Orlando Figes

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Orlando Figes (IPA pronunciation: [faɪdʒæs]) (born 1959) is a British historian of Russia, and a professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London.

Contents

[edit] Overview

Figes is the son of the feminist writer Eva Figes. His sister is the author and editor Kate Figes. He read History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating with a rare double-starred First in 1982. He was a Lecturer in History at Cambridge University from 1987 to 1999, before taking up the Chair of History at Birkbeck College, University of London.

He is known for his works on Russian history, specifically A People's Tragedy (1996), Natasha's Dance (2002) and The Whisperers (2007) [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Figes borrows from a broad range of methodologies, including social, cultural and oral history, and his writing combines literary and academic qualities.

A People's Tragedy, translated into twenty languages, is a study of the Russian Revolution and combines social and political history with biographical details in a historical narrative.

Figes also writes for the international press, broadcasts on TV and the radio, and reviews books for the New York Review of Books. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.[1]

[edit] Oral History

Figes has made a significant contribution to the development of oral history in Russia. With the Memorial Society, he gathered several hundred private family archives from homes across Russia and interviewed thousands of survivors of the Stalinist repressions for his book The Whisperers. Housed in the Memorial Society in Moscow, St Petersburg and Perm, many of these valuable research materials are available on line at www.orlandofiges.com.

He has claimed that oral testimonies are, on the whole, 'more reliable than literary memoires'. The reason he gives is that 'unlike a book, [oral testimony] can be cross-examined and tested against other evidence to disentangle true memories from received or imagined ones'.[2]

[edit] Prizes

[edit] Works

  • Peasant Russia, Civil War: The Volga Countryside in Revolution, 1917-21, 1989, ISBN 0-19-822169-X
  • A People's Tragedy: Russian Revolution 1891-1924, 1996, ISBN 0-7126-7327-X
  • With Boris Kolonitskii: Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917, 1999, ISBN 0-300-08106-5
  • Natasha's Dance: A cultural History of Russia, 2002, ISBN 0-14-029796-0
  • The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, 2007, ISBN 0-0805074619

[edit] Sources

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ RSL website
  2. ^ The Whisperers (London 2007)p636
 This article about a British historian or genealogist is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.