This makes sense from the author's perspective, according to which Soviet history is not even Russian history, but rather 'a lens' through which Russia looks distorted. We were instructed in four different languages, and spoke French fluently,' she wrote in her memoirs, 'but my Russian was extremely poor. Figes says the Russian language was lacking which is why it became peppered with French, German, English words.

Figes spends as much time on post-revolutionary emigre culture as he does on the whole Soviet period. But if writing straight historical fact is a precarious endeavour, even more so is writing a cultural history of a country to which you are not native, in which you have not spent a significant portion of your life, and about which much misinformation abounds. Intrigante, divertente, scritto magnificamente, ricco di aneddoti interessanti e commoventi, questo saggio, che si legge come un romanzo, è stato un compagno di viaggio impagabile.Instead, Natasha’s Dance whets the appetite of the reader and encourages them to dive headfirst into the incredible, multi-faceted milieu that is the immense Russian cultural heritage. For the period from roughly 1760 to 1960 it contains histories of Russian literature, painting, ballet and classical music. Tuttavia per chi, come me, si avvicina alla cultura russa per la prima volta, “La Danza di Nataša” rappresenta uno straordinario viaggio alla scoperta di costumi, storie e vicende umane di un popolo che non possiamo esimerci dal vedere come altro, irrimediabilmente fisso in un mito, in una sua esoticità. The complexities of Russian culture are not to be taken on lightly, but Figes successfully guides the reader through the forest of the great Pantheon of music, literature, poetry, art, and much more which form the cultural heritage of the world’s largest country. What is completely fascinating is the rich Russian’s obsession with the peasant, from how they are described in novels such as War and Peace, to how the upper classes, tried to live like them and even toil the land like them, bare foot and all.

Sovyet dönemi edebiyatı ve sanatsal akımları ile ilgili bilgi edinmek isteyenler başka bir kitap bulmalı ama Ahmatova’nın biyografisini veya Stalin karşıtı bir eser okumak istiyorsanız bu bölüm işinizi görebilir. Non ho lasciato la Russia di mia volontà, anche se c’era molto che non mi piaceva nella mia Russia e nella Russia in genere. The exponents of Russian high culture - literature, music and painting - wanted to offer something distinctive to the world and needed to put a "national" dye in their cloth.

From Bulgakov to Dostoevsky, Tolstoy to Nabokov, I've enjoyed a lot of works that came out of Russia both before and after the rise of the Soviet Union. This is in keeping with Figes’s general argument that Russia was in most ways ‘lacking’ and even culturally ‘backward’ prior to interaction and cultural exchange with Western Europe. Avrasya bozkırındaki Müslüman kavimlerle sırf Ruslaştırmak ve buraları sahiplenmek için evlilik politikası gütmeleri de ayrı bir fantezi ürünü bence. But, as I have ventured down my Russian rabbit hole I have learned to appreciate their talents and now feel it is a shame that Figes doesn’t spent a little more time on them.