One Night in Winter

The fictional celebrity couple of writer Constantin Romashkin and the film star Sophia ‘Mouche’ Zeitlin are inspired partly by the experiences of the real film stars Tatiana Okunevskaya and Valentina Serova. The latter was married to Constantin Simonov, famed poet and Soviet official. As I explained above, Okunevskaya suffered bitterly at the hands of Beria and Abakumov. Serova was luckier but had an affair with Vasily Stalin. Their stories appear in many books, including Simonov’s own autobiography, but is told best in Orlango Figes’ excellent book The Whisperers.

On women in government: one inaccuracy. Stalin distrusted women – and doctors – and never promoted any female to be a full minister, though there were several leaders’ wives serving as deputy ministers in his government, including the wives of Politburo members Molotov and Andreyev. Both women were dismissed at least partly for their Jewish origins. Like Dashka Dorova, Polina Molotova was ultimately arrested and divorced by her husband. On her return from prison after Stalin’s death, she too returned to her marriage.

The details of daily life, school life and bureaucracy are also accurate but I have telescoped some of the dates for the purposes of my story. For example, the conversion of People’s Commissariats to Ministries – so that the secret police changed from the NKGB to the MGB and the NKVD became the MVD – was a little later in 1946, as was the promotion of Vasily Stalin to general; the granting of military ranks to secret policemen; the sacking of Merkulov as MGB Minister and his replacement by Abakumov; and the real Aviators’ Case. The real Children’s Case actually took place in 1943. The full story of the history behind this novel can be found in my Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar but I also recommend Anne Applebaum’s Gulag and Orlando Figes’ The Whisperers and Just Send Me Word, both of which contain many examples of the sort of stories told in this novel and Sashenka.

About the Author

Simon Sebag Montefiore’s history books are world-wide bestsellers, and are published in over 40 languages. Catherine the Great & Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson, Duff Cooper, and Marsh Biography Prizes. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the History Book of the Year Prize at the British Book Awards. Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Award (UK), the LA Times Book Prize for Biography (USA), Le Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique (France) and the Kreisky Prize for Political Literature (Austria), and is currently being developed as a TV mini-series. Jerusalem: The Biography won the Jewish Book of the Year Prize (USA) and was number one bestseller in the UK. He is the presenter of the BBC TV series Jerusalem, Making of a Holy City 2011 and Rome, History of the Eternal City.

A Visiting Professor at Buckingham University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he lives in London with his wife, the novelist Santa Montefiore, and their two children. For more information, see: www.simonsebagmontefiore.com

Also by Simon Sebag Montefiore

FICTION

Sashenka

NON-FICTION

Jerusalem: The Biography

Catherine the Great and Potemkin

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Young Stalin

Titans of History

Copyright

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Epub ISBN: 9781448150014

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Copyright © Simon Sebag Montefiore 2013

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Map © Neil Gower 2013

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

First published in Great Britain in 2013 by

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