2 Books Like From the Arctic Ocean to the Yellow Sea

The memoirs of Princess Varvara Fedorovna Golitsyna are the female equivalent of Samuel Pepys’ famous diaries, only more interesting. In 1876, the princess married Sergei Mikhailovich Dukhovskoi, already a distinguished senior officer at thirty-eight. In the Turkish War (1877-1878) Sergei Mikhailovich distinguished himself, and his young wife proved herself a determined and resourceful woman, as she was determined to join him—at great risk to herself. As an important senior officer, he spent a great deal of time in Western Europe, so the couple traveled all over, and the greater part of the book consists of Varvara Fedorovna’s accounts of their travels. As a result, her memoir gives us an engrossing account of the rewards and difficulties of European travel. A fascinating account by a remarkable woman.

Petropoulos considers ten important artists who either managed to accommodate themselves to the Third Reich or flourished during it, placing each individual both in the context of his own achievements and his relationship to Adolf Hitler and the Party. His preface and introduction alone make the book valuable, as it gives the reader an idea of the complexity both of the subject and of the society in which these men and women found themselves. His treatment of Hindemith, Richard Strauss, and Leni Riefenstahl is perceptive and thoughtful—particularly so with Riefenstahl. As I can testify from personal experience, anyone attempting any objective account of Germany in this period will be savagely attacked, and Petropoulos picks his way through this minefield very dexterously, although the end result is a difficult read.