{"product_id":"white-birch","title":"White Birch","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'It has been hand-planted by Tsarinas and felled by foresters. It has been celebrated by peasants, worshipped by pagans and painted by artists. It has self-seeded across mountains and rivers and train tracks and steppe and right through the ruined modernity of a nuclear fall-out site. And like all symbols, the story of the birch has its share of horrors (white, straight, native, pure: how could it not?). But, maybe in the end, what I'm really in search of is a birch that means nothing: stripped of symbolism, bereft of use-value . . . A birch that is simply a tree in a land that couldn't give a shit.'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe birch, genus \u003ci\u003eBetula,\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the northern hemisphere's most widespread and easily recognisable trees. A pioneer species, the birch is also Russia's unofficial national emblem, and in \u003ci\u003eThe White Birch\u003c\/i\u003e art critic Tom Jeffreys sets out to grapple with the riddle of Russianness through numerous journeys, encounters, histories and artworks that all share one thing in common: the humble birch tree.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe visit Catherine the Great's garden follies and Tolstoy's favourite chair; walk through the Chernobyl exclusion zone and among overgrown concrete bunkers in Vladivostok; explore the world of online Russian brides and spend a drunken night in Moscow with art-activists Pussy Riot, all the time questioning the role played by Russia's vastly diverse landscapes in forming and imposing national identity. And vice-versa: how has Russia's dramatically shifting self-image informed the way its people think about nature, land and belonging?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCurious, resonant and idiosyncratic, \u003ci\u003eThe White Birch\u003c\/i\u003e is a unique collection of journeys into Russia and among Russian people.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Little, Brown Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54237489332568,"sku":"9781472155672","price":21.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781472155672.jpg?v=1764536434","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/white-birch","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}