Popular Historical Fiction - Russia

August 1914 & November 1916 by A. Solzhenitsyn (1999)

Two novels that present a panoramic view of Imperial Russia in the years before the Revolution including the disastrous Battle of Tannenberg.

City of Thieves by D. Benioff (2008)

Documenting his reluctant grandparents' experiences during the infamous siege of Leningrad, a young writer learns his grandfather's story about how a military deserter and he endeavored to secure their pardons by gathering hard-to-find ingredients for a powerful colonel's daughter's wedding cake.

Eye of the Red Tsar by S. Eastland (2010)

Recalled out of exile in Siberia on condition that he solve the mystery of the Romanov family murders, Pekkala, once the Tsar's most trusted ally, is partnered with the brother who betrayed him before discovering a dark secret that he realizes should stay hidden.

Heirs of the Motherland by J. Pella (1993)

Count Dimitri Remizov returns to Russia after eighteen years of exile, while Sergei and Anna, still hiding in Katyk, must decide whether to return to St. Petersburg. Book 4 of the 7 book series The Russians.

Hunger by E. Blackwell (2003)

In the wake of the 1941 Siege of Leningrad, during which hundreds of thousands of people starved to death, a scientist charged with protecting a collection of rare seeds that could provide food is forced to make a terrible choice.

The Kitchen Boy by R. Alexander (2003)

A novel based on the 1918 Bolshevik revolutionary murder of Czar Nicholas II and the rest of the Russian royal family is told from the perspective of the event's only surviving witness, a young kitchen boy.

Last Citadel: a Novel of the Battle of Kursk by D. Robbins. (2003)

Soviet and German forces prepare for a vicious standoff, desperate for a victory that could determine the fate of Europe during WWII, in an epic, fictional account of the pivotal Battle of Kursk. By the author of War of the Rats.

The Madonnas of Leningrad by D. Dean (2006)

In a novel that moves back and forth between the Soviet Union during World War II and modern-day America, Marina, an elderly Russian woman, recalls vivid images of her youth during the height of the siege of Leningrad when, as a tour guide at the Hermitage, she and other staff members removed the museum's priceless artworks for safekeeping.

The Master of Petersburg by J.M. Coetzee (1994)

Returning to St. Petersburg after the death of his stepson, Dostoyevsky battles grief, epilepsy, an obsession with his stepson's landlady, and eventually a demonic conspiracy in order to get to the cause of the young man's death.

The Passion by J. Winterson (1987)

Passion consumes Henri, a chef with Napoleon's army, and Villanelle, who has lost her heart to a married noblewoman, until the two meet at the gates of Moscow and form a bond based on bitter loss.

The Siege by H. Dunmore (2001)

Set against the turbulent backdrop of Leningrad in 1941, an intricately woven tapestry of love and war follows the Levin family—twenty-two-year-old Anna, her young brother Kolya, and their father, Mikhail-as they struggle to survive during the German siege.

War and Peace by L. Tolstoy, trans. By C. Garnett (1931)

The monumental Russian classic c onsidered by many to be the greatest novel ever written reflects the life and times of Russia during the Napoleonic War.

War of the Rats by D. Robbins (1999)

During the siege of Stalingrad at the height of World War II, two master snipers--Chief Master Sergeant Vasily Zaitsev and German marksman Heinz Thorvald--embark on a deadly and calculating competition to destroy each other

White Blood by J. Fleming (2007)

Riding out World War I in his family home near Smolensk at the side of his beloved new wife, naturalist Charlie Doig finds himself trapped during a snowstorm by a motley group of aristocrats, servants, and soldiers, one of whom Charlie fears is a Bolshevik out to destroy them all.

The Winter Queen by B. Akunin, translated by Andrew Bromfield (2003)

When a young student from a wealthy family commits suicide in the Alexander Gardens, Erast Fandorin of the Moscow Police investigates the supposedly open-and-shut case and discovers that the student's suicide is not an isolated case.

Zugzwang by R. Bennett (2007)

As a murder of a respected newspaper editor, followed by a second killing, shocks 1914 St. Petersburg, celebrated psychoanalyst Dr. Otto Spethmann, his young daughter, and his patients--Anna Petrovna, the society beauty with whom he is falling in love, and Rozental, a troubled chess master on the verge of a breakdown--find themselves pawns in a nightmarish game of political intrigue.

Updated 6/10

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