Russian Literature & Culture

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak; Richard Pevear (Translator); Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator) Boris Pasternak's widely acclaimed novel comes gloriously to life in a magnificent new translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the award-winning translators of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and to whom, The New York Review of Books declared, "the English-speaking world is indebted."   First published in Italy in 1957 amid international controversy--the novel was banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, and Pasternak declined the Nobel Prize a year later under intense pressure from Soviet authorities--Doctor Zhivago is the story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago's love for the tender and beautiful Lara: pursued, found, and lost again, Lara is the very embodiment of the pain and chaos of those cataclysmic times.   Stunningly rendered in the spirit of Pasternak's original--resurrecting his style, rhythms, voicings, and tone--and including an introduction, textual annotations, and a translators' note, this edition of Doctor Zhivago is destined to become the definitive English translation of our time.

Boris Pasternak, 1890-1928 by Christopher Barnes This authoritative new biography of the Russian poet and prose writer Boris Pasternak is the first part of a two-volume set, covering the period 1890-1928. Drawing on archives and many eyewitness accounts, Barnes' study sheds light on currently unexplored aspects of Pasternak's character and family background, and his artistic, social and historical environment. He combines biographical investigation with detailed textual analysis of translated quotations in verse and prose to reveal the source of Pasternak's extraordinary writings. The book examines a wide range of topics that include his musical enthusiasm and relations with Scriabin, his philosophical studies, his activities in World War I and his response to the 1917 revolutions, and his stance as a liberal artistic intellectual in the 1920s.

The Marsh of Gold by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak; Angela Livingstone (Introduction by, Translated with commentary by) Major statements by the celebrated Russian poet Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) about poetry, inspiration, the creative process, and the significance of artistic/literary creativity in his own life as well as in human life altogether, are presented here in his own words (in translation) and are discussed in the extensive commentaries and introduction. The texts range from 1910 to 1946 and are between two and ninety pages long. There are commentaries on all the texts, as well as a final essay on Pasternak's famous novel, Doctor Zhivago, which is looked at here in the light of what it says on art and inspiration. Although universally acknowledged as one of the great writers of the twentieth century, Pasternak is not yet sufficiently recognized as the highly original and important thinker that he also was. All his life he thought and wrote about the nature and significance of the experience of inspiration, though avoiding the word "inspiration" where possible as his own views were not the conventional ones. The author's purpose is (a) to make this philosophical aspect of his work better known, and (b) to communicate to readers who cannot read Russian the pleasure and interest of an "inspired" life as Pasternak experienced it.

Alexander Pushkin by Paul Debreczeny (Translator); Alexander Pushkin; Walter W. Arndt (Translator) Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) is best known for his great achievments in poetry, but the fixtion he wrote in the last decade of his life was to have a tremendous impact on the subsequent development of Russian prose, influencing such later writers as Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. This is a new translation of all his prose fiction, from his famous story "The Queen of Spades" down to unfinished stories and fragments that appear in English for the first time. Pushkin's non-fictional A History of Pugachev, also translated into English for the first time, is included because it furnished the historical background of his novel The Captain's Daughter. The translator has taken care to achieve a balance between faithfulness to the original and readability in English, and several Russian editions have been collated to establish an accurate text. The translations are annotated to place each work in its historical context, and to eluvidate passages not easily understandable to today's reader. Appendixes present a chapter that Pushkin deleted from The Captain's Daughter; fictional fragments; Pushkin's outlines of projected works; and the apocryphal novella The Lonely Cottage on Vasilev Island.

Ruslan and Liudmila by Alexander Pushkin

Alexander Pushkin by Robert Chandler Alexander Pushkin is considered by many to be Russia's greatest poet, and through his poems as well as his experimentation with other genres--dramas, short stories, prose novels--he influenced generations of Russian and international writers. This exquisite biography examines Pushkin as writer, lover, and public figure, exploring his relationship with politics and providing a fascinating glimpse of the turbulent history that surrounded Pushkin's life. This is a succinct and sympathetic guide to understanding Russia's most celebrated literary figure.

The Cambridge Companion to Pushkin by Andrew Kahn (Editor) Alexander Pushkin stands in a unique position as the founding father of Russian literature. In this Companion, leading scholars discuss Pushkin's work in its political, literary, social and intellectual contexts. In the first part of the book individual chapters analyse his poetry, his theatrical works, his narrative poetry and historical writings. The second section explains and samples Pushkin's impact on broader Russian culture by looking at his enduring legacy in music and film from his own day to the present. Special attention is given to the reinvention of Pushkin as a cultural icon during the Soviet period. No other volume available brings together such a range of material and such comprehensive coverage of all Pushkin's major and minor writings. The contributions represent state-of-the-art scholarship that is innovative and accessible, and are complemented by a chronology and a guide to further reading.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn by D. M. Thomas One of the most important literary biographies of recent times, this is not only the story of one of this century's greatest writers, but the history of Russia itself. Already featured in a controversial New York Times article, this magisterial biography will attract attention throughout the literary world. 16-page photo insert.

