[In the following excerpt, Maclean discusses Thubron's examination of Russian culture in Among the Russians.]

Colin Thubron's latest book, Among the Russians, can only serve to enhance his well-deserved reputation. I enjoyed every page of it. It is well observed, well written and, unlike many books about Russia, gives proof of an unusual and penetrating insight into the character of the country and people. Having long been fascinated by Russia, the author learned Russian and, climbing into his Morris Marina, set out to explore it, covering about 10,000 miles in the process. Not everyone realises that, despite the machinations of what he aptly calls ‘a jungly and unconquerable bureaucracy,’ it is perfectly possible to do this.

During his journey, Mr Thubron made a number of important discoveries, not least that the Second World War so haunts the Russian consciousness that no understanding of Russia is possible without it. He also discovered, as he motored across it, the immense size of the Russian plain, its psychological effect on the Russians and their close attachment to their country's soil. ‘From her own people,’ he writes, ‘Russia elicits a helpless worship of belonging … She contains them with the elemental despotism of an earth mother.’ With this he rightly links the average Russian's almost mystical sense of patriotism, now coming (and being brought) increasingly to the fore. ‘The old Russian belief in an apocalyptic history continues: history with a divine purpose,’ a persistent belief, in other words, in Russia's God- or Marx-given mission to enlighten and, if necessary, discipline a naughty world. ‘The tradition of all the dead generations,’ wrote Karl Marx, ‘weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.’ Of few countries, as Marx would have been the first to agree, is this truer than of Russia.