Simon Montefiore: Sashenka

Agrippina Begbulatov, archive official

Apostollon Shcheglov, archivist

Simon Sebag Montefiore was born in 1965 and was educated at Harrow School and Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University. As a historian, he has written three studies of Russian power. Potemkin: Catherine the Great’s Imperial Partner was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper and Marsh Biography Prizes. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards. His latest book, Young Stalin , won the Costa Biography Prize, the LA Times Book Prize in Biography and the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Political Literature, and has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His books are now published in thirty-four languages. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children. For further information see simonsebagmontefiore.com.

Voted a “Top Five Summer Read of 2008” by The Observer and one of the “Ten Hottest Books this Summer” by The Independent

“This completely addictive story offers an authoritative insight into Stalin’s USSR and, in its huge characters and epic ambition, carries echoes of Tolstoy himself.”

“[Sashenka’s] agonizing adult dilemma, her attempts to save the children she loves, [is] so powerfully and persuasively set out that, by the time I finally put the book down, long after midnight, I was in tears.”

“Excellent…. A powerful novel, erudite and well structured, and with a heroine who lingers in the mind when the story is finished.”

“Sweeps the brittle high society of pre-revolutionary St Petersburg, the terror-chilled jails of Stalin’s purges and the secrets of 1990s Moscow archives into a tragic panorama. This family saga captures both the epic travails of a Bolshevik elite that fell from grace, and also—ambitiously—the enigmas of historical knowledge itself.”

“To write a good historical novel, you have to recreate that world both physically and intellectually—and there must be a sense that history is driving the plot forward. Montefiore succeeds on all counts.”

“Agile plotting, vivid characterization… Sashenka [is] an addictive page-turner with an elegant, steely edge of verisimilitude.”

Young Stalin

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Potemkin: Catherine the Great’s Imperial Partner

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New York, NY 10020

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Simon Montefiore

Originally published in Great Britain in 2008 by Transworld Publishers

The author and publishers are grateful for permission to reproduce the following copyright material: For “The Talisman,” from Pushkin, by Henri Troyat, translated by Nancy Aphoux, translation © 1970 by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc.; used by permission of Doubleday. For the song of Petrograd street children, quoted with permission from The Silver Samovar: Reminiscences of the Russian Revolution , by Alexander Poliakoff (Atlantida Press). Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Montefiore, Sebag.

Sashenka / Simon Montefiore.

p. cm.

1. Soviet Union—History—Fiction. 2. Women historians—Fiction. 3. Family secrets—Fiction.

I. Title.

PR6069.E194S37 2008

823’.914—dc22 2008017849

ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-0984-7

ISBN-10: 1-4391-0984-2

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