Background
Orlando Guy Figes was born on November 20, 1959, in Islington, United Kingdom. Figes is the son of John George Figes and Eva Figes.
Highgate, London NW5 1RN, United Kingdom
William Ellis School
Trinity St, Cambridge CB2 1TA, UK
Gonville and Caius College
College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
Trinity College
Malet St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX, UK
Birkbeck College, University of London
Highgate, London NW5 1RN, United Kingdom
William Ellis School
Trinity St, Cambridge CB2 1TA, UK
Gonville and Caius College
College Green, Dublin 2, Ireland
Trinity College
Malet St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX, UK
Birkbeck College, University of London
(A comprehensive, one-volume account of the Russian Revolu...)
A comprehensive, one-volume account of the Russian Revolution covers every moment, from the end of the nineteenth century to the death of Lenin, and explores how Russian pre-revolution social forces were violently erased and replaced.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670859168/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(This is the first book in any language to offer a compreh...)
This is the first book in any language to offer a comprehensive analysis of the political culture of the Russian Revolution.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300081065/?tag=2022091-20
1999
(From the award-winning author of A People's Tragedy and N...)
From the award-winning author of A People's Tragedy and Natasha's Dance, a landmark account of what private life was like for Russians in the worst years of Soviet repression.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009E7GVLW/?tag=2022091-20
2008
(In this masterly history, Orlando Figes reconstructs the ...)
In this masterly history, Orlando Figes reconstructs the first full conflagration of modernity, a global industrialized struggle fought with unusual ferocity and incompetence.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004QGY3YI/?tag=2022091-20
2011
(In Natasha's Dance, internationally renowned historian Or...)
In Natasha's Dance, internationally renowned historian Orlando Figes does the same for Russian culture, summoning the myriad elements that formed a nation and held it together. Beginning in the eighteenth century with the building of St. Petersburg--a "window on the West"--and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself--its character, spiritual essence, and destiny.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HY0709S/?tag=2022091-20
2014
(In this elegant and incisive account, Orlando Figes offer...)
In this elegant and incisive account, Orlando Figes offers an illuminating new perspective on the Russian Revolution.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FILC2DO/?tag=2022091-20
2014
editor educator historian writer
Orlando Guy Figes was born on November 20, 1959, in Islington, United Kingdom. Figes is the son of John George Figes and Eva Figes.
Figes attended William Ellis School in north London from 1971 to 1978 and graduated from Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge in 1982. He also completed his doctorate at Trinity College in Cambridge in 1984.
Figes started his career as a fellow and lecturer in history at Trinity College in Cambridge from 1984 to 1999 before he succeeded Richard J. Evans as professor of history at Birkbeck College, the University of London. Currently, he also serves on the editorial board of the journal Russian History, writes for the international press, broadcasts on television and radio and reviews for the New York Review of Books.
Figes has also contributed frequently to radio and television broadcasts in the United Kingdom and around the world. In 1999 he wrote a six-part educational TV series on the history of Communism under the title Red Chapters. In 2003 he wrote and presented a TV feature documentary for the BBC, The Tsar's Last Picture Show and in 2007 he wrote and presented two 60-minute Archive Hour programmes on radio entitled Stalin's Silent People.
During his career, Figes was also the historical consultant on the 2012 film Anna Karenina, directed by Joe Wright, and the historical consultant on the 2016 BBC War & Peace television series directed by Tom Harper with a screenplay by Andrew Davies.
Orlando Figes is best known as the author of eight books on Russia that have been translated into over thirty languages. They include A People's Tragedy (1996), Natasha's Dance (2002), The Whisperers (2007), Crimea (2010) and Just Send Me Word (2012).
Natasha's Dance and The Whisperers were both short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize, making Figes the only writer to have been short-listed twice for this prize. The Whisperers was also short-listed for the Ondaatje Prize, the Prix Médicis, and the Premio Roma.
Figes' The Whisperers was adapted and performed by Rupert Wickham as Stalin's Favourite. Based on Figes' portrayal of the writer Konstantin Simonov, the play was performed in the National Theatre in London followed by a season of performances at the Unicorn Theatre in London.
(A comprehensive, one-volume account of the Russian Revolu...)
1997(In Natasha's Dance, internationally renowned historian Or...)
2014(In this masterly history, Orlando Figes reconstructs the ...)
2011(From the award-winning author of A People's Tragedy and N...)
2008(This is the first book in any language to offer a compreh...)
1999(In this elegant and incisive account, Orlando Figes offer...)
2014Figes has been critical of the Vladimir Putin government, in particular allegations that Putin has attempted to rehabilitate Joseph Stalin and impose his own agenda on history-teaching in Russian schools and universities.
In December 2013 Figes wrote a long piece in the US journal Foreign Affairs on the Euromaidan demonstrations in Kiev suggesting that a referendum on Ukraine's foreign policy and the country's possible partition might be a preferable alternative to the possibility of civil war and military intervention by Russia.
Figes is married to human rights lawyer Stephanie Palmer. They have two daughters, Lydia and Alice.
