The Glass Wall: Lives on the Baltic Frontier
Max Egremont, author of Some Desperate Glory, tells stories from the "Glass Wall" between Europe and Asia.

Few countries have suffered more from the convulsions and bloodshed of twentieth-century Europe than those in the eastern Baltic region. Caught between the giants of Germany and Russia, on a route across which armies surged or retreated, small nations like Latvia and Estonia were for centuries the subjects of conquests and domination as foreign colonizers claimed control of the territory and its inhabitants, along with their religion, government, and culture.

The Glass Wall features an extraordinary cast of characters—contemporary and historical, foreign and indigenous—who have lived and fought in the Baltic, western Europe’s easternmost stronghold. Too often the destiny of this region has seemed to be to serve as the front line in other people’s wars. By telling the stories of warriors and victims, of philosophers and barons, of poets and artists, of rebels and emperors, and of others who lived through years of turmoil and violence, Max Egremont sets forth a brilliant account of a long-overlooked region, on a frontier whose limits may still be in doubt.

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The Glass Wall: Lives on the Baltic Frontier
Max Egremont, author of Some Desperate Glory, tells stories from the "Glass Wall" between Europe and Asia.

Few countries have suffered more from the convulsions and bloodshed of twentieth-century Europe than those in the eastern Baltic region. Caught between the giants of Germany and Russia, on a route across which armies surged or retreated, small nations like Latvia and Estonia were for centuries the subjects of conquests and domination as foreign colonizers claimed control of the territory and its inhabitants, along with their religion, government, and culture.

The Glass Wall features an extraordinary cast of characters—contemporary and historical, foreign and indigenous—who have lived and fought in the Baltic, western Europe’s easternmost stronghold. Too often the destiny of this region has seemed to be to serve as the front line in other people’s wars. By telling the stories of warriors and victims, of philosophers and barons, of poets and artists, of rebels and emperors, and of others who lived through years of turmoil and violence, Max Egremont sets forth a brilliant account of a long-overlooked region, on a frontier whose limits may still be in doubt.

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The Glass Wall: Lives on the Baltic Frontier

The Glass Wall: Lives on the Baltic Frontier

by Max Egremont
The Glass Wall: Lives on the Baltic Frontier

The Glass Wall: Lives on the Baltic Frontier

by Max Egremont

Hardcover

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Overview

Max Egremont, author of Some Desperate Glory, tells stories from the "Glass Wall" between Europe and Asia.

Few countries have suffered more from the convulsions and bloodshed of twentieth-century Europe than those in the eastern Baltic region. Caught between the giants of Germany and Russia, on a route across which armies surged or retreated, small nations like Latvia and Estonia were for centuries the subjects of conquests and domination as foreign colonizers claimed control of the territory and its inhabitants, along with their religion, government, and culture.

The Glass Wall features an extraordinary cast of characters—contemporary and historical, foreign and indigenous—who have lived and fought in the Baltic, western Europe’s easternmost stronghold. Too often the destiny of this region has seemed to be to serve as the front line in other people’s wars. By telling the stories of warriors and victims, of philosophers and barons, of poets and artists, of rebels and emperors, and of others who lived through years of turmoil and violence, Max Egremont sets forth a brilliant account of a long-overlooked region, on a frontier whose limits may still be in doubt.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780374163457
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date: 02/08/2022
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Max Egremont was born in 1948 and studied modern history at Oxford University. He is the author of several novels and works of history and biography, including Forgotten Land: Journeys Among the Ghosts of East Prussia, Some Desperate Glory: The First World War the Poets Knew, and an acclaimed biography of Siegfried Sassoon.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Map x

A Baltic Gazetteer xii

A Selective Baltic Chronology xvii

1 Our Shared Riga 1

2 Pearl of the East 6

3 Museum of Power 17

4 Faith on the Frontier 24

5 Archives of the People 39

6 The City on a Hill 45

7 Glamour & Misery 58

8 The Baltic Versailles 67

9 Visitors 79

10 Imperial Echo 93

11 I take no sides 108

12 Different Gods 119

13 Civilization 129

14 I fight for the Tsar 140

15 The New Crusaders 148

16 Scattered Leaves 161

17 The Coup 172

18 North and South 182

19 Last Witnesses 188

20 You cannot choose your Liberator 202

21 Homecoming 209

22 My Sweet Lestene 217

23 Grandchildren 225

24 Borders of History 235

25 Forbidden Zone 250

Notes 265

Bibliography 276

Acknowledgements 286

Index 288

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