Colonel Lentin, Russian secret policeman, KGB/FSB, the Marmoset
Colonel Trofimsky, Russian secret policeman, KGB/FSB, the Magician
Kuzma, archivist in KGB/FSB archives
Agrippina Begbulatov, archive official
Apostollon Shcheglov, archivist
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Simon Sebag Montefiore was born in 1965 and was educated at Harrow School and Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University. As a historian, he has written three studies of Russian power. Potemkin: Catherine the Great’s Imperial Partner was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper and Marsh Biography Prizes. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards. His latest book, Young Stalin, won the Costa Biography Prize, the LA Times Book Prize in Biography and the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Political Literature, and has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His books are now published in thirty-four languages. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children. For further information see simonsebagmontefiore.com.
PRAISE FROM THE UK
Voted a “Top Five Summer Read of 2008” by The Observer and one of the “Ten Hottest Books this Summer” by The Independent
“This completely addictive story offers an authoritative insight into Stalin’s USSR and, in its huge characters and epic ambition, carries echoes of Tolstoy himself.”
“[Sashenka’s] agonizing adult dilemma, her attempts to save the children she loves, [is] so powerfully and persuasively set out that, by the time I finally put the book down, long after midnight, I was in tears.”