To tell the sweeping story Solzhenitsyn creates a polyphonic structure. The narrative shifts restlessly from frontlines to field headquarters. One chapter will focus on Samsonov, the next on Vorotyntev, the following on Lenartovich's battalion. When the narrative switches to the events surrounding Stolypin's assassination, Solzhenitsyn studies each major participant in turn and at length: the assassin, his victim, and the monarch. In these chapters he works in reverse chronological order, as if nothing of the present can be understood without plunging into the past.

Three special techniques enhance the historical materials. First, Solzhenitsyn assembles several chapters out of headlines and advertising slogans from actual newspapers of the time. This collage suggests the Russia — its ideals as well as its follies — for which the army fought. Second, Solzhenitsyn intersperses objective, textbook accounts of the battle's progress. These accounts keep the nonspecialist reader aware of the context in...