Many thanks to Elana for enquiring about yours truly and the ongoing Russian work! It is heart-warming to know that one is not being forgotten even as one is guilty of protracted silence.
This Russian adventure has taken on proportions far beyond what I had expected. What I had planned to be one or two books will have to be four. There is such a phenomenal amount of new information to digest, of controversy to sift through, of ignorance and disinformation in the west… it’s a humbling task. I have been on an intense discovery journey, an emotional and spiritual journey too. Much of it feels as though I am in a detective story, ferreting out clues… that lead to new rabbit-holes.
So much has been occulted, omitted, falsified, slandered.
Russians have had a steep re-learning curve themselves, in the thirty-five years since the fall of the USSR. Historians have been doing gigantic work in the necessary effort to clear out all sorts of falsehood, so I’ve been reading tens of thousands of pages, and shall be reading tens of thousands more in the next few (or several?) years.
My excellent, history-cognizant, Russian beta-readers tell me that they are discovering loads of things of which they had no idea, and being compelled to reflect about ‘who they are as Russians’. They ask some pointed questions too, thanks to which I go back and clean up.
All sorts of many-shaped questions and comments from an English beta-reader (who will recognize herself), who has also provided infusions of ebullient energy (received with gratitude).
Anyway, book one is nearly done, I’m doing a pre-final deep re-write. This crazy endeavor has taken me into completely new territory, and now I understand why I had to do my previous two books.
This is not a history of Russia - I am not a historian. I am putting together a ‘story of Russia’ from the perspective of the people (you know, the reputedly ‘silent non-actors of history’, who in Russia were anything but that), through my grassroots anthropological lens (with a dash of the natural human esoteric).
There is so much of that story that reveals what other peoples have experienced too, but over longer time periods that have blurred awareness, hence made us easier to manipulate.
At this point, the initial one-book project has morphed into this work plan:
book 1 - Russia 17th - 19th centuries
book 2 - USSR
book 3 - post-Soviet
book 4 - ‘everything up to 16th century’
either in book 4 or separate book 5 - deciphering the ancient folk culture
Yikes. But I am increasingly convinced that we need to know these things. Russia holds a certain human key.
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