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Three of these characters – Maria Arutyunyan, Lev Gudkov, Alexander Dugin – are introduced as adults.

Gessen chooses seven characters whose lives she follows throughout the book historical events are both explained in detail and shown as a backdrop for the characters’ lives. Gessen steps away from analyzing Russian leaders themselves, and instead investigates the society that keeps them in power.ĭespite being nonfiction, the structure of The Future is History is not unlike that of a classical Russian novel. Her latest book, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia, was released in October of 2017 to great critical acclaim in November Gessen was awarded the National Book Award in nonfiction for this work. Not six months later, Gessen fled Russian for the second time along with her wife and their three young children, citing both fear of government retaliation for her book and concern about the rise of anti-LGBT sentiment spurred on by Putin’s regime. This scathing biography of Putin was published while Gessen was still living and working in Moscow. In 2012 Gessen released her controversial book, The Man Without a Face. She hoped to chronicle the death of the totalitarian state of her childhood, but instead Gessen found herself covering Vladimir Putin’s meteoric rise to power. Despite having no formal training, Gessen began working as a reporter. Masha, however, would return to Russia just a decade later following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December of 1991. The Gessens, fearing for their lives, emigrated to the United States. During the latter years of tight Soviet control, prior to Gorbachev’s reforms, anti-Semitism was at an all-time high in Russia. In addition to being political dissidents themselves, Gessen’s family were also Ashkenazi Jews. Born during the height of the Soviet Union, Gessen first fled her native Russia as a teenager in 1981 along with her family. Like many political dissidents from totalitarian states, at least the living ones, Masha Gessen fled her homeland – twice.