Mikhail Zygar – författare

A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAROn April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union begins its countdown. From the steppes of Kazakhstan, the first human - Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin - launches into space.In that moment, another countdown begins. How could it be that a single generation - just three decades - would separate the USSR's crowning achievement from the collapse of the Soviet empire?More than a history lesson, The Dark Side of the Earth is a testament to the enduring fight for truth and freedom. In pursuit of the real story, renowned Kremlin opponent Mikhail Zygar ('one of Russia's smartest and best-sourced young journalists' - New York Times) gathered witness statements of jaw-dropping candour from hundreds of key players: the last first secretaries and first presidents of the post-Soviet republics, the leaders of independence movements, Western politicians and diplomats, and Mikhail Gorbachev himself, not to mention dozens of scientists, authors, film directors, aspiring rockstars and ordinary men and women who for a time became the accidental protagonists of history. The end of the USSR set the stage for today's vengeful return. But as Gagarin looked down from the stars at his home world, was Russia's fate already written?

All the Kremlin's Men is a gripping narrative of an accidental king and a court out of control. Based on an unprecedented series of interviews with Vladimir Putin's inner circle, this book presents a radically different view of power and politics in Russia. The image of Putin as a strongman is dissolved. In its place is a weary figurehead buffeted--if not controlled--by the men who at once advise and deceive him.The regional governors and bureaucratic leaders are immovable objects, far more powerful in their fiefdoms than the president himself. So are the gatekeepers-those officials who guard the pathways to power-on whom Putin depends as much as they rely on him. The tenuous edifice is filled with all of the intrigue and plotting of a Medici court, as enemies of the state are invented and wars begun to justify personal gains, internal rivalries, or one faction's biased advantage.A bestseller in Russia, All the Kremlin's Men is a shocking revisionist portrait of the Putin era and a dazzling reconstruction of the machinations of courtiers running riot.

'History is made up of myths,' writes the renowned Russian dissident journalist Mikhail Zygar. 'Alas, our myths led us to the fascism of 2022. It is time to expose them.' Drawing from his perilous career investigating the frontiers of the Russian empire, Zygar reveals how 350 years of propaganda, bad historical scholarship, folk tales and fantasy spurred his nation into war with Ukraine.A noted expert on the Kremlin with unparalleled access to hundreds of players in the current conflict - from politicians to oligarchs, gangsters to comedians (not least Zelensky himself) - Zygar chronicles the power struggles from which today's politics grew, and digs out the essential truths from behind layers of seductive legend. By surveying the strange, complex record of Russo-Ukrainian relations, WAR AND PUNISHMENT reveals exactly how the largest nation on Earth lost its senses. A work of history can't undo the past or transform the present, but sometimes it can shape the future.

A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAROn April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union begins its countdown. From the steppes of Kazakhstan, the first human - Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin - launches into space.In that moment, another countdown begins. How could it be that a single generation - just three decades - would separate the USSR's crowning achievement from the collapse of the Soviet empire?More than a history lesson, The Dark Side of the Earth is a testament to the enduring fight for truth and freedom. In pursuit of the real story, renowned Kremlin opponent Mikhail Zygar ('one of Russia's smartest and best-sourced young journalists' - New York Times) gathered witness statements of jaw-dropping candour from hundreds of key players: the last first secretaries and first presidents of the post-Soviet republics, the leaders of independence movements, Western politicians and diplomats, and Mikhail Gorbachev himself, not to mention dozens of scientists, authors, film directors, aspiring rockstars and ordinary men and women who for a time became the accidental protagonists of history. The end of the USSR set the stage for today's vengeful return. But as Gagarin looked down from the stars at his home world, was Russia's fate already written?

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR'Savage, comic and tragic . . . Brilliant' JOHN CRACE 'One of the most thoughtful Russian writers of our time . . . You may think you know how it all ends, but still, you simply can't put it down'YULIA NAVALNAYA Who won the Cold War? All my life I thought I knew the answer . . .In 1961, the Soviet Union put the first man into space. By 1991, it had disappeared. How could just a single generation separate the apex of a civilisation from its collapse? And what remained stirring in its ruins?Through the lives of that last generation, renowned Kremlin critic Mikhail Zygar reveals the truth about how everything came crashing down. A tale of epic hubris, told with jaw-dropping candour via the memories of its protagonists and victims, this is a masterpiece of narrative history, essential for understanding modern Russia. 'Tells the story with a mordant eye, weaving together the disintegration of Mikhail Gorbachev's reformist ambitions, the implosion of the Soviet economy and the plight of ordinary people'DOMINIC SANDBROOK, TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR'This is history as it should be: written like a novel and brimming with moral urgency. Extraordinary' IAN DUNT 'Pointed, novel, and profoundly relevant' FOREIGN POLICY

The Empire Must Die portrays the vivid drama of Russia's brief and exotic experiment with civil society before it was swept away by the despotism of the Communist Revolution. The window between two equally stifling autocracies - the imperial family and the communists - was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. In Europe, the Ballet Russe was the height of chic. Novelists and playwrights blossomed, political ideas were swapped in coffee houses and St Petersburg felt briefly like Vienna or Paris. The state, however couldn't tolerate such experimentation against the backdrop of a catastrophic war and a failing economy. The autocrats moved in and the liberals were overwhelmed. This story seems to have strangely prescient echoes of the present.