Spanning from the twilight of the 19th century through the upheavals of the 20th, The Volga traces the fate of Jakob Bach, a quiet schoolteacher whose love affair with Klara Grimm upends both their lives. Banished from their Volga German colony for defying convention, the couple retreats into the forest to raise their daughter in peace. But after tragedy strikes, Jakob is left alone, channeling his grief into writing fairy tales that gradually blur the line between myth and reality for the German settlements along the river.

Through Jakobs journeyof love, exile, and resilienceGuzel Yakhina brings to life the sweeping history of the Volga Germans: settlers invited by Catherine the Great, founders of a brief republic after the Russian Revolution, and ultimately a people shattered by Stalinist repression. A moving portrait of identity, imagination, and survival, The Volga is both an intimate family saga and a powerful meditation on a forgotten corner of history.