Product Description

Drawing on a huge range of sources - letters, memoirs, conversations - Orlando Figes tells the story of how Russians tried to endure life under Stalin. Those who shaped the political system became, very frequently, its victims. Those who were its victims were frequently quite blameless. The Whisperers recreates the sort of maze in which Russians found themselves, where an unwitting wrong turn could either destroy a family or, perversely, later save it: a society in which everyone spoke in whispers - whether to protect themselves, their families, neighbours or friends - or to inform on them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7837 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 784 pages

Review
Awesome … one of the most unforgettable books I have ever read. I defy anyone to read it without weeping at its human suffering, cruelty and courage … a celebration of family love in an epoch of hellish cruelty … now in this book these righteous heroes have their rightful memorial (Mail on Sunday )

Wonderful … an amazing panoramic view … I've rarely read anything like it (Claire Tomalin )

A masterful account of lost and stolen lives (Sunday Times )

This is a heart-rending book … its importance cannot be overestimated … This book should be made compulsory reading in Russia today (Stalingrad )

Review
'Wonderful ... I've rarely read anything like it'

Review
'My book of the year'

Customer Reviews

Beautiful and necessary
A fascinating book about the interior lives of ordinary Russians during the Stalinist period. Based on hundreds of family archives and several thousand interviews with survivors, it tells us more about the Soviet system than any other book I know. Beautifully written, it is a rich and deeply moving history, universal in its themes, which leaves the reader awed, humbled, yet uplifted by the book's humanity. Figes takes us into 'whispered' lives, going again and again to specific people with names and families, to reveal the human suffering, the personal betrayals and moral compromises, the acts of love and kindness, and the sheer resilience that defined private lives in the Stalin period. The opportunity to hear these Russians speak of these things as individuals, in their own voices, is overwhelming, and a gift to all of us. Orlando Figes visits their ordeals with enormous compassion, and he brings their history to life with his superb story-telling skills. I hope he writes forever.

Still Whispering
You will never read a more granular, detailed and moving book about what Stalin did to his own people. The final whispering of the generations persecuted,the sheer number of people's stories might be overwhelming if they were not so individual and peculiar, so consistent and so different. You may go in thinking Stalin less evil than Hitler, but you will not finish this book with that idea. The sheer scale of the madness, the length of time it went on, will take your breath away. Orlando Figes writes plainly, and tells you first, what happened during the chapter (the context), then provides detailed examples, and follows a few family stories all the way from 1917 till today. This is great scholarship and history, valuable to professionals and ordinary readers.

The Whisperers - Orlando Figes
If you want the true, but heart-rending insight into the personal lives of the Russians under Stalin, as portrayed by themselves, then this is the book for you. It is full of heartrending personal stories by which the New Economic Policy of 1921 made the Soviets give up their land and join cooperative farms, or alternatively forced people into the mass labour movement away from the country on into the cities. Family members lived double lives .... workers informed on one another .... parents did not reveal their true thoughts to their children .... informants were on every level .... yes! people whispered. This is an amazing insight as to how people thought then, and why it has left them as they are today