The Mystery of Olga Chekhova: A Life Torn Apart By Revolution And War

(Paperback)

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Olga Chekhova was a stunning Russian beauty and a famous Nazi-era film actress who Hitler counted among his friends; she was also the niece of Anton Chekhov. After fleeing Bolshevik Moscow for Berlin in 1920, she was recruited by her composer brother Lev, to work for Soviet intelligence. In return, her family were allowed to join her. The extraordinary story of how the whole family survived the Russian Revolution, the civil war, the rise of Hitler, the Stalinist Terror, and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union becomes, in Antony Beevor's hands, a breathtaking tale of compromise and survival in a merciless age.

Reviews

Compelling . . . as engaging a read as Stalingrad and Berlin * Guardian *
Fascinating. An intricate, gracefully told and often moving social history of a talented family in times of revolution, civil war, dictatorship and world conflict -- Rachel Polonsky * New Statesman *
A fascinating spy story, a delicious entertainment, a compelling investigation -- Simon Sebag-Montefiore * Evening Standard *
An extraordinary drama of exile and espionage -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *
Beevor uses the story to evoke a world - the vague ideological borderlands of Nazism and Communism -- Felipe Fernndez-Armesto * The Times *
Antony Beevor, one of the finest narrative military historians now writing, is a master of revealing vignettes -- Eliot A. Cohen * New York Times *
A true story that is dramatic, evocative, and well worth unearthing * Observer *

Author Bio

Antony Beevor's latest book is Ardennes 1944 - Hitler's Last Gamble. He is the author of Crete - The Battle and the Resistance, (Runciman Prize), Stalingrad, (Samuel Johnson Prize, Wolfson Prize for History and Hawthornden Prize for Literature), Berlin - The Downfall, The Battle for Spain (Premio La Vanguardia), and D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, (Prix Henry Malherbe and the Royal United Services Institute Westminster Medal). His next work The Second World War was another No. 1 international bestseller. His books have appeared in more than thirty languages and have sold more than six and a half million copies. According to the Bookseller, 'Beevor is the bestselling historian of the BookScan era'. A former chairman of the Society of Authors, he has received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Kent, Bath, East Anglia and York, and he is also a visiting professor at the University of Kent. In 2014, he received the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.