"Here in the Russian Court," writes Varvara, the narrator of The Winter Palace, “life is a game and every player is cheating.” She speaks with experience. Varvara arrives at the palace as an orphan of Polish and Catholic descent, a friendless foreigner in a Russian Orthodox world. Relying entirely on her wits, she manages to secure a position as a “maid of the bed chamber” to the Grand Duke Peter, heir to the throne. She does this by promising to become the spy of the Russian empress Elizabeth, tasked to reveal the alliances, betrayals and love affairs of all who live in the Winter Palace. Varvara is thus the perfect guide for our tour of the maze-like corridors of court life in 18th-century Russia.
The Winter Palace is the first of a planned two historical novels by Eva Stachniak on the life of the Russian empress Catherine the Great. This initial volume tells the story of Catherine’s early life in Russia, from the moment she arrives in St...
Ana Siljak is a professor of Russian and East European history at Queen’s University. Her book Angel of Vengeance: The Girl Assassin, the Governor of St. Petersburg and Russia’s Revolutionary World (St. Martin’s Press, 2008) was shortlisted for the 2009 Charles Taylor Prize.
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