Russian & Soviet

For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us....

Step into the rich history and culture of Mother Russia with this classic collection by esteemed writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky. With his penchant for gripping prose and powerful themes that unmasked the social struggles and intellectual clashes of his day....

Volume 2 of the Nobel Prize-winner’s towering masterpiece: the story of Solzhenitsyn's entrance into the Soviet prison camps, where he would remain for nearly a decade. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum....

The Master and Margarita is one of the most famous and best-selling Russian novels of the 20th century, despite its surreal environment....

Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater....

This is Leo Tolstoy's integration of the four biblical gospels into a single account of the life of Jesus which was inspired by his meticulous study of the original Greek versions of the Bible....

Alexander Pushkin's greatest short story....

From the celebrated, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and War and Peace: a lavish, masterfully rendered volume of stories by one of the most influential short fiction writers of all time....

Изменения в жизни и переворот в мировоззрении Толстого, нашли свое отражение...

Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897. The play portrays the visit of an elderly professor and his...

After narrowly avoiding a firing squad when he was just twenty-eight years old, Dostoevsky never took things lightly....

A work of timeless, bittersweet beauty about the fading fortunes of an aristocratic Russian family....

Director David Fishelson transforms Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot into spellbinding drama that illuminates both titanic novels....

Александр Павлович Чудаков (1938-2005) - российский филолог, литературовед и...

Еще один вариант прочтения бессмертного романа Федора Михайловича...

BBC radio productions of Dostoevsky's masterpieces, plus selected shorter fiction and bonus programmes exploring his life and work....

Братья Карамазовы - последний роман Ф. М. Достоевского, который автор...

Here are 11 short stories and one novella by Anton Chekhov, one of the finest masters of what is acknowledged as a difficult genre....

Необычайно многомерное и разнородное произведение Лермонтова, едва ли не...

Студия АРДИС предлагает вашему вниманию эпохальный исторический роман...

В романе "Идиот" Достоевский стремился, по его словам, "изобразить вполне...

Of Ostrovsky's 47 plays, one of the best known is The Storm, the portrait of an idealistic young woman trapped in a world of crushing and venal orthodoxy. The Storm formed the basis of Janacek's opera, Katya Kabanova....

Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia....

"No es una novela, aún menos un poema y aún menos una crónica histórica": así presentaba Lev N. Tolstói su monumental Guerra y paz, que, publicada por...

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Many writers consider Anna Karenina the...

In terms of literature, music, and film, it would be hard to outdo the sheer genius and creativity of Russia. These things constitute the soul of the nation, and it is this that Morris Berman explores in his latest work, The Soul of Russia.

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Many writers consider Anna Karenina the greatest work of literature ever, and Tolstoy himself called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger. A complex novel in eight parts, with more than a dozen major characters, it is spread over more than 800 pages (depending on the translation and publisher), typically contained in two volumes.

Ivan Turgenev was an outstanding writer of the 19th century, a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in the category of Russian language and literature. He was the author of philosophical and psychological poems, short stories, short novels, and novellas. Throughout his work, he delves into the themes of Russian intelligentsia and peasant life, showcasing mastery in creating psychological portraits.

First Love by Ivan Turgenev - a story about real feelings and play. Main character works are passionately in love with the princess, who older than him, but for her a careless young man - just an object of ridicule. Other famous works, such as "Asya", "Fathers and Sons", "A Nest of Noblemen", "Biryuk", "On the Eve", "Mumu", "Fire at Sea", "The Wayside Inn", "The Watch", "Three Portraits", "A Strange Story", "The Meeting", etc.

The short story The District Doctor by Turgenev, written in 1848, is part of the "Sportsman's Sketches" cycle. It tells the tale of a hopeless love between a dying girl from a noble family and a humble county doctor. Other famous works, such as "Asya", "Fathers and Sons", "A Nest of Noblemen", "Biryuk", "On the Eve", "Mumu","Fire at Sea", "The Wayside Inn", "The Watch", "Three Portraits", "A Strange Story", "The Meeting", etc.

The Komarov Case' - is an exciting story by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891 - 1940), an outstanding writer, playwright and theatre worker. Moscow is in a cold sweat - people disappear one by one, and then the bags with their corpses are found in different parts of the city. According to the same mode of wounds and the method of tying of victims - all these murders is the work of the same person.

Kholstomer is a work by Leo Tolstoy that has been referred to as "one of the most striking stories in Russian literature". It was started in 1863 and left unfinished until 1886, when it was reworked and published as Kholstomer: The Story of a Horse. This story prominently features the technique of defamiliarization by adopting the perspective of a horse to expose some of the irrationalities of human conventions. Kholstomer's altruistic life is recounted parallel to that of his selfish and useless owner. At the end of the story horse dies but his corpse gives birth to a new life - that of wolf cubs.

Alyosha the Pot is a short story written by Leo Tolstoy (1905) about the life and death of a simple, uncomplaining worker. It was published after Tolstoy's death in 1911 and received high praise from Tolstoy's contemporaries. Without ever calling Alyosha a holy fool, Tolstoy centers the story on his meekness, aloofness, and foolishness. Alyosha's simple life, soft-spoken manner, and calm acceptance of death epitomizes Tolstoyan principles.

Seance is a famouse short story by Mikhail Bulgakov, written in 1922. Published in the magazine "Rupor" (1922, No. 4). The epigraph to the work, created on the basis of the author's life observations, is Mephistopheles' Patter "Do not invoke him!"

Moscow settings - is an exciting story by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891 - 1940), an outstanding writer, playwright and theatre worker. Bulgakov was a Soviet playwright, novelist, and short story writer best known for his humor and penetrating satire. Because of their realism and humor, Bulgakov's works enjoyed great popularity, but their trenchant criticism of Soviet mores was increasingly unacceptable to the authorities.

A Russian Christmas Party by Leo Tolstoy is about a generous family on the brink of ruin whose mother pins their hopes for restoring their fortune on their son, Nicolas' marriage to a wealthy bride. Nicolas isn't cooperating, for he loves a poor girl named Sonia. Alas! How will they see it through?

Uncle Vanya is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897. The play portrays the visit of an elderly professor and his glamorous, much younger second wife, Yelena, to the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle. Two friends—Vanya, brother of the professor's late first wife, who has long managed the estate, and Astrov, the local doctor—both fall under Yelena's spell while bemoaning the ennui of their provincial existence. Sonya, the professor's daughter by his first wife, who has worked with Vanya to keep the estate going, suffers from her unrequited feelings for Astrov.

White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a poignant and introspective short story that delves into the complexities of human emotions and the transient nature of romantic connections. Set against the backdrop of St. Petersburg's nocturnal charm, the narrative follows the lonely protagonist through four consecutive white nights, where he encounters a mysterious young woman. As the two form a deep but ephemeral connection, Dostoyevsky explores themes of love, isolation, and the fleeting nature of human connections.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."

Anton Chekhov belongs to the cohort of the most prominent Russian classics, together with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Pushkin. The rankings of the most read authors, comprising the 'golden fund' of the world's literature, persistently include Chekhov alongside Charles Dickens, the Bronte Sisters, Mark Twain... Chekhov's plays, such as Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, and the short stories of this collection, are featured in the curriculum of faculties of philology of top global universities, such as University of Oxford, Harvard University and many more.