Solovki: The Story of Russia Told Through Its Most Remarkable Islands

I had to order this book for a Russian History class. My prof is the author of this medium sized factual book and it has been a wonderful read. Full of little histories and facts that make reading easy and pleasant, it is an incredibly insightful look at how Russia has grown into the state it is now. The spiritual facts are introduced with a touch of mysticism, which is paralleled in Russia's orthodox history. A wonderful addition to any Russian history lovers' collection, and a small sample that easily fills for those not familiar.

Very good book about one of the dark chapters in Russian history, but unfortunately there are so many dark chapters in the history of that country!

This book brings the reader into the heart of one of the great holy places of Russian Orthodoxy - the islands of Solovki in the Russian North. Robson is wonderful when writing on Orthodoxy, both as religion and as lived experience. He also vividly evokes the place itself, with its fogs, brillant patches of sunshine, and massive church and prison buildings. Prison? Yes, the monastery was also a prison, both under the tsars and the Soviets. I was especially fascinated by the chapter on the creative explosion that happened in the early years of the gulag, carried out by the prisoners, who included Dmitrii Likhachev, later a revered historian of Russian culture.This book doesn't require any prior knowledge of Russian history and culture. It would be a great gift to give to someone as an introduction to both.

Roy Robson's Solovki is a wonderful book. Robson had the inspired idea to write the history of Russia as reflected in the extraordinary past of the White Sea Solovetskii Island. There more than five hundred years ago two saints established a monastery that became legendary for its beauty, wealth and sanctity. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the monastery became a religious battleground between the state-approved Russian Orthodox and the so-called Old Believers, who considered themselves the true bearers of Orthodox piety and ritual in Russia. In the nineteenth century the monastery was a site of war (it was attacked by British warships during the Crimean war) and of pilgrimage (thousands of simple Russians visited it every year). In the twentieth century, from the early 1920s to 1939, it was the location of an infamous prison camp, described by Solzhenitsyn in the Gulag Archipelago. Today the Orthodox Church has re-established the monastic presence on Solovki and the place has been recognized by the United Nations as an international cultural treasure. Robson's history deftly analyzes each stage in the complex history of Solovki in prose that is a clear as the water of the White Sea on a calm day. The book is a deft portrait by a master craftsman. Splendid!