Why a Booktrail?
1900s: The students are plotting an assassination.
The Last Summer
What you need to know before your trail
Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. To counter student unrest, the governor of St Petersburg closes the state university. Soon afterwards he arrives at his summer residence with his family and receives a death threat. His worried wife employs a young bodyguard, Lju, to protect her husband. Little does she know that Lju sides with the students – and the students are plotting an assassination.
Travel Guide
Travel to the University of St Petersburg and a country house nearby
The story is set between May to August one year in the early 1900s. The von Rasimkara family have escaped to their summer home. Student protests have closed the state university of St Petersburg. The professor is pleased to be away from the chaos and violence. What he doesn’t know however is that his family are in danger now as their new bodyguard is in league with the students in the city. Do they plot to assasinate him and will they succeed?
The tension through this short novella is palpable.
“The family has all the virtues and defects of its class. Perhaps one cannot even talk of defects; they merely have the one: belonging to an era that must pass and standing in the way of one that is emerging. When a beautiful old tree has to be felled to make way for a railway line, it’s painful to watch; you stand beside it like an old friend, gazing admiringly and in grief until it comes down. “
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Last Summer
Destination: St Petersburg Author/Guide: Ricarda Huch Departure Time: 1900s
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