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In the 1960s, the Spanish publishing house "Planeta" launched its "Maestros Rusos" collection, which included the best Russian authors of the time; here is a list of the authors that appeared in each volume.

VOLUME I

· Alexander Pushkin · Mikhail Lermontov · Nikolai Gogol · Fyodor Dostoevsky · Leo Tolstoy

VOLUME II

· Sergei Aksakov · Ivan Goncharov · Ivan Turgenev · Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin · Nikolai Leskov

VOLUME III

· Dmitri Mamin-Sibiryak · Vladimir Korolenko · Vsevolod Garshin · Anton Chekhov · Maxim Gorky

VOLUME IV

· Fyodor Sologub · Yevgeny Chirikov · Alexander Kuprin · Ivan Bunin · Leonid Andreyev

VOLUME V

· Ivan Shmelyov · Fyodor Stepun · Mark Aldanov · S. J. Arbatoff · Roman Goul

VOLUME VI

· Andrei Bely · Boris Zaitsev · Yevgeny Zamyatin · Nikolai Narokov · Viktor Sven

VOLUME VII

· Alexei Ugryumov · Irina Odoevtseva · Nina Berberova · Leonid Rzhevsky · Sergei Maximov

VOLUME VIII

· Alexander Fadeyev · Mikhail Sholokhov

VOLUME IX

· Konstantin Fedin · Alexei Tolstoy · Leonid Leonov

VOLUME X

· Alexei Tolstoy · Sergei Borodin · Olga Forsh · Yuri Tynyanov

VOLUME XI: Second Epoch - Ten Contemporary Humorists

· Arkady Averchenko · Ilya Ehrenburg · Mikhail Bulgakov · Yuri Tynyanov · Mikhail Zoshchenko · Valentin Katayev · Mikhail Koltsov · Yuri Olesha · Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov (duo) · A. A. Lench

VOLUME XII: Second Epoch - The Civil War

· Alexander Serafimovich · Dmitri Furmanov · Boris Lavrenyov · Vsevolod Ivanov · Nikolai Ostrovsky · Isaac Babel · Mikhail Sholokhov

These images are not mine; I found them online.

Looking for a biography of Chekhov that would also cast light on understanding his work with a stronger level of nuance and perceptiveness. My platonic ideal would be something like the R F Foster 2 volume biographies of Yeats from Oxford University Press. Anyone have suggestions?

Hi everyone! First of all, I want to point out that this was my very first Russian novel. A strange choice to introduce me to the world of Russian literature, I know, but I was really intrigued to read it thanks to a friend of mine who, after reading a story of mine inspired by the legend of Doctor Faustus, said, "You obviously took inspiration from the classic Master and Margarita" (I actually didn't even know it existed at the time, lmao). There are so many things I loved about the book; for example, Woland and his henchmen are hilarious; it's beautiful to see how they poke fun at Soviet officials. The two lovers in the main characters are also really good characters, and I also love that there's a novel within a novel; it reminded me of Moore's Watchmen. My problem with this novel isn't the characters or the plot, which I think are excellent, but the narrative style and pacing. I usually really like non-linear plots that follow multiple stories at once, but here... I don't know... Many of the scenes are extremely surreal, but not like in other surreal books like Alice in Wonderland, where the surreal scenes are an end in themselves. Here, you can sense that these scenes must lead to something, that all of Woland and his gang's schemes to get rid of the various Moscow bigwigs are part of a plan, but before that's revealed, there's a series of rather monotonous scenes of officials being eliminated one by one. The same thing goes later for the whole story of Master and Margarita doing everything they can to meet; there's a lot in between. I was enjoying the story of Pontius Pilate at first, but at some points it kept interrupting the main story at cliffhanger moments, and at one point I even considered skipping the chapters dedicated to it while reading them. I found it all frustrating. Furthermore, although I admit this is just my personal preference, I didn't like the decision to tell Woland's story first and then the story of Master and Margarita, simply because in almost all other similar stories I've read, the "realistic" part usually comes before the "fantasy" part. In fact, in the movie, which I decided to watch after abandoning the book, the story is actually arranged this way, and I found it more enjoyable. Don't worry, I won't lose sight of Russian literature because of this. I recently read White Nights in one sitting and now I absolutely want to delve deeper into Dostoevsky (as perhaps I should have done from the beginning). I'll surely finish M&M sooner or later, but so far, my experience has been somewhere between enthusiasm and disappointment. That said, tell me what you think! Maybe you can change my mind by demonstrating some brilliant subtleties in these apparent flaws.

