Against My Will

A captivating Leningrad saga about life in the famous Tolstoy House continues. Old apartments hold countless secrets. If you listen closely, you can hear echoes of ringing laughter, angry disputes, and heartbreaking tears. The children grow up and start living on their own, but their parents’ lives continue too. In the heroes’ destinies, an entire era is reflected, and in their problems—the trials that the whole country went through, standing on the threshold of sweeping changes. The novel takes place in the Tolstoy House, where the writer herself also lives. In this famous house in Saint Petersburg—between Rubinstein Street and Fontanka—for more than a hundred years since its construction, many outstanding figures from culture, science, and politics have lived.

Elena Kolina writes: “The characters are written into a real place known for the beauty and high cost of the apartments in the Tolstoy House, but their personal lives are invented. Some characters hold specific positions, but only because the director of a film studio in Neva’s city can only be the director of Lenfilm, and the secretary of the district committee cannot be secretary of any other district committee at all. Real people appearing among the characters are mentioned exclusively in the context of the author’s personal experience—when writing this book, the author himself was surprised: it turns out everyone studied together or taught children together, they saw each other at children’s birthdays, signed documents with each other. Sometimes there are minor chronological inaccuracies necessary for the novel’s action… In general, all coincidences are accidental; all characters are fictional.”

Listen to the Leningrad saga in a vivid performance by the talented Marina Lisovets.