The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation - Rilegato

Bullough, Oliver

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0465074987 ISBN 13: 9780465074983

Casa editrice: Basic Books, 2013

Riassunto

Russia is dying from within. Oligarchs and oil barons may still dominate international news coverage, but their prosperity masks a deep-rooted demographic tragedy. Faced with staggering population declineand near-certain economic collapsedriven by toxic levels of alcohol abuse, Russia is also battling a deeper sickness: a spiritual one, born out of the country’s long totalitarian experiment.

In The Last Man in Russia, award-winning journalist Oliver Bullough uses the tale of a lone priest to give life to this national crisis. Father Dmitry Dudko, a dissident Orthodox Christian, was thrown into a Stalinist labor camp for writing poetry. Undaunted, on his release in the mid-1950s he began to preach to congregations across Russia with little concern for his own safety. At a time when the Soviet government denied its subjects the prospect of advancement, and turned friend against friend and brother against brother, Dudko urged his followers to cling to hope. He maintained a circle of sacred trust at the heart of one of history’s most deceitful systems. But as Bullough reveals, this courageous group of believers was eventually shattered by a terrible act of betrayalone that exposes the full extent of the Communist tragedy. Still, Dudko’s dream endures. Although most Russians have forgotten the man himself, the embers of hope that survived the darkness are once more beginning to burn.

Leading readers from a churchyard in Moscow to the snow-blanketed ghost towns of rural Russia, and from the forgotten graves of Stalin’s victims to a rock festival in an old gulag camp,The Last Man in Russia is at once a travelogue, a sociological study, a biography, and acri de coeur for a dying nationone that, Bullough shows, might yet be saved.

Su questo libro

L'autore

Oliver Bullough is Caucasus editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and author ofLet Our Fame Be Great, which won the Overseas Press Club Cornelius Ryan Award. He lives in London.

Product Description

Russia is dying from the inside out. Faced with a staggering population decline--and looming economic collapse--driven in large part by toxic levels of alcohol abuse, the country is on a path to ruin. In "The Last Man in Russia," award-winning journalist Oliver Bullough explains that Russia's self-destruction is a representation of a deeper sickness: a spiritual one, born out of the country's long communist experiment. Leading readers on a journey across Russia, from a churchyard in Moscow to the mass graves in a former gulag and the headquarters of a burgeoning white supremacist group, Bullough reveals the extent and nature of the malaise--and the tragic tale of the one man who might have prevented it. "The Last Man in Russia" cuts to the heart of the Russian experience, forming a narrative that is at once a travelogue, a sociological study, a biography, and a cri de coeur for a dying nation.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Basic Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0465074987
• ISBN 13: 9780465074983
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 284