First published 2015
Michael Ignatieff opens family diaries and examines faded photographs from an old Russian album. He searches through stories his father told him about their ancestors. The author follows five generations of the Ignatieff family starting in 1815. He focuses on his grandparents, Count Paul Ignatieff and Princess Natasha Mestchersky. Their world changes completely during the Russian Revolution. Ignatieff reconstructs their lives before the upheaval, through the chaos, and after they lost everything. He tries to understand what these family memories mean. The photographs hold secrets about people he never met. The diaries reveal intimate details about daily life in imperial Russia. Through this personal investigation, Ignatieff discovers how his family's past shaped his own identity. He learns that family history carries both burden and gift.
Genres: family, historical-fiction, 20th-century, autobiography, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-history, personal-investigation
Setting: Russia
Period: 1815, Russian Revolution
224 pages · ebook · Picador