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    One Night in Winter: A Novel
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    One Night in Winter: A Novel
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    One Night in Winter: A Novel
    Ebook492 pages8 hours

    One Night in Winter: A Novel

    By Simon Sebag Montefiore

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Inspired by a true story, prize-winning historian and acclaimed novelist Simon Sebag Montefiore explores the consequences of forbidden love in this heartbreaking epic of marriage, childhood, danger, and betrayal that unfolds in Stalin's Moscow during the bleak days after World War II.

    As Moscow celebrates the motherland's glorious victory over the Nazis, shots ring out on the crowded streets. On a nearby bridge, a teenage boy and girl—dressed in traditional nineteenth-century costumes—lie dead. But this is no ordinary tragedy, because these are no ordinary teenagers. As the son and daughter of high-ranking Soviet officials, they attend the most elite school in Moscow. Was it an accident, or murder? Is it a conspiracy against Stalin, or one of his own terrifying intrigues?

    On Stalin's instructions, a ruthless investigation begins into what becomes known as the Children's Case. Youth across the city are arrested and forced to testify against their friends and their parents. As families are ripped apart, all kinds of secrets come spilling out. Trapped at the center of this witch-hunt are two pairs of illicit lovers, who learn that matters of the heart exact a terrible price. By turns a darkly sophisticated political thriller, a rich historical saga, and a deeply human love story, Montefiore's masterful novel powerfully portrays the terror and drama of Stalin's Russia.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 6, 2014
    ISBN9780062291905
    Author

    Simon Sebag Montefiore

    Simon Sebag Montefiore's bestselling books are published in more than forty languages. He is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Sashenka. As a historian, his works include Jerusalem: The Biography; Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar; and Young Stalin, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, the Costa Biography Prize (United Kingdom), and Le Grand Prix de Biographie Politique (France). One Night in Winter won the 2014 Political Fiction Book of the Year Prize (United Kingdom) and was long-listed for the Orwell Prize.

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    Reviews for One Night in Winter

    4/5

    91 ratings13 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Russia 1945, Stalin and his regime is firmly entrenched. What starts out as a student's game, quickly turns into much more, two deaths and a possible conspiracy to overthrow Stalin, and many students, the youngest aged six are quickly imprisoned. What makes this case so special to the investigating officers is that these are all children of the elite, the top of Stalin's Politburo.This is a very atmospheric novel, the reader becomes very familiar with the tension and suspicion that even the elite and their families had to live with daily. How Stalin loved to play games, using children to get at their parents, making sure no one ever felt safe. It is a story of sacrifice, of a beloved teacher of Pushkin, who confesses to something he did not do so that his students would be saved. A story of love, of a young Russian girl with an American diplomat and her eventual imprisonment in the Gulag. It is a time when no one was free to think or do what they wanted.The beginning included a cast of characters and there are many in this book, but I soon had no trouble keeping track of most of them. Also includes an afterward, stating that much of this was based on a true story and what was changed for the sake of the story. I found in to be a wonderful story, and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Another new author for me, but one of which I plan to read much more.ARC from publisher.
    • 5/5
      This is a good, albeit disturbing story showing how rabidly evil people can become under an unchallenged fascist government. One must hope that the injustices depicted in this story are never considered acceptable here in the US.
    • 5/5
      It has taken me a few days to digest One Night in Winter so that I could write an objective review of this exceptional book. I was excited to read it since I enjoy historical fiction and I knew the story was set in Moscow during Stalin's rule just after the end of World War II. Of course I realized that it would probably involve Lubianka Prison and Stalin's paranoid imprisonment and torture of suspects. Despite that, when reading the book, I got very upset.I suppose my reaction is a tribute to the author's characterizations; I worried about the fictional characters as though they were real. There is a mix of actual historical figures and fictional people. The real ones other than Stalin tend to be the yes-men who did his bidding.The plot involves a group of children, some teens, some younger, who attend School 108. That's where the wealthy and/or connected Muscovites send their children. One teacher surprisingly is allowed to teach romantic Russian literature, mainly Pushkin. The students are so caught up in Pushkin in fact that they organize a secret club of sorts dedicated to reciting passages and re-enacting a duel from one of Pushkin's books. They borrow dueling pistols that don't fire and costumes from the drama department and meet for these duels. On Victory Day after the big parade in front of the Kremlin they have their duel in a park at the end of a bridge. Suddenly two of them are dead of gunshot wounds.The investigation into this tragedy pulls the children, their families, and the school staff in. Stalin's people decide this children's club is an organization with the mission of overthrowing the government. The ridiculous extent of the government's suspicions is nevertheless believable. I could feel the terror as people, no matter how well connected, are afraid to speak to each other in their own homes, and must whisper where the children cannot hear because they might be questioned. I can't add more without spoiling the book for you.I do highly recommend this book but with the caveat that readers who know their Soviet Union history may be greatly affected.Source: Amazon Vine
    • 3/5
      This was, for me, a very difficult book to follow. It is the story of post WWII school children in Russia being arrested and interrogated in prison. Each of these children, one as young as 6 years old is made to sign a confession indicating their parents in some sort of government plot to over throw Stalin.

