Russian historian Simon Montefiore moves into fiction with Sashenka, about a woman and her family caught in the tumult of 20th-century Russia.
You've had tremendous success as a historian—why write fiction?
I love reading about the life in difficult periods and looking at the themes that are important to family, and these aren't things you can cover in history books. I wanted to write a book that was the story of a family in a certain time, but a very intimate story that can be read by anybody, even if they've never heard of Stalin or Nicholas II. But I've also worked very hard to make everything absolutely correct in terms of its Russianness, its Jewishness and its time and place.
Where did the characters come from?
Initially, they were all based on historical types that really did exist. For example, many of the top Bolshevik women were educated Jewish women from good families. But by the end of the book I felt Sashenka and her family were more real than many of the historical characters in the background. When I wrote about her and her family and her children, I cried. It was just agonizing what happened.
How did you choose the three time periods for the novel—1916, 1939 and 1994?
Russia in the 20th century is one of the most romantic of times. The story opens during the reign of the czars, when there was decadence and debauchery and the ominous signs of an empire on its last legs. And then I chose 1939 because it was after the Great Terror, so Sashenka has survived unscathed and she's in the elite of the Bolshevik party. And then the third part is set in the time of the oligarchs—the booming, arrogant, glitzy Russia of today.
Why was it important to you that the protagonist be a woman?
I've written about power in Russia; my three history books are studies of power in the Kremlin. Those books are overwhelmingly dominated by men, the women's story hadn't really been told, especially in this period of Russia. I don't regard this book as a historical novel, I regard it as an intimate family story in the tradition of family novels that tell about women and domestic life, against a historical backdrop.
What do you hope readers will take away from Sashenka's story?
It's a celebration of freedom and love and life and family—family is the one thing that really matters—but it's also about how in real life nothing is black and white. In the book, there are no real heroes. Living in dangerous times is complicated, and we all ask ourselves how we would really fare under such a test.
