Farewell to My Russia: Orphaned Memoirs

Nicolas Werth

Les Belles Lettres, 400 pages, 2026

Why you should look at it:

√ A unique contribution to modern and contemporary history by a renowned historian
√ A sweeping masterpiece of memory, historical reckoning, and shattered dreams
√ A poignant read for anyone who loves Russia, its language, culture, and people

In Farewell to My Russia: Orphaned Memoirs, renowned French historian Nicolas Werth delivers a deeply moving, multigenerational narrative, part intimate family memoir,  part rigorous historical investigation. Interweaving his career as a leading Soviet-crimes researcher with the legacy of his father—legendary British-Russian war correspondent Alexander Werth— the author traces a century of Russian history through a uniquely personal lens. 

Drawing from private family archives, letters, and decades of scholarly work, this book highlights the parallel burdens of a father who witnessed the horrors of the Eastern Front, to be then devastated by the crushing of the 1969 Prague Spring  and a son who has dedicated his life to unearthing the dark truths of the Gulag. Together, father and son devoted nearly a century to observing the same enigmatic country. Dozens of books, thousands of pages, their entire lives devoted to understanding Russia.

Gradually, something ever rarer than a memoir emerges; the story of a century of Russian history told by two historians who knew it well.  Their experience and even their wounds, are brought together here to compose not an official history of Russia, but  one that has been lived, internalized, and ultimately reflected upon.

 Nicolas Werth, honorary research director at the CNRS, is president of Mémorial-France, the French branch of Memorial International, winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. He is the author of some twenty books on the history of the USSR. His most recent title translated in English is  Cannibal Island: Death in a Siberian Gulag (Princeton 2024).  He wrote the chapters dedicated to the USSR in The Black Book of Communism (Harvard, 1999.)