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Russian history expert Douglas Smith tells the story of the nobility caught up in the Bolshevik revolution. Smith draws on the archives of two great families, the Sheremetovs and Golitsyns, to tell the full story for the first time. It is a story of how a centuries-old wealthy elite, famed for its promotion of the arts and culture, was destroyed in an orgy of looted palaces, burned estates, exile and execution. But it is also a story of how many of its members managed to survive and find a place in Soviet Russia.

Smith is a resident scholar at the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies and an internationally recognised expert in Russian history. His previous books include The Pearl: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in Catherine the Great’s Russia.