Book description
Epic in scope, intimate in detail, heartbreaking in its human drama,
White Bone is the first book to recount the history of the nobility
caught up the maelstrom of the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of
Stalin's Russia. It is a book filled with chilling tales of looted
palaces, burning estates, of desperate flights in the night from
marauding bands of thugs and Red Army soldiers, of imprisonment, exile,
and execution. It is the story of how a centuries'-old elite famous for
its glittering wealth, its service to the Tsar and Empire, its promotion
of the arts and culture, was dispossessed and destroyed along with the
rest of old Russia. Drawing on the private archives of two great
families - the Sheremetovs and the Golitsyns - White Bone is also a
story of survival and accommodation, of how many of the tsarist ruling
class, so-called “former people” and “class enemies,” abandoned,
displaced, and repressed, overcame the psychic wounds inflicted by the
loss of their world and struggled to find a place for themselves and
their families in the new, hostile world of the Soviet Union. It reveals
how even at the darkest depths of the terror, daily life went on-men and
women fell in love, children were born and educated, friends gathered,
simple pleasures were cherished. Ultimately, White Bone is a testament
to the resilience of the human spirit.
