Publication Date: November 11, 2008
Simon Montefiore is a noted historian responsible for such award winning nonfiction works as Young Stalin and Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Sashenka is his first foray into fiction, yet he is not straying from his roots. Beginning in St Petersburg in 1916, then skipping forward first to the horrors of the 1930’s, and finally to the new Russia of 1994, Sashenka is a tale of love, hate, turmoil and horror surrounding members of a Jewish family. But, to be honest, I was prepared not to like this book, and the first 50 pages seemed to confirm the suspicions that led me to such a belief.
Here was a young girl, Sashenka Zeitlin, age sixteen, beautiful, headstrong, and attending the Smolny Institute for Noble Girls. Her father is consumed by his work; her mother by nights of parties and drugs. Even though Sashenka is arrested by the Tsar’s secret police as she leaves school, their treatment of her, and her subsequent next-day release had me believing this to be another piece of fluff. Where was the horror? Soviet history is brutal, and complicated, as Montefiore well knows, but surely there should be murder, chaos, streets littered with bodies as the Bolshevik underground fights for and gains control. Yet, instead, we learn more of Sashenka’s milk-white skin and her substantial breasts. I found myself leafing forward for signs of blood.
Perhaps it was Sashenka, rather than Montefiore, who was too naive to care about her parents as a 16 year old. Perhaps he was lulling me, along with Sashenka, into believing that an idealistic youth might escape unharmed as her comrades sought to destroy her family and others like them. Sure, her father was worried over his own health while pining for the nanny; of course, her mother was out all night at opium parties with Rasputin. And, yes, these happenings allow time for Sashenka’s Bolshevik uncle to win her over to the cause with a reading list of banned literature and covert missions to deliver guns and leaflets to the maltreated proletariat. But still I wondered at Sashenka’s lack of inner conflict as her family is being ruined, a fate she simply accepts—and welcomes!—as their due.
But leap forward twenty-some years to 1939 when Sashenka is married to a high-ranking Soviet and has two children of her own. This is the Stalin era when his secret police ran wild; the terror of the cleansing was nearly at an end, but the paranoia remained rampant. Sashenka and her husband have been granted a dacha by Stalin, and on the surface life is good. I don’t want to give away much more of what turns out to be a fast-moving well-thought-out plot, but a week-long affair with a Jewish writer quickly spells devastation for Sashenka and her family.
If it was horror I was waiting for, Montefiore delivers it. He masterfully crafts that scant particle of hope that still remains even in the darkest tomb of a prison. Get the word out; find a way to communicate with those who will follow. If you find a way to say the words, it will be there in your file—if anyone ever bothers to search.
Montefiore worked in Russia during the 1990’s and therefore knows well of what he speaks in the final section of the book. And the ending is superb—good enough to satisfy the romantics while, at the same time, cruel enough to satisfy the realists. When judged as a first novel, Sashenka is excellent—plotting, character development, knowledge of place, are all well done. Those interested in Russian history won’t be disappointed. In short, this is a book I am pleased to recommend.
