Natasha's Dance and Russian Cultural History
Published in 2002, Natasha's Dance is a broad cultural history of Russia from the building of St.Petersburg during the reign of Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century. Taking its title from a scene in Tolstoy's War and Peace, where the young countess Natasha Rostova intuitively dances a peasant dance, it explores the tensions between the European and folk elements of Russian culture, and examines how the myth of the 'Russian soul' and the idea of 'Russianness' itself have been expressed by Russian writers, artists, composers and philosophers.
The film director Joe Wright revealed that Natasha's Dance was the inspiration for his 2012 film "Anna Karenina" starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard. Figes is credited as the historical consultant on the film
Figes has also written essays on various Russian cultural figures, including Leo Tolstoy, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev . In 2003 he wrote and presented a TV feature documentary for the BBC, The Tsar's Last Picture Show, about the pioneering colour photographer in Tsarist Russia Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky.
Read more about this topic: Orlando Figes
Famous quotes containing the words dance, russian, cultural and/or history:
“When we were at school we were taught to sing the songs of the Europeans. How many of us were taught the songs of the Wanyamwezi or of the Wahehe? Many of us have learnt to dance the rumba, or the cha cha, to rock and roll and to twist and even to dance the waltz and foxtrot. But how many of us can dance, or have even heard of the gombe sugu, the mangala, nyang’umumi, kiduo, or lele mama?”
—Julius K. Nyerere (b. 1922)
“...I never drink wine ... I keep my hands soft and supple ... I sleep in a soft bed and never over-tire my body. It is because when my hour strikes I must be a perfect instrument. My eyes must be steady, my brain clear, my nerves calm, my aim true. I must be prepared to do my work, successfully if God wills. But if I perish, I perish.”
—Lisa, Russian terrorist (anonymous)
“They’re semiotic phantoms, bits of deep cultural imagery that have split off and taken on a life of their own, like those Jules Verne airships that those old Kansas farmers were always seeing.... Semiotic ghosts. Fragments of the Mass Dream, whirling past in the wind of my passage.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)