The Story of Tatiana

by Jacques Baynac, Ruth Nyabakken (Translator), Lorraine Perlman (Translator)

In the shadow of the Jungfrau's peak that towers about Interlaken, Switzerland, Tatiana Leontiev carried out her Act. Historian Jacques Baynac recounts the life of this young Russian revolutionary before and after 1906, when she assassinated the man she believed was a Tsarist minister.

Genres: History

255 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 1994

Reviews

[Artnoose McMoose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book a couple of years ago as a gift from the publisher/translator. I've only just now gotten around to reading it.

I wasn't going to start reading a new book on my due date because I didn't want to go into labor partway through. I did anyways, and alas, it's a week later, I've finished the book, and still haven't gone into labor.

This is the story of a young woman who attempted to assassinate a Tsarist minister in 1906, and failed. That is to say, she shot the wrong guy. But really, it's the story of the writer/historian who tried to piece her story together by reading source material and visiting the scenes of Tatiana's life.

It's not a straight factual historical piece. The author recreates scenarios and dialog, but in a literary way that I appreciate. It might be a history book for people who don't always like history books.

The last part of the book includes excerpts from her correspondences and psychiatric evaluations after her conviction. It's truly sad to watch the deterioration of a sharp-minded rebel after years of confinement in an asylum.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an engrossing tale as the Baynac unfolds his research into trying to understand the deeds and movements of "Tatiana Leontief, the Russian girl who shot M. Muller, a gentleman of independent, means, residing at Paris, in a hotel at Interlaken on September 1, 1906, mistaking him for M. Durnovo, a former Russian Minister." Baynac is fascinated by and indeed adores his subject, entranced by her mystery and tragedy.

This botched assassination occurred in an era of violent anti-Tsarist terrorism, see "Murder at the Grand Hotel: a deadly mix-up".

Tatiana was apparently inducted into act of political killings by the mysterious Catherine Breshkovsky and split off from the main group to find common cause with the Maximalists.

The author unearths in archives correspondence and documentation of an ardent and apparently confused young woman who abandoned by her family decays in institutions into failing physical and mental health.

[Dimitrii Ivanov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nominally a novel but based not just on a true story but on documental sources, with fictional bits clearly designated as such. A story of a member of the socialist-revolutionary maximalist Combat Organisation who was committed to the revolution and committed a grave mistake - which drove her to a lunatic asylum. At times reads like a screenplay - as we are following the author as a camera would at times. And Freud and his disciples appear to be more of loonies than maximalists.