Anna Aslanyan

Lost in a time capsule

Charlotte Hobson’s promising debut novel explores the Russian avant-garde scene through the eyes of an English governess on the eve of the first world war

issue 28 May 2016

On her arrival in Russia in 1914, Gerty Freely finds it refreshingly liberal compared to her native Britain: here servants are treated well, parents encourage self-expression in children, poor students are given support, and intellectual discourse flourishes. Gerty comes to Moscow as the governess to a rich aristocratic family and stays through the war, the revolutions and the Red Terror.

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