We specialize in hard to find items
All Categories
The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation
Share Tweet
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About The Last Man In Russia: The Struggle To Save A
Product Description Russia is dying from within. Oligarchs and oil barons may still dominate international news coverage, but their prosperity masks a deep-rooted demographic tragedy. Faced with staggering population decline—and near-certain economic collapse—driven by toxic levels of alcohol abuse, Russia is also battling a deeper sickness: a spiritual one, born out of the country’s long totalitarian experiment. In The Last Man in Russia, award-winning journalist Oliver Bullough uses the tale of a lone priest to give life to this national crisis. Father Dmitry Dudko, a dissident Orthodox Christian, was thrown into a Stalinist labor camp for writing poetry. Undaunted, on his release in the mid-1950s he began to preach to congregations across Russia with little concern for his own safety. At a time when the Soviet government denied its subjects the prospect of advancement, and turned friend against friend and brother against brother, Dudko urged his followers to cling to hope. He maintained a circle of sacred trust at the heart of one of history’s most deceitful systems. But as Bullough reveals, this courageous group of believers was eventually shattered by a terrible act of betrayal—one that exposes the full extent of the Communist tragedy. Still, Dudko’s dream endures. Although most Russians have forgotten the man himself, the embers of hope that survived the darkness are once more beginning to burn. Leading readers from a churchyard in Moscow to the snow-blanketed ghost towns of rural Russia, and from the forgotten graves of Stalin’s victims to a rock festival in an old gulag camp, The Last Man in Russia is at once a travelogue, a sociological study, a biography, and a cri de coeur for a dying nation—one that, Bullough shows, might yet be saved. From Booklist Russia’s population is plummeting for various reasons, alcohol abuse among them. Statistics on the problem sprinkle this work, and Bullough seeks out explanations that he develops through recent travels in Russia in biographical pursuit of one man, Dmitry Dudko (1922–2004). He was an Orthodox priest whose life span and experiences roughly reflected major events of the Soviet era: collectivization, WWII, the gulag, and the dissident movement. As Bullough journeys to Dudko’s birthplace, seminary, churches, and gravesite in Moscow, and the Arctic sites of his gulag, he portrays Dudko’s character through recollections of acquaintances and Dudko’s underground writings. Able to attract and inspire congregations, Dudko offered hope and mutual trust through an antialcohol message. Unfortunately, Dudko’s popularity also attracted the KGB, which harassed Dudko until he did its bidding. Though not sympathetic to Dudko’s collapse, which he contrasts with the stories of dissidents who went to prison in the 1970s, Bullough portrays it as a result of the waythe Soviet state atomized society and drove it to drink. An inquisitive traveler, Bullough conveys a vividly descriptive impression of contemporary Russia. --Gilbert Taylor Review "PRI's" "The World" Best Books of 2014 Bullough is a great writer, and anyone who's traveled in Russia will appreciate his deft handling of the surreal scenes one sometimes encounters in the world's largest country. "New York Times Book Review" Bullough is a wonderful companion as he traces the course of Father Dudko s life, visiting the miserable settlements and prisons he left behind.... By the end of the book, you, too, will want to drink shots of vodka with him. These are the chronicles of a writer who truly knows Russia, and who is not beyond having his heart broken. Amid the reams of writing coming from experts in the offices of distant research organizations, there are too few accounts like Bullough s, which convey the deep stories in the lives of Russians. He has unearthed a story of remarkable relevance for today: about the man who walked out of Lefortovo Prison with his hatred of a disintegrating system transformed into a hatred
