The Russian word “istoriya” can mean either history or story; The Age of Alexander II attempts to be both and is written for anyone who enjoys readable history. While emphasizing the “story” in history, I have taken no liberties with the facts, and even minor details such as descriptions of the weather on a particular day are based on solid historical sources. This book's subject is the reign of Alexander II of Russia (1855–81) and some of the fascinating writers, thinkers and revolutionaries who made this the Golden Age of Russian literature and thought. It interweaves the personal and public lives of such individuals as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev, but it also has a central thread woven throughout: Alexander II, his policies and the reactions they called forth from the book's other central characters, most of whom could be considered intellectuals.

This drama occurs in a psychological atmosphere as real but elusive as a St Petersburg fog. It is one of raised but then dashed hopes, of confusion, conflict and alienation, but also one of yearning for love and a sense of community. It is one of a lonely Dostoevsky in Siberian exile discovering the necessity of becoming one with the common people; of the radical Sophia Perovskaya rejecting the world of her influential father and going among the workers and peasants to both teach and radicalize them; of a Leo Tolstoy so miserable that he contemplates suicide until he also discovers new hope among the peasants.