"The Whisperers" by Orlando Figes is a fine work of scholarship and a deeply moving account of private life in Stalin's Russia.
It is curious, therefore, that Figes or his wife and fellow academic - for the authorship is not quite clear - should choose to rubbish the work of other historians of Russia and the former Soviet Union through anonymous reviews.
However, academia has always been something of a cloak and dagger profession, as reflected in the murder mystery campus novel genre.
Incidentally, I'm sure that Stalin would have enjoyed the furore unleashed by the unmasking of Figes; and the episode reminds us that the darker side of the human psyche, with its rivalries and resentments, is never too far away.
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