The Siege of Reality

The title (Natasha's Dance) of Orlando Figes' brilliant panorama of Russian culture, in eight thematic chapters from Pushkin to Stravinsky, derives from a tense scene in Tolstoy's War and Peace (1869). Natasha Rostov, filigree product of the European (largely French) education favoured by the Russian aristocracy, finds herself with her brother in the home of a distant relative who has embraced the 'narod' and taken a serf wife, as many Russian intellectuals were to do after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Once the homely meal is finished, 'Uncle' strikes up a melody on his guitar, and although Natasha has never learned to dance in the Russian way, this slim, graceful, French-speaking countess finds herself, to her relief and general applause, doing 'the right thing'. She dances with perfect atavistic poise.