Modern Biographies – serie

The political and social turmoil of the twentieth century took Magda Nachman from a privileged childhood in St. Petersburg at the close of the nineteenth century, artistic studies with Léon Bakst and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin at the Zvantseva Art Academy, and participation in the dynamic symbolist/modernist artistic ferment in pre-Revolutionary Russia to a refugee existence in the Russian countryside during the Russian Civil War followed by marriage to a prominent Indian nationalist, then with her husband to the hardships of émigré Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s, and finally to Bombay, where she established herself as an important artist and a mentor to a new generation of modern Indian artists.

“An epic tale of Bernstein’s passionate search for Magda Nachman, an artist whose life was an achievement on the order of her marvelous painting. Biography at its finest, Magda Nachman: An Artist in Exile draws the reader along on a gripping and rewarding saga that takes the teller from Russia to Berlin to London to Bombay, to find an artist who persevered in her art despite almost insurmountable odds...” — Mary V. Dearborn, author of Hemingway: A Biography and Mistress of Modernism: The Life of Peggy GuggenheimThe political and social turmoil of the twentieth century took Magda Nachman from a privileged childhood in St. Petersburg at the close of the nineteenth century, artistic studies with Léon Bakst and Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin at the Zvantseva Art Academy, and participation in the dynamic symbolist/modernist artistic ferment in pre-Revolutionary Russia to a refugee existence in the Russian countryside during the Russian Civil War followed by marriage to a prominent Indian nationalist, then with her husband to the hardships of émigré Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s, and finally to Bombay, where she established herself as an important artist and a mentor to a new generation of modern Indian artists.

Of the many Cold War radio DJs who broadcast to the USSR, Seva Novgorodsev must be near the top of the list. A masterful BBC presenter, Seva was considered a sage of rock ‘n’ roll. His programs introduced forbidden western popular music and culture into the USSR, rendering him an “enemy voice” and ideological saboteur to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Despite KGB threats and constant media pillorying, Seva remained on the air for 38 years, acquiring millions of listeners all across the breadth of the USSR and beyond. He became a cult phenomenon, dismantling the Soviet way of life in the hearts and minds of youth. This is the story of Russia’s first and best-known DJ.

Of the many Cold War radio DJs who broadcast to the USSR, Seva Novgorodsev must be near the top of the list. A masterful BBC presenter, Seva was considered a sage of rock ‘n’ roll. His programs introduced forbidden western popular music and culture into the USSR, rendering him an “enemy voice” and ideological saboteur to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Despite KGB threats and constant media pillorying, Seva remained on the air for 38 years, acquiring millions of listeners all across the breadth of the USSR and beyond. He became a cult phenomenon, dismantling the Soviet way of life in the hearts and minds of youth. This is the story of Russia’s first and best-known DJ.

Roy and Zhores Medvedev, two identical twins with a unique fate, not only lived through a whole century of history, from Stalin to Putin, they wrote and made history. Their research on Stalinism, the first to come out of the Soviet Union in the 1960s-1970s, turned them into famous dissidents overnight, but their criticism of the regime always remained loyal to Soviet power. The story of their lives provides a snapshot into the history of Soviet dissent, from psychiatric hospitalization to forced exile, and from KGB interrogations to collaboration with Western news correspondents. Yet their trajectory was also marred by controversy with fellow dissidents, and in the post-Soviet era active support of authoritarian rulers, including Vladimir Putin.