Eva Stachniak - Der Winterpalast - Lesen macht klug und schoen 849

Eva Stachniaks opulenter Roman über die ungewöhnliche Freundschaft zweier Frauen  - Freundschaft und Verrat im Winterpalast von Katharina der Grossen

Eva Stachniak - Der Winterpalast 
Roman



Suhrkamp Verlag
Erschienen: 22.10.2012
insel taschenbuch 4195
ISBN: 978-3-458-35895-4
14,99 €
hier bestellen (Ab 25€ ist der Versand kostenfrei)

Geheime Gänge, verdeckte Türen, dunkle Nischen: 
Als die Waise Varvara als Dienstmädchen in den Winterpalast kommt, lernt sie schnell, sich ihre Verschwiegenheit und ihren aufmerksamen Blick zunutze zu machen. 
Keine Intrige, die ihr entginge, kein Getuschel, das ihren Ohren verborgen bliebe. Schnell wird sie zu einer der wichtigsten „Spioninnen“ im Palast. 
Als die junge Sophie von Anhalt-Zerbst – die spätere Katharina die Große – an den Hof kommt und auf dem Weg zur Macht eine Verbündete braucht, wird Varvara ihre engste Vertraute. 
Schließlich erklimmt Katharina den Zarenthron – aus der unerfahrenen Fremden wird eine der mächtigsten Frauen ihrer Zeit.

Eva Stachniaks opulenter Roman über die ungewöhnliche Freundschaft zweier Frauen führt den Leser in eine Welt, in der Leidenschaft und Vertraulichkeit auf Heimtücke und Verrat treffen – in die abgründig-geheimnisvolle Welt des russischen Zarenhofs, gehüllt in schweren Brokat und knisternde Seide.



Eva Stachniak, geboren im polnischen Wrocław, lebt in Toronto. Sie hat für Radio Canada International gearbeitet und als Dozentin für Englisch und Geisteswissenschaften am Sheridan College gelehrt. Mit Necessary Lies gewann sie den Canada First Novel Award.
http://evastachniak.com/, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Stachniak
http://www.facebook.com/EvaStachniak.Author
http://www.evastachniak.com/blogs/

Presse:

»Ein mitreißender Roman über den Aufstieg Katharinas der Großen von einer jungen Fremden zur Herrscherin Russlands.«
Oprah Magazine

Eva Stachniak: Der Winterpalast (Buchtrailer) | Roman über Katharina die Große

»Ein wunderbarer Roman, voller Intrigen und überraschender Wendungen, die Art von Buch, die man an einem langen Winterabend verschlingt.«
The Daily Telegraph

Zitat zum daily book heute:
"Jeder Mann ist ein Manuskript, das erst korrigiert werden muß.
Ich werde eine Autokratin sein, das ist mein Beruf. Und Gott der Herr möge es mir verzeihen. Das ist sein Beruf." Katharina II., die Große

The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak Reviewed by Margaret Donsbach
Both Varvara and Catherine will win readers' hearts. Catherine is portrayed with such sympathy, despite her ambition, that the extended period mid-novel when Varvara is obliged to keep her distance can feel frustrating, especially when dramatic events swirling around Catherine must be told at second hand. In compensation, Varvara gives readers an often sh
ocking close-up view of Empress Elizabeth and her courtiers during a period when Catherine lived in isolation. The Winter Palace offers a worthwhile introduction to a fascinating period in Russian history. (2012; 434 pages, including a list of historical characters) http://www.historicalnovels.info/Winter-Palace.html

The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak (Book Trailer)

Interview with Eva Stachniak, author of THE WINTER PALACE

I'm delighted to welcome Eva Stachniak back to Historical Boys for an interview about her bestselling novel THE WINTER PALACE, one of my favorite historical novels this year and a riveting account of the rise to power of Catherine the Great. Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Eva!The Winter Palace is the first of two novels of Catherine the Great. The second, Empress of the Night will be written from Catherine’s point of view, and the two books will, I hope, complement each other. In Empress of the Night Catherine is an absolute monarch, a sole autocrat of a great and thriving empire. I want to explore how having power has transformed the empress herself. http://historicalboys.blogspot.fr/2012/02/interview-with-eva-stachniak-author-of.html


1. The novel starts with a quotation from a letter the future Catherine the Great wrote to the British Ambassador, Sir Hanbury-Williams: Three people who never leave her room, and who do not know about one another, inform me of what is going on, and will not fail to acquaint me when the crucial moment arrives.
What does this sentence tell us about the future empress of Russia?
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides_w/the_winter_palace1.asp

It isn’t incidental that award-winning Toronto novelist Eva Stachniak asks us to ponder the Winter Palace, in St. Petersburg, Russia, before she asks us to ponder Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, and her predecessor, Elizabeth. The Winter Palace is a setting, a character and a symbol, and Stachniak lays out in riveting detail how life is lived there by all sorts of characters who are in thrall to the empresses, from the lowest seamstress to the most powerful courtesan.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/the-winter-palace-by-eva-stachniak/article4241758/

Stachniak’s The Winter Palace is an interesting take on the events leading up to the coronation of Catherine the Great, if only because of the perspective from which the events are written. Barbara is a a dynamic narrator who grows and changes throughout the course of the story. Seeing the Russian Royal court through the eyes of the invisible is an unusual perspective, and because the perspective is so incredibly well-written, it makes this book well worth the read. It is brilliant.
http://bookshelfbombshells.com/review-the-winter-palace-by-eva-stachniak/


Eva’s understanding of European history and her empathy with Catherine the Great, an émigré from Russia to Germany, might be rooted in her own history: one of her grandfathers was an officer in the Imperial Russian Army and Eva herself is a migrant. Born in Wroclaw, Poland, she came to Canada in 1981 as an English PhD student at McGill University. Eva went on to work for Radio Canada International, and eventually became a faculty member at Sheridan College where she taught English until 2007.
http://www.kingstonwritersfest.ca/authors/2012/stachniak.php

We don’t see Catherine take the crown until the end of the novel (a sequel is already in the works). Yet by the time she becomes empress, we’ve taken the measure of the steely foresight that will qualify her to serve as Russia’s longest-reigning female monarch, equipped to guide her hidebound empire into the age of enlightenment. At the same time baroque and intimate, worldly and domestic, wildly strange and soulfully familiar, “The Winter Palace” offers a flickering glimpse of history through the gauze of a deft entertainment.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-02-17/entertainment/35445145_1_russian-court-catherine-zeta-jones-romanov