Table of Contents
List of figure ix
List of abbreviations x
Introduction: The shock of revolution 1
1 A childhood close to power 11
2 The charm of life abroad 21
3 Marriage and a Russian career 33
4 Emancipation or isolation? 41
5 To believe in something different is an effort, a fantasy 53
6 The republic of letters 63
7 A good sacred task 77
8 'Sire, Resist the Friends of Darkness!' 89
9 Retreat into scholarship 101
10 A doffed cap to the Tsar 113
11 Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality 125
12 'Knowing that he is only feigning Russomania…' 137
13 'The Minister of Darkness and the Extinction of Enlightenment' 147
14 A life for the Tsar 159
15 Politics devours everything 177
16 A Russia within Russia 189
17 To eliminate the conflict 201
18 Decline and fall 215
19 From the house of the dead 233
20 Afterword: The struggle for a modern Russia 245
Appendix I A possible source for Joseph Conrad 251
Notes 258
Bibliography 298
Index 312