Quotes from Simon Sebag Montefiore

Historians are bad prophets but good at prophesying the future when they already know what happened.

and sprang well from her bed." Helena

Notes on Names, Transliterations and Titles This book inevitably contains a challenging diversity of names, languages and questions of transliteration. It is for general readers, so my policy is to use the most accessible and familiar names. I apologize to purists who are offended by these decisions.

When Polina Molotova, mistress of the perfume industry, boasted to Stalin that she was wearing her latest product, Red Moscow, Stalin sniffed: 'That's why you smell so nice,' he said.

Come on, Joseph,' interrupted Zhenya. 'She smells of Chanel No. 5!' Afterwards, Zhenya realized she had made a mistake:

Stalin personally controlled a 'Soviet Hollywood' through the State Film Board, run by Boris Shumiatsky with whom he had been in exile. Stalin did not merely interfere in movies, he minutely supervised the directors and films down to their scripts: his archive reveals how he even helped write the songs.

scripts: his archive reveals how he even helped write the songs.

spoken to Malamore like this, ever. He wheeled around towards Dirlewanger,

President Vladimir Putin's grandfather was a chef at one of Stalin's houses and revealed nothing to his grandson: 'My grandfather kept pretty quiet about his past life.' As a boy, he recalled bringing food to Rasputin. He then cooked for Lenin. He was clearly Russia's most world-historical chef since he served Lenin, Stalin and the Mad Monk.

There are two lines here: one holds a course for victory of revolution…the other doesn't believe in revolution and counts merely on staying as an opposition…

5 THE POET AND THE PRIESTHOOD The boy of sixteen from Gori, accustomed to the freedom of fighting in the streets or climbing Gorijvari, now found himself locked for virtually every hour of the day in an institution that more resembled the most repressive nineteenth-century English public-school than a religious academy:

poor as Soso, found themselves among the 'arrogant sons of wealthy parents.27 We felt like the chosen few,' wrote Iremashvili, because the seminary was 'the source of Georgian intellectual life, with its historical grounds in a seemingly perfect civilisation'.

that, she thought, was the quiet crime of these times: if you made your conscience elastic enough, you could learn to tolerate anything and still find joy in the blossoming of flowers.

1894-5, he won straight 5s (A grades) for Georgian singing and language and scores like 4, 5, 4, 5 in scripture. He was a model student, earning an 'excellent 5' for behaviour.

Next he placed on his head the fur-rimmed Crown (or Cap) of Monomakh, embellished with rubies and emeralds, and handed him the orb and sceptre. Michael sat on the throne of Monomakh. The Cap had never been owned by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomakh who gave it his name, but was a royal Mongol helmet, adapted in the fourteenth century, while the wooden throne, carved with lions and Byzantine scenes, had actually been built for Ivan the Terrible.

Young Stalin Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar Potemkin: Catherine the Great's Imperial Partner

The tsar was so sacred that no one was allowed to look him in the eye, and he was greeted by his subjects with total prostration. If he was bled by doctors, the blood was blessed and buried in a special blood pit to prevent sorcery.

twenties, served as his judge in 1937 and even denounced a

Beneath the eerie calm of these unfathomable waters were deadly whirlpools of ambition, anger and unhappiness.

An effective tsar could be harsh provided he was consistently harsh. Rulers are often killed not for brutality but for inconsistency.

Pentru un credincios, Biblia este pur ?i simplu rodul revela?iei divine. Pentru un istoric, este o surs? contradictorie, nesigur?, repetitiv?5, ?i totu?i de o inestimabil? valoare, adesea singura disponibil? — dar în acela?i timp este prima ?i cea mai m?rea?? istorie a Ierusalimului.

Jerusalem is the house of the one God, the capital of two peoples, the temple of three religions and she is the only city to exist twice - in heaven and on earth: the peerless grace of the terrestrial is as nothing to the glories of the celestial.

offend the Church was unwise, to mock old courtiers and women imprudent, to insult Catherine foolish and to outrage the Guards simply insane – to do all of these was suicidal. Frederick

Marx wrote that 'History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.' This was witty but far from true. History is never repeated, but it borrows, steals, echoes and commandeers the past to create a hybrid, something unique out of the ingredients of past and present. No