The Invasion

«The Invasion» by Yulia Yakovleva is a mystical thriller in the setting of classical Russian literature of the 19th century.

On the eve of Napoleon’s army invasion of Russia, life in the Smolensk Governorate goes on as usual. But a sinister spirit of war already hangs in the air. And when, in the forest of the local landowner Burmin, they find something terrible, things take a grim turn. Burmin himself—an 1805 veteran of the first Russian war against Napoleon and the battle of Austerlitz—returns home completely different. Now he suffers from strange seizures, his sense of smell sharpens, his own body stops obeying him, and on top of all that, he has memory lapses. Hiding his new nature, Burmin spends years in seclusion until a chance meeting with his old love awakens old feelings in him. Encouraged, Burmin returns to society, and is immediately pulled into a swirl of events that will forever change not only his life, but the life of all Russia.

In «The Invasion», Yulia Yakovleva masterfully combines the stylistics of 19th-century Russian prose with elements of mysticism. Her 1812 world is a world of secrets and riddles, of oppression and suffering, of intrigues and revelations.