Vasily Yan (Vassily Grigoryevich Yanchevetsky, 1874-1954) was a writer of historical novels whose popularity survives the test of time. He was widely read throughout the Soviet era and continues to be popular in the post-Soviet era. This book is not just a biographical sketch of an important Russian/Soviet writer basically unknown to the Western public. The focus on Yan and his work also impressively demonstrates the dominant role of ideology in a totalitarian society, which is not just a socio-economic and political system of the past, but could reemerge in the future as ISIS has demonstrated. Shlapentokh shows that ideology and the cultural and intellectual life in totalitarian regimes are more complex than is often assumed. Intellectuals often enough engaged in stressful, but-in its literary outcome-captivating "cat and mouse" games with censors, the powerful, and the government.

Dmitry Shlapentokh was educated in the former USSR (Moscow State University) and in the USA (PhD, University of Chicago). He is currently Associate Professor at Indiana University and holds teaching/research appointments in various institutions, including the Russian Research Center (Harvard University), and the Hoover Institution (Stanford University). He is the author of several books and almost a hundred articles and book chapters.