Echoes of a Native Land Two Centuries of a Russian Village
by Schmemann, Serge
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket
- ISBN 10
- 0679438106
- ISBN 13
- 9780679438106
- Seller
-
Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket. 1997. First Edition. Hardcover. 0679438106 . DJ and boards show very light shelf wear. Previous owner's name on FFEP. ; A bright, solid book, dustjacket in Mylar, unclipped.; B&W Photographs; Large 8vo 9" - 10" tall; 350 pages; "Tracing the lives of his Russian forebears, Serge Schmemann, Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times, tells a remarkable story that spans the past two hundred years of Russian history. First, he draws on a family archive rich in pictorial as well as documentary treasure to bring us into the prerevolutionary life of the village of Sergiyevskoye (now called Koltsovo), where the spacious estate of his mother's family was the seat of a manor house as vast and imposing as a grand hotel. In this village, on this estate--ringed with orchards, traversed by endless paths through linden groves, overseen by a towering brick church, and bordered by a sparkling-clear river--we live through the cycle of a year: the springtime mud, summertime card parties, winter nights of music and good talk in a haven safe from the bitter cold and ever-present snow. Family recollections of life a century ago summon up an aura of devotion to tsar and church. The unjust, benevolent, complicated, and ultimately doomed relationship between master and peasants--leading to growing unrest, then to civil war--is subtly captured.Diary entries record the social breakdown step by step: grievances going unresolved, the government foundering, the status quo of rural life overcome by revolutionary fervor. Soon we see the estate brutally collectivized, the church torn apart brick by brick, the manor house burned to the ground. Some of the family are killed in the fighting; others escape into exile; one writes to his kin for the last time from the Gulag. The Soviet era is experienced as a time of privation, suffering, and lost illusions. The Nazi occupation inspires valorous resistance, but at great cost. Eventually all that remains of Sergiyevskoye is an impoverished collective. Without idealizing the tsarist past or wholly damning the regime that followed, Schmemann searches for a lost heritage as he shows how Communism thwarted aspiration and initiative. Above all, however, his book provides for us a deeply felt evocation of the long-ago life of a corner of Russia that is even now movingly beautiful despite the ravages of history and time." .
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Details
- Bookseller
- Ainsworth Books (CA)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 18788
- Title
- Echoes of a Native Land Two Centuries of a Russian Village
- Author
- Schmemann, Serge
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good+ in Very Good+ dust jacket
- Edition
- First Edition
- ISBN 10
- 0679438106
- ISBN 13
- 9780679438106
- Publisher
- Alfred A. Knopf
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1997
- Keywords
- 0679438106, RUSSIA, gulag
- Bookseller catalogs
- History; Russia;
Terms of Sale
Ainsworth Books
Satisfaction guaranteed - if I have made an error in the description, I will refund book and shipping both ways. If the customer just changes his/her mind I will only refund one shipping charge. Please contact me before sending a book back. Any dust jackets on books will have a Mylar protector. Books shipped from US or Canada.
About the Seller
Ainsworth Books
Biblio member since 2003
Chilliwack, British Columbia
About Ainsworth Books
Ainsworth Books was for many years a bricks and mortar store in Vancouver, BC. When we acquired the store, we moved to a location in Delta. After three years we moved the stock home and started operation as an online, by appointment only operation. I have worked with books my whole adult life and enjoy giving recommendations.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
- FFEP
- A common abbreviation for Front Free End Paper. Generally, it is the first page of a book and is part of a single sheet that...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Shelf Wear
- Shelf wear (shelfwear) describes damage caused over time to a book by placing and removing a book from a shelf. This damage is...
- Good+
- A term used to denote a condition a slight grade better than Good.