Russia’s Historical Amnesia
― There is a scene in David Lean’s movie version of Doctor Zhivago where Lara, the great love of Zhivago’s life, disturbed by the howling of wolves close to the dacha where they are staying, says to Yuri that this is a terrible time to be alive. It’s Russia towards the end of the Civil War that followed the Bolshevik takeover in 1917. ∙ It was a terrible time to be alive but neither Lara nor Zhivago knew just how terrible it was to become. She herself was eventually to disappear at the [...].
