The Empire Must Die. The History of Russian Revolutions in Faces. 1900-1917

The book by Mikhail Zygar "The Empire Must Die" was written in 2017, on the centenary of the two Russian revolutions - February and October. It traces step by step how the events developed that led the imperial house of the Romanovs to a disgraceful downfall, and Russia to the greatest historical catastrophe, the consequences of which are not yet overcome. The author turns to numerous written testimonies of those days - archival documents, letters, newspapers, addresses, memoirs - to understand what caused the demise of a regime that seemed unshakeable. Was it doomed, who was directly involved in these events, and why did the Provisional Government of young democratic Russia fail to prevent the Bolshevik coup, which became the first step toward establishing one of the darkest dictatorships of the 20th century?