      There is so much in this book and it was so hard for me to take it all in and to make sense of. I think that if I knew more about Russian history than I could have given it a higher rating.


    • 4/5
      It is Moscow, 1945. Stalin is in power, WWII is coming to a close. The Josef Stalin Commune School 801 educates the children of the elite - politicians, military, film. While they are meant to be educated to be good Bolsheviks, loyal Party members, a small group of the students have formed a secret society called the Fatal Romantics' Club. They read, recite, and re-enact scenes from literature and poetry, especially Pushkin. When two of the members are shot and killed, the children become entangled in a tricky web involving not only each other, but those around them, especially their teachers and their families. Secrets are both dangerous and a valuable commodity, a potential bargaining chip against punishment and torture.While One Night in Winter is, at heart, about love - especially love in a time fraught with paranoia, deceit, and danger - the book is at its best building the historical backdrop. Sebag Montefiore captures the terror felt not only by those in prison, but also by those around them. The runaway train that is an interrogation, the willingness to sign confessions against your better judgment, the inability to call in favors because that would potentially incur Stalin's wrath - and therefore the response to one spouse's plea just to talk to Stalin is, *must be*, met with a cold and desperate response that the Organs are always just and all faith must be put in them to do the right thing. There are sacrifices made, betrayals, self-preservation, and more.Tense, taught novel, some of which is based very loosely on actual events. The book brings the reader in to the lives of elite Soviets riding the fine line between privilege, paranoia, and downfall.
    • 5/5
      bookshelves: autumn-2013, published-2013, slavic, berlin, historical-fiction, mystery-thriller, cults-societies-brotherhoods, recreational-homicide, families, serial-killer, wwii, skoolzy-stuff, politics, ouch, nazi-related, lifestyles-deathstyles, cover-love, bullies, betrayal Read from September 03 to 27, 2013 Sent by the author for a review and already I can honestly say that the physical appearace of this hardback, complete with stunning dust-jacket imagery and inside diagram of Moscow 1945, is a treat.Initialed by authorList of charactersDedication:To my parents April and Stephenand my son Sasha,the oldest and the youngest.AcknowledgementsPrologueOpening, where I give you Glinka's 'Glory' (Славься, славься, святая Русь!) to have on in the backgound as you read: The best school in Moscow, thought Andrei Kurbsky on his first day at School 801 on Ostozhenka, and, by some miraculous blessing, I've just made it here.A slow building absurd story that, by the halfway mark, is unputdownable. This is a stand alone book although it does share some characters in common with Sashenka, which I haven't read yet. At the end of the read we find that this is loosely based on actual incidents. The lunacy and brutality of that place and time in history is just so hard to wrap one's head around."But,But, But," you cry, "aren't you going to outline the plot for us?" "No. The description goes as far as is possible without spoilering."Искушение" Л.Утесов "Temptation Rag" Utesov Jazz Band 1938 also has its place within this story.This story does feel, at times, cobbled together, so the purist rating would be 4*, however I enjoyed it so much a 5* line-up is more accurate. Fully recommended, especially to those who enjoy learning about Stalin's Russia. 5* Jerusalem5* One Night in WinterWish List: SashenkaCross-posted to GoodReads, LibraryThing, aNobii, BookLikes7 likes
    • 2/5
      It seems I'm alone, at least amongst those to have written reviews, in not having enjoyed this book. The fundamental issue for me was the quality of the writing, which I found pedestrian and cliché-ridden. At page 17 I was dreading the massive bulk to come and that feeling was never relieved. I have to say I'm also very much put off by a lengthy character list at the start of a novel. It strikes me as something that would have come in very useful to the author, for keeping tabs on the vast cast, but I feel as though the writing should be good enough to bring the characters to life so that I, the reader, do not need such a list. That nit pick would have been something I could overlook had the writing really gripped me.
    • 5/5
      Simon Sebag Montefiore’s One Night in Winter is an exceptional work of not only historical fiction, but of deeply emotional writing, and exceptional and oftentimes intense descriptions that show the reality of the time. One Night in Winter begins with the 1945 death of two teenagers, which leads to a very brutal Stalinist campaign to not only uncover what actually occurred that fateful night, but rather a far more insidious agenda is at hand. One Night in Russia met and exceeded my expectations. This happens to be an area I am rather familiar with and I was not certain before I began the book as to just how well Montefiore would be able to capture the brutal and oppressive times. One Night in Winter is a book I would highly suggest to anyone who enjoys an extremely well written, thoroughly researched, and deeply emotional book. I especially recommend One Night in Winter to those in book discussion groups. I look forward to reading other works of Simon Sebag Montefiore.
    • 5/5
      A gripping story of conspiracy and love. My favourite book of 2013.
    • 3/5
      As befits an historian of the quality of Simon Sebag Montefiore this novel evokes the world of the upper echelons of Stalin's Russia extremely well. We see the privileged lives of Politburo members and their families - expensive homes, servants, chauffeurs, clothes and general plenty (including food). We also see the twists and turns in a fantastical society where political power is vested in the hands of a single man and where that man is as driven by rumour, superstition, jealousy, fear and partiality as any other.Even if the ending does have some uplift to it, this is a downbeat novel (don't look for jokes, there aren't any). The destruction of peoples' lives based on nothing but a whim and using their own children to shape and deliver that destruction does not make for edifying reading. The section of the book dealing with the interrogation of the children was too long and too repetitive.This has to much historical and not quite enough fiction, for me.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      An enjoyable read and an insight into life in Russia

