Miserere

Miserere follows Aleksey, a boy from the Volga region, and the close friends he holds dear as they struggle to survive World War II and the years that follow. The story begins in the 1930s, when the Soviet government seized most of the grain in the Volga region, a policy that led to the deaths of around one million people. After Aleksey's father is arrested and the family is starving, the boy sets out to find his best friend, Kurt. Aleksey is captured and placed in a camp, where the Warden notices his bravery and strength of character and sends him to a special orphanage school.

After graduating, Aleksey attends military school and becomes a spy. Alongside his path, the novel traces the lives of people connected to him: Kurt in Kazakhstan, Ilse in Berlin, his schoolmate Sasha in Finland, and Lyubov, a beautiful visionary in Russia. Their separate stories are interwoven into one complex whole.