empire
- the romanovs: autocrats of all the russias - w bruce lincoln and romanovs - simon sebag montefiore - i recommend a book that covers all the romanovs/emperors before going in depth on specific rulers to get a better concept of the timeline of russian history and how each era influenced the next. The SSB is easier to read but the lincoln is more polished.
- russia: 1000 year history of the wild east - martin sixsmith - a good general history, but it breezes through most of russian history and focuses mostly on the revolution/soviet era.
- ivan the terrible - henri troyat
- st petersburg - jonathan miles
- peter the great - robert k massie
- catherine and potemkin - simon sebag montefiore - anything SSB is a good read!
- russia against napoleon - dominic lieven
- crimea - orlando figes
- nicholas and alexandra - robert k massie
- the house of the dead: siberian exile under the tsars - daniel beer
- red fortress - catherine merridale - a history of the moscow kremlin
soviet
- a people's tragedy: the russian revolution - orlando figes - a good, not too long primer on the russian revolution to get to know the major players, events, and context in russia at the time.
- young stalin - simon sebag montefiore
- russia in flames - laura engelstein
- the empire must die: revolutionary russia - mikhail zygar
- ivan's war: russia in wwii - catherine merridale
- stalin: inside the court of the red tsar - simon sebag montefiore
- red plenty: inside the 50's soviet union - francis spufford
- red famine: stalin's war in ukraine - anne applebaum
current
- empires apart: a history of american and russian imperialism - brian landern
- oligarchs: wealth and power in the new russia - david hoffman
(most modern books about russia/putin are rubbish tbh)
cultural/general
- natasha's dance: a cultural history of russia - orlando figes
- land of the firebird - suzanne massie
- pavlovsk: life of a castle - suzanne massie
- russian magic tales from pushkin to platonov (penguin classic book)
- master and margarita - mikhail bulgakov (novel)
- the bronze horseman - alexander puskhin (poem)
- the zhivago affair - peter finn
- bolshoi confidential - simon morrison history of russian ballet
- the gates of europe - serhii plokhy - a history of ukraine
- russians: the people behind the power - gregory feifer
jan 3 2019 ∞
jan 3 2019 +