Overtaken by the Night

Richard G. Robbins Jr. is professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of Famine in Russia, 1891-1892: The Imperial Government Responds to a Crisis and The Tsar’s Viceroys: Russian Provincial Governors in the Last Years of the Empire.

Overtaken by the Night is an extremely detailed account of Vladimir Dzhunkovsky’s life. His story spans not just one, but several of the most tumultuous periods in modern Russian history, and Robbins nicely positions Dzhunkovsky’s life as a way to tell the story of the Soviet revolution from its inception to its bloody aftermath.Dzhunkovsky played prominent roles in some of Russia’s most important history: World War I, the fall of the monarchy, the communist revolution, and Stalin’s purges leading up to World War II.Along with Dzhunkovsky’s public life, Robbins uses his memoirs and other historical sources to describe his personal life, from his early love for a married woman to his private thoughts on key intelligence operations. . . . A well-researched biography of a consistently influential Russian leader.