#essadbey

The year is 1920. Russia, which has been steadily advancing across Central Asia for the last century, is in the throws of a bloody civil war.

The Communist revolution is not only contained within Russia. Revolts break out across Mongolia, Turkestan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Afghanistan. Stalin, who has been working as an agitator in the oil fields of Baku, returns to Russia to form a part of Lenin's emerging Bolshevik party.

As terror grasped the East, it caused an exodus of intellectuals and freethinkers, desperate to escape the pull of revolutionary bloodshed. With them, a number of memoirs and war diaries describing the beauty of the pre-revolutionary Orient, and the horror of the Civil War.

Tikhanov Library is happy to announce the publication of three such books, which will be released within the coming week:

Blood and Oil in the Orient, by Essad Bey -Tells the story of a young Azerbaijani nobleman who's forced to flee his home and travel throughout Asia as a refugee from Communist Violence. Full of picturesque descriptions of the different people he met and the stories he heard, Blood and Oil in the Orient is a kaleidoscope view of the old east, as modernity comes crashing down around it.

Asian Odyssey, by Dmitri Alioshin -Is the story of a young Russian army officer, raised in China, who flees to Mongolia to escape the Red Terror. During this escape, he is enlisted in the forces of Baron Ungern-Sternberg, a brutal warlord who believed himself the reincarnation of Genghis Khan.

Men, Beasts, and Gods, by Ferdynand Ossendowski -Tells the story of Ferdynand Ossendowski, and Polish Chemist (and possibly spy), who flees from Siberia to China by way of Mongolia, encountering all kinds of characters along the way and risking his life over and over. Men, Beasts, and Gods was an instant bestseller at the time of its publication, and remains a cult classic to this day.