Mother Russia by Bernice Rubens: book review

Mother Russia (1992) is a fictional historical love story set in Russia during the time of the Tsarist regime and revolution, finishing with the Gorbachev government. Anna Larionova is the daughter of a Count and Sasha Volynin is the son of a peasant.

The novel starts with Count Fyodor Larionov, a land owner, about to commit suicide due to the rumours of dissent and revolution by the workers on his estate. He had had enough.

The novel explores the life of Fyodor’s daughter and who supports or doesn’t support her love of a peasant boy from the neighbour’s farm. Sasha becomes a poet and novelist, while his brother Ivan becomes a ruthless Soviet commisar who believes that ‘the Cause is greater than the people.’ Anna and Sasha’s love is challenged by personal tragedies, political events, and violent family rejections.

The novel is about the human capacity to love through adversity and resentment. But there are intriguing moral dilemmas and ambiguities which reveal the actions of optimistic lovers and pessimistic doubters.

The novel is fraught with tension, which is depicted through conversation and also through non-communication – those in the family who do not speak to each other. There are historical themes, such as Jewish history, Russian culture, aristocracy and communism, religion and marriage, and ongoing political changes.

The Booker Prize winning author Bernice Rubens (1928-2004) presents a factual account of Russian history throughout the novel. Although born in Cardiff, Wales, her father was a Russian Jew. She worked at the University of Wales and as a freelance film director and script writer. Her best-known book is probably Madame Sousatzka (1962), made into a film by John Schlesinger, starring Shirley Maclaine.

As dense as War and Peace, with an exceptionally small font, this novel takes awhile to get into, but once in, there’s no turning back. This novel is a terrific epic read.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).