In essays written jointly by specialists on Soviet and German history, the contributors to this book rethink and rework the nature of Stalinism and Nazism and establish a new methodology for viewing their histories that goes well beyond the now-outdated twentieth-century models of totalitarianism, ideology, and personality. Doing the labor of comparison gives us the means to ascertain the historicity of the two extraordinary regimes and the wreckage they have left.

Set in Leningrad in 1941 against Hitler's invasion of Russia, this story tells of the impossible love between a Russian girl, Tatiana, and a young officer named Alexander. It is a love that could tear Tatiana's family apart and it carries a secret that could mean death for anyone who hears it.