A new novel by Sergey Samsonov— a revived “Ister n” (Western) style written at the very limit of historical accuracy: a sweeping epic about the roots of violence and evil in the Russian character and in human nature, about the destructiveness of power and salvation found in love, about an utopian dream and the blood one has to pay for it.
The Russian Civil War became a dark page in the history of a huge country. In just a few years, between ten and seventeen million people died, according to different estimates. And two million left the country forever because they didn’t share the views of the new власть.
Sergey was still very young when war came to his native land. Whether he wants it or not, he will have to become part of this confrontation—and even play not the least role in it. He saw how revolution and war change people: how ordinary warrant officers become aristocrats, how soldiers are promoted to officers, merely by respecting commanders and obeying their orders blindly. But this is not his path. He is a lone chekist, for whom, day by day, it becomes harder to understand where goodness ends and evil begins. If things continue like this, by the end of the war there will be no black and no white—only an empty grayness smelling of blood and gunpowder. He can’t allow that!