Yury Arabov is a prose writer, poet, and screenwriter; the author of the books “Big Beat” (Apollo Grigoriev main prize), “Mechanics of Fate,” “Flagellants,” “Miracle,” “Orleans” (shortlisted for the BIG BOOK prize), and the poetry collections “Air,” “Earth”; he has been awarded the “Triumph” prize, the Boris Pasternak prize, and the Cannes Festival prize for the screenplay of Alexander Sokurov’s film “Moloch.”
“Collision with a Butterfly” is a dream novel, a paradox novel. How might the history of twentieth-century Russia have turned out if its main actors had been able to come to terms, to compromise? The settings are Zurich, Petrograd, Helsingfors; the characters seem familiar to everyone, yet seen from an unusual angle — Lenin, Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, Tsarevich Alexei, Matilda Kshesinskaya, and — of course — the Russian people…