Education Project

Orlando Figes, the famous British historian, is basically known for his notable works on the Russian history. Figes was born in the year of 1959, in London. Eva Figes, his mother and Kate Figes, his sister have written many well known books, which served as great inspirations for Orlando Figes. Most of the years of his childhood were spent at Hampstead, located in the northern part of London. He completed his schooling from the popular William Ellis School of North London, in 1978. In 1979, Figes moved to Cambridge, in order to complete his studies on history from the Gonville and Caius College, which was considered to be one of the best history colleges at that period. It was in the year of 1982, when Figes earned his double-starred First at the completion of his graduation. After that, he went for his PhD degree with a specialization in Russian History from the Trinity college of Cambridge. He successfully completed his PhD under the supervision of Norman Stone.

He started his writing career with ‘Peasant Russian, Civil War’. This book was published in the year of 1989 and received good responses from the critics. It was basically one of his dissertations, mainly emphasizing the peasantry in Volga, during the time of Russian Revolution & Civil War. ‘A People’s Tragedy’, his second published book (1996), was also based on the Russian Revolution. This book received huge critical acclaims and won several reputed awards and prizes like the ‘Wolfson History Prize’, ‘The Los Angeles Times Book Award’, ‘The NCR Book Prize’ and many more. This book has been translated to around twenty different languages and was praised by readers all over the world.

Other notable works by Mr. Orlando Figes include ‘Natasha’s Dance’, an overview of the Russian cultural history, ‘Oral history and The Whisperers’, based on the oral history of Russia, ‘Crimea: The Last Crusade’, based on the Crimean War and many others popular books. It has been unveiled by the writer that his upcoming book will be launched next year and is about a true love story. The book is based on several collected uncensored love notes (over 1500 letters), which have been smuggled from and into the labor camps of Pechora. The story involves the couple Lev and Sveta. It is also revealed that the book will describe the lives of people in Gulag at that time, based on the information in the love letters written by Lev.