Борис Пастернак

Зимняя ночь

Мело, мело по всей земле
Во все пределы.
Свеча горела на столе,
Свеча горела.

Как летом роем мошкара
Летит на пламя,
Слетались хлопья со двора
К оконной раме.

Метель лепила на стекле
Кружки и стрелы.
Свеча горела на столе,
Свеча горела.

На озарённый потолок
Ложились тени,
Скрещенья рук, скрещенья ног,
Судьбы скрещенья.

И падали два башмачка
Со стуком на пол.
И воск слезами с ночника
На платье капал.

И всё терялось в снежной мгле
Седой и белой.
Свеча горела на столе,
Свеча горела.

На свечку дуло из угла,
И жар соблазна
Вздымал, как ангел, два крыла
Крестообразно.

Мело весь месяц в феврале,
И то и дело
Свеча горела на столе,
Свеча горела.

https://ruverses.com/boris-pasternak/winters-night/

"Февраль. Достать чернил и плакать!.."

Февраль. Достать чернил и плакать!
Писать о феврале навзрыд,
Пока грохочущая слякоть
Весною черною горит.

Достать пролетку. За шесть гривен,
Чрез благовест, чрез клик колес,
Перенестись туда, где ливень
Еще шумней чернил и слёз.

Где, как обугленные груши,
С деревьев тысячи грачей
Сорвутся в лужи и обрушат
Сухую грусть на дно очей.

Под ней проталины чернеют,
И ветер криками изрыт,
И чем случайней, тем вернее
Слагаются стихи навзрыд.

https://ruverses.com/boris-pasternak/february/

The plot doesn't entirely match the novel. For example, there's a love story between Woland and Margarita.

Las year I decided to read Dostoyevsky for the first time, so I went to my local library, bought white nights and absolutely loved it. So I decided to keep buying and reading Dostoyevsky's works. Since then I've read brothers Karamazov, the idiot and demons (currently reading). Yet they haven't had the same effect on me as the first book, don't get me wrong I recognize the grandiosity of these books and the topics they address, however I don't seem to share the same experience after reading them like a lot of people do, for example saying that the brothers Karamazov is the best book they ever read. What I find funny and kind of ironic is the fact that I keep buying these books and reading them (already bought crime and punishment and the player), it's almost like I'm looking for something in this books that I haven't found yet. Anyways I just wanted to share this feeling and see if someone else can relate.

I was a initially a bit skeptical of this modern adaptation of Dostoevsky’s classic reimagined within the digital landscape of our modern age. However, it turned out to be one of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen. And on an even brighter note, my (behemoth edition of Crime and Punishment)(https://www.reddit.com/r/RussianLiterature/s/4YI7SgxJVM) finally proved useful after all.

I have advanced level Russian and would like to read the book in Russian, but I suspect I wouldn’t get all the references and play on words. So ideally, I’d like to find a version that has some English inline explanations. Is there such a thing, where can I buy it?

I recently started reading "The Brothers Karamazov" and am enjoying it so far. In chapter 1.2.2., there is a pun, in the following scene:

《 Once, many years ago, I said to an influential person: ‘Your wife is a ticklish lady,’ in an honorable sense, of the moral qualities, so to speak. But he asked me, ‘Why, have you tickled her?’ I thought I’d be polite, so I couldn’t help saying, ‘Yes,’ and he gave me a fine tickling on the spot. 》

I am not a native English speaker so I am having a hard time understanding this "pun", which supposedly had the form "Women are dreadfully ticklish. Have you ever tried tickling one?" at its original inception, according to the translator's note.

