August 1914 Author:Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Michael Glenny (Translator) In his monumental narrative of the outbreak of the First World War and the ill-fated Russian offensive into East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn has written what Nina Krushcheva, in The Nation, calls "a dramatically new interpretation of Russian history." The assassination of tsarist prime minister Pyotr Stolypin, a crucial event in the y... more »ears leading up to the Revolution of 1917, is reconstructed from the alienating viewpoints of historical witnesses. The sole voice of reason among the advisers to Tsar Nikolai II, Stolypin died at the hands of the anarchist Mordko Bogrov, and with him perished Russia's last hope for reform.
August 1914 is the first volume of Solzhenitsyn's epic, The Red Wheel.« less
Solzhenitsyn's classic novel has an interesting mix of fictional charachters and real persons both German and Russian who actually participated in the battles on the German/Russian front in the beginning of WWI.