Truth – fearlessly told – might well have saved the state. This, in a nutshell, is Arkady Ostrovsky’s view in his new and compelling analysis of recent Russian history. The Invention of Russia is less a work about Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin than an analysis of how Russia’s recent history has been shaped and spun by its self-portrayal though newspapers and television. “Journalists”, Ostrovsky concludes, “have been more than transmitters of ideas and designs conceived elsewhere. They became a source of these designs and ideas and, as such, they are ­responsible  both for Russia’s emergence from authoritarianism and its descent back into it.” Though Russia is an infinitely more open place now than it was 60-odd years ago, Ostro