HE LAW OF the literature of suffering is fairly basic: the greater the suffering, the better the literature. But equally important is that the suffering be warranted. The Nazis were savaged at Stalingrad, but tell it to the judge. The Russian nobility—or “former people” as they came to be called in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution—falls on ambiguous middle ground. Though the obliteration of an entire social class is shocking, it is hard to shake the feeling that they had it coming. Why should we extend our limited empathy to the small collective of families who owned practically all of Russia’s land, resided in exorbitant luxury, and were serviced round-the-clock by colonies of slaves?
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