Overview

9.04 am, 1 September, 2004. A boy is standing with his classmates in the playground of School No. 1 in Beslan, in the Russian republic of North Ossetia. Looking around he notices an oddly dressed man in combat fatigues and a mask. He feels he ought to tell his mother, but is reluctant to fall out of line. By the time the siege ended two days later, at least 330 parents and children would be killed in the massive explosions that tore through the gymnasium or caught in the crossfire of a three hour gun battle between the Russian forces and the terrorists. Tim Phillips book tells the human story of the siege - of the terrible toll that thirst, hunger and sleeplessness took on the hostages, of the bravery of those who dealt with the terrorists, such as the elderly headmistress of the school and the doctor who tried to relieve the suffering of the young children. Phillips also looks at the authorities' response to the siege and finds it severely wanting. He has spent time in Beslan researching the book, talking to those involved and those affected, listening to the conspiracy theories, and trying to set the events of September 2004 in their wider context of centuries of conflict and enmity in the Caucasus.

Full Product Details

Author:   Timothy Phillips
Publisher:   Granta Books
Imprint:   Granta Books
Dimensions:   Width: 13.00cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 18.00cm
Weight:   0.215kg
ISBN:  

9781862079939

ISBN 10:   1862079935
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   04 February 2008
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Easter Sunday, 'The Happiest Day of My Year', 'Start Digging Your Own Graves', 'No Chance To Run Away', Educating Russia, 'You Have Done Nothing Wrong', 'This Is War!', 'You Killed All Six of My Brothers and Now I Must Kill You', 'I Will Remember You', 'As if Life Wasn't Difficult Enough', 'They're as Good as Dead Already', 'See What a Bad Boy I Am', 'Let Me Take Them Your Demands', 'The Lord of the Caucasus', 'There Are More than 1,300 of Us', 'The Revolution Fucked Everything Up', 'There Wasn't Even Any Air to Breathe', 'So You've Noticed, Then', 'Your Fate Is About to Be Decided', 'You Could Stay Out as Late as You Liked', 'It Felt Like There Was Something to Hope for Again', 'We Don't Think about How to Stop Terrorism Any More', Thirst, 'What They Came to Do Was Kill', 'I Didn't Find My Children', Truth and Beslan

Reviews

* 'Fine and subtle... The book, based on extensive interviews, rouses pity and horror' John Lloyd, Financial Times* 'Timothy Phillips, on the other hand, has done a heroic and, one might have thought for a foreigner, impossible job: he has reconstructed from the testimony of many hundreds of witnesses the hellish events of that September ... His work is a fit memorial to the dead ... Timothy Phillips's book provides the victim's story' Donald Rayfield, Literary Review

* 'Fine and subtle... The book, based on extensive interviews, rouses pity and horror' John Lloyd, Financial Times* 'Timothy Phillips, on the other hand, has done a heroic and, one might have thought for a foreigner, impossible job: he has reconstructed from the testimony of many hundreds of witnesses the hellish events of that September ... His work is a fit memorial to the dead ... Timothy Phillips's book provides the victim's story' Donald Rayfield, Literary Review

A gritty account of the terrorist siege on a Russian elementary school in 2004.First-time author Phillips traveled to the former Soviet Union to study the events of that fateful September day, when a small group of Chechen nationalists and Islamic extremists attacked School No. 1 in the small Russian town of Beslan. During a traditional service entitled the Ceremony of the First Bell - in which first year students, proud parents and grandparents and returning pupils gathered in the school courtyard to perform songs and dances - gunfire erupted as balloons were released into the air. A group of terrorists led by Ruslan Khuchbarov stormed the courtyard, gunning down anyone attempting to flee before herding the men, women and children into a small gymnasium. Interviews from survivors recount in graphic detail the events that followed during the next three days as more than 1,200 people were held captive. As a bumbling police force assembled outside the school with rounds of blanks instead of real bullets, female suicide bombers detonated their bombs in an attempt to kill the men and eliminate any chance of a resistance. Meanwhile, the terrorists threatened to shoot any child who attempted to drink water from the bathroom taps, and all the while the negotiating had yet to even begin. Using a hostage to write their demands on a piece of paper and deliver it to the police, the terrorists called for several high-ranking individuals to be brought in, with the hopes of pressuring the unwavering Russian government to pull its troops from Chechnya and declare it a free and independent nation. Phillips provides a thorough history of the sectarian divide that has gripped the region over the past century and details the events that led to the siege. The author navigates between past and present, offering the reader a reflective look at the event in question. But the constant shift between the crisis and its historical buildup dissipates the sense of urgency and tension as the situation becomes increasingly dire. A disturbing account of fundamentalism's lethal power. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Tim Phillips was born and grew up in Northern Ireland. In 2005 he completed a doctoral thesis on the role of the holiday resort in Russian culture, particularly in the Caucasus. He has studied at the universities of Oxford and Helsinki and has travelled widely in the former Soviet Union, including in the Caucasus. He has worked extensively as a translator and was the principal translator for the BBC on their Beslan documentaries. This is his first book.

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