num_pages: 192
description: A portrait of a man caught up in the Paris commune and the major historical events of the twentieth century.Adrien Lejeune died in Siberia 1942 fleeing Moscow from the invading Nazis. It was not until 1971 that his ashes were finally returned to Paris and laid to rest at the Communards burial ground in Pere LaChaise cemetery. one hundred years beforehand Lejeune had stood on the barricades of the Paris Commune fighting for liberation of the city and a new future. He only just avoided execution when the uprising was eventually defeated.The Last Communard tells the story of Lejeunes life from that moment of youthful rebellion. It shows how it intertwined with the global history of revolution. First imprisoned for his treason he was later celebrated in Soviet Russia made a hero within the dramas of interwar France abandoned in the storms leading up to the Second World War. Gavin Bowds stunning narrative shows how an individual life can be swept up in the fierce tides of history.
language: English
title: The Last Communard: Adrien Lejeune, the Unexpected Life of a Revolutionary
publisher: Verso