{
    "id": 354652,
    "slug": "ball-gowns-and-bolsheviks-eugenie-ussakovskaya",
    "nstc": null,
    "title": "Ball gowns and Bolsheviks",
    "subtitle": "An autobiographical novel",
    "collection_title": null,
    "collection_part_number": null,
    "annotation": null,
    "description": "The heroine and narrator of the story is Eug\u00e9nie (Genia) , born in 1897 into a noble family in the Russia of the last tsar. She describes the lavish parties and entertainment during the winter seasons in St. Petersburg and the long, lazy summers on the family estate in Samara. This compelling novel brims with entrancing  detail: the first ball gown, courtship, etiquette, the tango craze, sleigh rides, boat trips on the Volga and holidays in the Crimea. It\u2019s like glancing through an old photograph album, evoking a bygone era and a vanished world.\nTalk during sumptuous dinners with aristocratic friends and family turns to political and social issues, such as the growing unrest, the desirability of radical reforms, Rasputin and other court intrigues.\nMeanwhile, the modern age advances with electric light, the gramophone and the telephone, with  cars superseding coaches.\nWorld War II, the Russian revolution and the fall of the Romanov dynasty put an end to the privileged existence of the nobility.\nAfter the communist takeover of power, G\u00e9nia finds herself in prison, where Lenin's secret police attempt, unsuccessfully, to recruit her as an informant. On her release, she decides to flee the country via Siberia with her lover, leaving her homeland forever.  \nThis autobiographical novel is based on the life of Eug\u00e9nie Usakovskaya (1897-1997), a member of a prominent Russian noble family, who fled to Shanghai after the 1917 revolution. It has been edited and translated by Janine Jager, historian and author of the much-praised biography, Wilhelmina Triesman: een Nederlandse in Leningrad [Wilhelmina Triesman: A Dutchwoman in Leningrad] (2012), and translated into English by Rosalind Buck.\n",
    "imprint": null,
    "language_code": "eng",
    "original_language_code": null,
    "page_count": 320,
    "duration_seconds": null,
    "publication_date_first": "2019-07-22",
    "publication_date_latest": "2019-11-25",
    "cover_url": null,
    "editions": [
        {
            "isbn": "9789049401221",
            "product_form": "BC"
        }
    ],
    "ratings_count": 0,
    "read_count": 0,
    "review_count": 0,
    "favorite_count": 0,
    "reading_status_read_count": 0,
    "reading_status_reading_count": 0,
    "reading_status_want_to_read_count": 0,
    "rating_average": null,
    "ratings_distribution": {
        "1": 0,
        "2": 0,
        "3": 0,
        "4": 0,
        "5": 0
    },
    "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:27:05+00:00",
    "updated_at": "2025-10-31T00:28:57+00:00",
    "publisher": {
        "id": 346,
        "slug": "strengholt-united-media",
        "name": "Strengholt  United Media",
        "created_at": "2025-09-19T12:26:38+00:00",
        "updated_at": "2025-09-19T15:01:24+00:00"
    },
    "contributors": [
        {
            "id": 216969,
            "slug": "eugenie-ussakovskaya",
            "key_names": "Ussakovskaya",
            "names_before_key": "Eugenie",
            "prefix_to_key": null,
            "contributor_role": "A01",
            "readable_contributor_role": "Author"
        }
    ],
    "genres": [],
    "subjects": [
        {
            "scheme_identifier": "32",
            "scheme_version": null,
            "main_subject": false,
            "subject_code": "300",
            "created_at": "2025-09-19T13:27:05+00:00",
            "updated_at": "2025-09-19T13:27:05+00:00"
        }
    ],
    "campaigns": []
}