The Taking of Izmail

This novel was recognized as the best book of 2000, and its author received the Booker Prize. This is a mystery novel, a novel of mystery—indeed, intrigue is already contained in the very title, because the work relates to a well-known military-historical event least of all. “The Taking of Izmail” is not at all like a canonical historical novel, although it is based on events from our past. Pre-revolutionary criminal court—and right away scenes from the Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev eras. Its characters are real and fictional, typical; contemporary vocabulary and Old Slavic stylizations—it's as if the author emphasizes the equal value for Russia of all times and events, their complete mutual interpenetration.