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      1945. Moscow, Russia.Jubilance raged over the war-ravaged city. Hitler was defeated. New beginnings lay ahead for a nation with promises of greatness by Stalin. The hope for normalcy raised slowly from the ashes. The young Andrei Kurbsky saw “crumbling buildings, their façades peppered with shrapnel, windows shattered, roads pockmarked with bomb craters. Everything – the walls, the houses, the cars – everything except the scarlet banners was drab, beige, peeling, khaki, grey. But faces of the passersby were rosy as if victory and sunlight almost made up for the lack of food, and the streets were crowded with pretty girls in skimpy dresses, soldiers, sailors and officers in white summer uniforms. Studebaker trucks, Willys jeeps and the Buicks of officials rumbled by – but there were also carriages pulled by horses, carts heaped with hay or bedding or turnips, right in the middle of this spired city with its gold domes. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes in the heat and the world went a soft orange, Andrei heard laughter and singing and he was sure he could hear the city itself healing in the sunshine.”`Life was starting over for everyone. The top officials in the Communist party were compensated with lavish lifestyle in the high-ceilinged apartments in the Granvosky building (otherwise known as the Fifth House of the Soviets), with dazzling corridors of capacious parquet floors and crystal chandeliers. Each official owned more than one chauffeur-driven car: open-topped Mercedes and -Packards, Dodge, Cadillacs, limousines, and Rolls Royces. It was also the home of Serafima Romashkina.A new life was also starting for Andrei and his mother who just returned from exile in Stalinabad, “The Paris of Central Asia”, also known as “The Athens of Turkestan”. Everybody knew what that meant. “It was his tainted biography all over again.”Young, poor, optimistic, ambitious, inexperienced Andrei would meet Serafima.It is a magnificent book: well written, extremely detailed, beautiful prose, spell-binding with no unfinished characters. The story is about a group of children and their families, every member, their teachers, and what happened to them, during the reign of Stalin. There were many love stories, too many, to be told. A historical novel at its best.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      To say that I enjoyed reading this book would be taking it too far. But it was an enriching experience. Set in the days after the collapse of the Third Reich, it focuses on the lives of a group of children and teenagers and their parents, and how the power of the Stalinist state pervaded the intimate reaches of people's lives. At the end of the book the author writes that it is a story of love, but that it could not have been written to be set in a village in England (I think me mentions Hampstead). So in this way the book conveys some of the aspects of life of post World War II in Soviet Russia. Woven into the story are real people - Stalin, Beria, even Averell Harriman, others are used as models for the story. In the background there is also the story of Jews in Russia, and topic for which I know the author better.Read it for the love story and the poetry, or read it for the history - it's worth it.

      1 person found this helpful