Showing titles in Russian & Soviet

The Master and Margarita is one of the most famous and best-selling Russian novels of the 20th century, despite its surreal environment of talking cats, Satan and mysterious happenings. Naxos AudioBooks presents this careful abridgement of a new translation in an imaginative reading by the charismatic Julian Rhind-Tutt. With War and Peace and Crime and Punishment among the Naxos AudioBooks best-sellers, this too promises to be a front title.

Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude", an imaginary crime that defies definition.

"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 entregas en la revista El Mensajero Ruso entre 1865 y 1867 y en forma de libro en 1869, no dejó de causar desconcierto en su tiempo y luego, hasta nuestros días, apasionados intentos de definición. El propio autor decía que los libros más relevantes de la literatura rusa −como Almas muertas de Gógol y Memorias de la casa muerta de Dostoievski− se resistían a encajar en ningún género literario "europeo".

The fortunes of the Rostovs and the Bolkonskys, of Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, are intimately connected with the national history that is played out in parallel with their lives. Balls and soirées alternate with councils of war and the machinations of statesmen and generals, scenes of violent battles with everyday human passions in a work whose extraordinary imaginative power has never been surpassed. The prodigious cast of characters, both great and small, seem to act and move as if connected by threads of destiny as the novel relentlessly questions ideas of free will, fate, and providence.

Madame Ranyevskaya and her daughter Anya have returned home from Paris to discover that their family estate – which includes their beloved cherry orchard – has to be sold to cover the family’s debts. They believe a miracle can save their orchard. But will their stubborn pride and fond...

Despite his early death from tuberculosis at the age of 44, Chekhov was a prolific writer and produced more than 250 short stories in addition to several novellas and a novel. The Russian was also a practicing doctor. A celebrated playwright, Anton Chekhov is often recognised as an influential figure of early modernism of the theatre in addition to being held in high esteem by the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf, although much praise was not as forthcoming until after his death in 1904.

Eugene Onegin is young, handsome, rich ... and bored. Nothing impresses him: not his grand house filled with expensive furniture, not the glittering balls he attends, not the sumptuous dinners he eats. When his uncle dies, leaving him his rundown estate, Eugene moves to the countryside. Here he meets the lively and intelligent Lensky, and the beautiful, quiet Tatyana. Will Eugene grasp this opportunity for a new and happy life, or will his bad attitude get in the way?

Н.В. Гоголь начал работу над своим главным трудом - "Мертвые души" в 1835 году. Ни над одним из своих произведений ранее писатель не работал так кропотливо и тщательно, так вдумчиво и напряженно.

The author of the immortal Lolita and Pale Fire, born to an eminent Russian family, conjures the apotheosis of the high modernist artist: cultured, refined - as European as they come. But Vladimir Nabokov, who came to America fleeing the Nazis, came to think of his time here as the richest of his life. Indeed, Nabokov was not only happiest here, but his best work flowed from his response to this exotic land.

In 1851 Leo Tolstoy enlisted in the Russian army and was sent to the Caucasus to help defeat the Chechens. During this war a great Avar chieftain, Hadji Murád, broke with the Chechen leader Shamil and fled to the Russians for safety. Months later, while attempting to rescue his family from Shamil’s prison, Hadji Murád was pursued by those he had betrayed and, after fighting the most heroic battle of his life, was killed.

Повести, составившие знаменитую трилогию, были написаны Львом Николаевичем Толстым в 1852 - 1856 годах и впервые опубликованы в журнале "Современник". В замысел молодого прозаика (а в год создания "Детства" юнкеру Толстому исполнилось двадцать четыре) входило еще одно произведение - "Молодость", но эту повесть он так и не написал.

A century after it first appeared, Crime and Punishment remains one of the most gripping psychological thrillers. A poverty stricken young man, seeing his family making sacrifices for him, is faced with an opportunity to solve his financial problems with one simple but horrifying act: the murder of a pawnbroker. She is, he feels, just a parasite on society. But does the end justify the means?

A strange and tragic story by one of the best Russian storytellers - a beautifully and powerfully written drama of misguided people brought together at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and for all the wrong reasons.

Russian literature of the 19th century is among the richest, most profound, and most human traditions in the world. This course explores this tradition by focusing on four giants: Ivan Turgenev, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov. Their works had an enormous impact on Russian understanding of the human condition.

From the New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize–winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December comes a literary master class on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about ourselves—and our world today. For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been...

Anna Karenina has been described as the perfect Russian novel. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Anna Karenina is defenseless against the power of her passions once they are unleashed by the adoration of Count Vronsky. Having defied the rules of 19th century Russian society, Anna is forced to pay a heavy price. Human nature, with all its failings, is the fabric of which this great and passionate work is composed.

Белые ночи — произведение классика русской литературы и одного из лучших романистов мирового уровня Ф. М. Достоевского (1821–1881). Герой повести Мечтатель — своеобразный тип «лишнего человека». Но его критика обращена только на себя. Он не презирает общество, как Онегин или Печорин. Это альтруист, готовый прийти на помощь любому. Достоевский написал много интересных произведений: «Кроткая», «Мальчик у Христа на елке», «Неточка Незванова», «Подросток», «Дядюшкин сон», «Записки из мертвого дома», «Великий инквизитор», «Идиот», «Братья Карамазовы», «Вечный муж».

Evgenii Onegin is best known in the West through Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin. But the original narrative poem (consisting of 389 stanzas, the form of which has become known as the "Pushkin sonnet") is one of the landmarks of Russian literature. In the poem, the eponymous hero repudiates love, only to later experience the pain of rejection himself. Pushkin’s unique style proves timeless in its exploration of love, life, passion, jealousy, and the consequences of social convention.

Russia's forests account for nearly one-fifth of the world's wooded lands. The Oak and the Larch is the first-ever English-language exploration of this vast expanse—a dazzling environmental history of Russia that offers an urgent new understanding of the nature of Russian power, and of Russia's ideas of itself.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Anna Karenina Fix written and read by Viv Groskop. A literary self-help memoir about using the Russian Classics to find the answer to life's most important questions. Viv Groskop has discovered the meaning of life in Russian literature. As she knows...