Vladimir Alexandrov

Boris Savinkov was certainly a name that I had some awareness of before I started this work, if only from the old "Reilly - Ace of Spies" TV show, and from when I was doing most of my reading about the collapse of Czarist Russia and the creation of the Soviet Union. That said, while I like this book, I can't say I love it. Alexandrov does "cover all the bases," but I'm still left with the feeling that this work has a schematic quality, as the author gallops through the events of Savinkov's life. One reality that comes through is that Savinkov was probably not the person who was cut out for the business at hand, as his sense of honor did not equip him with the ruthlessness to deal with players who were going for the main chance, nor did he have a vision that might have attracted the rank and file of Russian society, and in 1917 Lenin did. It is telling that Savinkov might have genuinely been interested in Mussolini's fascist politics, and suggests what might have happened to the man had he not made his last desperate mission into the USSR.… (mere)

I must be losing it, I was so sure I wrote this one up already. Anyway, this is a very strong three stars.

Frederick Thomas is an American, a black man born in 1872 in Mississippi, who seems to have had possessed an entrepreneurial early in life, but obviously, was not really enjoying the benefits of a level playing field. After working in a number of restaurants and hotels, he made his way to Europe and eventually Russia, where he ended up buying a nightclub and apparently turning it into the sensation of Moscow. It's an intriguing success story ... but then, Russian Revolution! Ultimately he found himself stateless (by taking Russian citizenship, he gave up US citizenship) in Turkey, just in time for their revolution.

The disappointing part, not on the part of the author, but with reality, is that the records of his life are those of business transactions, and his personal story is from family narrative, which is pretty removed by this point. The book did a great job of showing the trajectory of his life by providing a lot of context about the times and locales in which he lived, but there's not a strong sense of him as a person, what he was like and what he thought of his own successes and disappointments, which would be the truly amazing elements of his story. Tons of great information about the years leading up to the revolution in Russia, and the Russian refugee population in Turkey, though.… (mere)