Solzhenitsyn by Joseph Pearce Arguably one of the most significant writers of the 20th century, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, often has been stereotyped as a prophet of doom, a pessimist, someone out of touch with reality, and irrelevant. Pearce sets out to challenge this typical media typecasting. Among the features of this major biography are exclusive personal interviews with Solzhenitsyn, previously unpublished poetry, a rare photo gallery, and a focus on the rich faith dimension of this Nobel Prize-winner's life.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn "Stark . . . the story of how one falsely accused convict and his fellow prisoners survived or perished in an arctic slave labor camp after the war."--Time From the icy blast of reveille through the sweet release of sleep, Ivan Denisovich endures. A common carpenter, he is one of millions viciously imprisoned for countless years on baseless charges,sentenced to the waking nightmare of the Soviet work camps in Siberia. Even in the face of degrading hatred, where life is reduced to a bowl of gruel and a rare cigarette, hope and dignity prevail. This powerful novel of fact is a scathing indictment of Communist tyranny, and an eloquent affirmation of the human spirit. The prodigious works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, including his acclaimed The Gulag Archipelago, have secured his place in the great tradition of Russian literary giants. Ironically, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is the only one of his works permitted publication in his native land. Praise for One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich "Cannot fail to arouse bitterness and pain in the heart of the reader. A literary and political event of the first magnitude."--New Statesman "Both as a political tract and as a literary work, it is in the Doctor Zhivago category."--Washington Post "Dramatic . . . outspoken . . . graphically detailed . . . a moving human record."--Library Journal

Solzhenitsyn in Exile by John B. Dunlop (Editor); Richard S. Haugh (Editor); Michael Nicholson (Editor); Roger A. Freeman Solzhenitsyn in Exile rises out of the aiding interest in Solzhenitsyn: the political image, the writer, and the man. There are four aspects to this volume: the change in attitude toward Solzhenitsyn in the West after his expulsion from the USSR; literary criticism of his oeuvre since his expulsion from Russia; newly translated memoirs and interviews; and bibliographies of works about Solzhenitsyn and his writings.

The First Russian Radical by David M. Lang

A journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow by Radishchev, Aleksandr Nikolaevich, 1749-1802.

A Herzen Reader by Alexander Herzen; Kathleen Parthé (Editor, Introduction by, Translator) A Herzen Reader presents in English for the first time one hundred essays and editorials by the radical Russian thinker Alexander Herzen (1812–1870). Herzen wrote most of these pieces for The Bell, a revolutionary newspaper he launched with the poet Nikolai Ogaryov in London in 1857. Smugglers secretly carried copies of The Bell into Russia, where it influenced debates over the emancipation of the serfs and other reforms. With his characteristic irony, Herzen addressed such issues as freedom of speech, a nonviolent path to socialism, and corruption and paranoia at the highest levels of government. He discussed what he saw as the inability of even a liberator like Czar Alexander II to commit to change. A Herzen Reader stands on its own for its fascinating glimpse into Russian intellectual life of the 1850s and 1860s. It also provides invaluable context for understanding Herzen’s contemporaries, including Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Turgenev.

The Discovery of Chance by Aileen M. Kelly The intellectual Alexander Herzen was as famous in his day as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Aileen Kelly presents the first fully rounded study of the farsighted genius whom Isaiah Berlin called the forerunner of much twentieth-century thought. For Herzen, history, like Darwinian nature, was an improvisation both constrained and encouraged by chance.

My Past and Thoughts by Alexander Herzen; Dwight MacDonald (Editor) Alexander Herzen's own brilliance and the extraordinary circumstances of his life combine to place his memoirs among the greatest works of the modern era. Born in 1812, the illegitimate son of a wealthy Russian landowner, he became one of the most important revolutionary and intellectual figures of his time: as theorist, polemicist, propagandist, and political actor. Fifty years after his death, Lenin revered him as the father of Russian revolutionary socialism. Tolstoy said he had never met another man "with so rare a combination of scintillating brilliance and depth." His monumental autobiography is an unparalleled record of his--and his century's--remarkable life. Herzen's story of his privileged childhood among the Russian aristocracy is lit with the insight of a great novelist. With a trained historian's sense of the interaction of people and events, he limns the grand line of revolutionary development from the earliest stirrings of Russian radicalism throughthe tumultuous ideological debates of the international. His close friends and enemies--Marx, Wagner, Mill, Bakunin, Garibaldi, Kropotkin--are brought brilliantly alive. Dwight Macdonald's knowledgeable and fluent abridgment makes this great work readily available to the modern reader.