Ruslan: A Novel of Russia - Softcover

Scrupski, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1400052696 ISBN 13: 9781400052691

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 2004

Synopsis

A sweeping romantic epic about the choice between love and independence

After the death of her spendthrift father, the Russian countess Alexandra Korvin is left penniless and alone in his glittering St. Petersburg palace. With no hope of escaping poverty unless she weds a prosperous nobleman, the beautiful and intelligent Alexandra travels from the aristocracy’s dazzling balls to the
city’s opium dens, from magnificent country houses to the poorest of peasant huts, in her quest for a spouse.

As her prospects dwindle away, Alexandra makes a radical and risky move, disguising herself as a man and joining the army. There she finds freedom from the confines of femininity and the chance to discover more about the nature of men. However, her newfound independence is threatened when she finds herself in the presence of Captain Ulyanov, a rakish, disreputable army captain. Under his watchful eye, Alexandra must do everything she can to conceal her identity. Will she be able to hold on to the liberties she has experienced while disguised as a man, or will she give in to her romantic impulses and be forced to return to the confining life of a woman?

“[Scrupski] captures nineteenth-century Saint Petersburg’s complexities in exquisite and emotionally precise detail. Alexandra glitters like a snowy Winter Palace dream on the Neva.” —John Faunce, author of Lucrezia Borgia

“Ruslan is an elegantly written novel, vividly detailed, and interwoven with wonderful, human characters who leap off the page. Readers of historical fiction will love this captivating story. I know I couldn’t put it down!”—Diane Haeger, author of My Dearest Cecilia, The Secret Wife of King George IV, and the forthcoming The Ruby Ring

About this title

From the Inside Flap

Part Gone with the Wind, part Doctor Zhivago, and thoroughly captivating, Ruslan is the epic story of a destitute young countess in Tsarist Russia who tries every avenue to restore her fortunes.

In glittering St. Petersburg, we meet Countess Alexandra Korvin: beautiful and intelligent, but also unmarried and—thanks to her late spendthrift father—quite penniless. In her polarized society of aristocratic grandeur and crushing poverty, a woman's only option is to marry well.

Alexandra makes her way through St. Petersburg society, attending dazzling balls, lavish dinners, and operas in search of a spouse. She pursues the charming but unattainable politician Rybynsky and spurns the advances of Ulynov, a rakish army captain who falls desperately in love with her. Finally, craving freedom and rebelling against the confines of her life as a woman, she cuts off her hair and joins the army as a man—only to find the ultimate test of her feminine heart.

Rich with decadent trappings of Tsarist splendor and alive with the indomitable spirit of an unforgettable young woman, Ruslan is a novel to savor from first page to last.
From the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Barbara Scrupski received her M.F.A. at Columbia University and also studied extensively at the University of Konstanz in Germany, Cambridge University in England, and the Polish Language Institute of Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Ruslan, her first novel, was inspired by the true story of a Russian noblewoman who disguised herself as a man and joined the cavalry in the nineteenth century.

Edition details

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1400052696
• ISBN 13: 9781400052691
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 464