In War's Dark Shadow

Book excerpt: The shadow of war that settled upon Russia's western frontier in 1914 darkened one of the most turbulent and exciting eras in Russian history. In War's Dark Shadow, W. Bruce Lincoln brilliantly tells the story of Russia's entry into the twentieth century. In a profoundly dramatic exploration, Lincoln portrays a vast empire on the eve of World War I: the relocation of hundreds of thousands of peasants from backward villages to wretched urban slums; the creation of a new class of wealthy industrialists; the swelling ranks of revolutionary terrorists; the brutal persecution of Jews in the most anti-Semitic society before Nazi Germany; and the birth of a revolutionary intelligentsia that created some of the most exciting and vibrant art Russia had ever produced. Based on voluminous first hand accounts taken from libraries and archives in St. Petersburg, Moscow, New York, London, Paris, and Helsinki, Lincoln creates a fascinating portrait of the enormous change and devastation that crushed Russian society from 1891 to 1914, making the Revolution of 1917 all but inevitable.