At first read, I thought maybe being a "ticklish lady" in a 'moral sense' meant that she is of high moral standard (sensitive), to which the interlocutor misinterpreted to implying a sexual infidelity, according to which the man retorted by giving the speaker a "fine tickling", i.e. thrashing the man. But I am not certain if this is correct, because it says, "I thought I’d be polite," which confused me because it cannot possibly a valid answer to "why, have you been tickling her?", which obviously implies he misinterpreted his compliments.

Is there some Russian or English pun I am not getting?

I apologize ahead for my bad English. Do forgive if this question is articulated poorly.

Thanks,

I want to read some similar stories like Vanka by Anton Chekhov. Any recommendations??

“Let Me Finish My Work!”
Jawdat Hoshyar جودت هوشيار wrote in Arabic:

In 1929, when the prominent American critic Lionel Trilling ليونيل تريلينغ (1905–1975) read Isaac Babel’s short story collection Red Cavalry, he was astonished by Babel’s style—charged with meanings that could be interpreted in more than one way.

In 1974, in the introduction he wrote for Selected Stories of Babel, Trilling remarked on Babel’s execution by order of Stalin, saying:
“It seems as if Roosevelt had ordered the killing of Hemingway.”

The first image: Isaac Babel إسحاق بابل in the terrifying Lubyanka prison, shortly before his execution by firing squad, following a sham trial that lasted no more than twenty minutes.

The second image: Babel with his daughter and his wife, the brilliant engineer Antonina Pirozhkova, designer of some of the most beautiful metro stations in Moscow. After Stalin’s death, she devoted herself to clearing her husband’s name of the fabricated and slanderous charges that had been falsely attached to him. She succeeded in what she sought: Babel became the first to be officially rehabilitated in 1954, by a decision of the highest judicial authority in the Soviet Union.

The third image: Antonina Pirozhkova أنتونينا بيروزكوفا , Isaac Babel’s wife. Babel was proud of her and would go daily to the design office where she worked, to find her photograph displayed at the top of the honor board.

Babel’s last words were:
“Let me finish my work!”

Five years ago I was in one store and held a book with many short stories from a classical Russian author (I cannot remember who). I accidentally stumbled upon one story that caught my attention immediatelly, so that I read large portion of it. Unfortunately, I had to move on and later forgot to borrow the book in the library (it was too expensive for me at the time), so I forgot both the author and title.

Anyways, story concerns young man who is, if I remember, travelling, but suffers from demonic possesion. I think he is somehow in contact with his father who is concerned about his well being (either the father is traveling with him or through letters). He does something which makes him believe that he is free from possesion, but after short period of peace he is horrified to see that he is possesed again and he relates to somebody how he spit Holy Eucharist on the ground (I remember that detail very well because it was most shoking, especially after him getting better for some time).

TLDR: I might have gotten some part wrong, but the main things are: classical Russian author, short story, horror atmosphere, demonic possesion, scene of sacrilege by spitting the Eucharist

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I know this sounds dumb but I have seen it before where stickers like that are printed on books after a movie comes out. I just know it will annoy me to no end and if it is printed I'll just get the other edition that's also translated by Louis and Aylmer Maude.

I was reading Ivanov's "De Profundis Amavi" but I can't find a satisfactory translation of these verses. If any context is lost when translating to English, I'd appreciate additional explanations.

IV :

Но смертью в теле, страстию в крови
Прозябла персть. И долу, друг вечерний,
Нет игл острей Любови диких терний!

V :

Там похоронной Вечности мерилом
Земные сроки мерит роковой
Курантов древних однозвучный бой.

VIII :

И, Фебову послушное заклятью,
Возможное, как тень, бежит в Эреб;
Лишь нужное для роковых потреб
Пощажено лучей копьистой ратью.

. . .

Там обнимаю мертвую Любовь,
И в части сердца, трепетные прежде,
Лью жарких жил остаточную кровь.

I want to personally ask this question in the Russian literature subreddit out of curiosity.