Most professional historians who write books tend to write nonfiction works in their particular field of study. Simon Sebag Montefiore has not only done that with his studies in Russian history, his biographies of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin were both award-winning bestsellers. Montefiore has since decided to apply his knowledge to the world of historical fiction. And while he may not find the same success with his first novel, Sashenka, his skills as a historian are fully on display and put to use.
We first meet the title character, Sashenka Zeitlin, in 1916, the 16-year-old daughter of a wealthy Jewish arms merchant in St. Petersburg. While her father has ties to the Tsarist regime and her mother socializes with Rasputin, Sashenka has been captivated by Marxism. Her uncle trains her to become a Bolshevik operative who, among other things, is encouraged to try to turn a high-ranking police official into a double agent — who intends to do the same with her. By the time the Tsarist regime falls, Sashenka becomes a secretary for Lenin.
Montefiore then takes us to 1939. Sashenka has become the model Soviet woman. She and her husband, an official in the NKVD, are among the Communist upper echelon who have survived Stalin's "Great Terror." Even though Stalin himself is a guest in their dacha, they ultimately discover that the end of mass purges doesn't render even loyal longtime Communists immune from the whims of Stalin and his secret police apparatus When we last see Sashenka in this section of the book, she is writing a confession in the NKVD's Lubyanka Prison.
The novel concludes in 1994, after the fall of the Soviet Union. A young Russian historian is hired to solve the mystery of what ultimately became of Sashenka and her family. This is actually where Montiefore's fiction talents are at their best. He manages to turn a plot based largely on someone digging through Communist archives — both open and closed — into a rather gripping story. This undoubtedly reflects what Montiefore himself has been through in writing his biographies of Stalin and enables him to turn a young female historian into a sleuth whose efforts have a surprising resolution.
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