The Best of Russian Literature

A Panorama of Russian Classics: Realism, Satire, Psychological Fiction, and Social Conscience

Nicholas Evrèinov, Denis Von Visin, Anton Chekhov, A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoyevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, M.Y. Saltykov, V.G. Korolenko, V.N. Garshin, F.K. Sologub, I.N. Potapenko, S.T. Semyonov, Maxim Gorky, L.N. Andreyev, M.P. Artzybashev, A.I. Kuprin, C. E. Bechhofer Roberts, Thomas Seltzer, Constance Garnett

• Publisher: e-artnow
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9788026838043
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

The Best of Russian Literature surveys a century of artistic experimentation and moral inquiry, bringing together lyricism, realism, satire, psychological drama, social reportage, and proto-modernist unease. From compact tales of bureaucratic absurdity and provincial life to searching studies of faith, violence, poverty, desire, and conscience, the volume reveals Russian literature's exceptional capacity to unite social observation with philosophical depth. Its selection of canonical narratives alongside less frequently anthologized work makes the collection both representative and intellectually expansive. The contributors span the major currents of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian writing: the Romantic and national traditions associated with Pushkin, the critical realism of Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Korolenko, the satirical force of Saltykov, and the Symbolist, naturalist, and socially radical tendencies visible in Sologub, Gorky, Andreyev, Artzybashev, and Kuprin. Together, these writers register the pressures of autocracy, class division, modernization, and spiritual crisis. Their differing aesthetic commitments create a rich collective portrait of Russia's changing cultural imagination. This volume is especially recommended for readers seeking an informed introduction to Russian prose in its breadth and complexity. It offers an invaluable opportunity to compare styles, historical moments, and ethical visions within a single book. Students and general readers alike will find in its varied works a sustained dialogue about individuality, society, suffering, and artistic responsibility.

Table of contents

• The Best Russian Plays and Short Stories by Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, Gogol and many more (Unabridged)
• Table of Contents
• Plays:
• INTRODUCTION
• THE WEDDING [trans. by C. E. Bechhofer Roberts]
• THE JUBILEE [trans. by C. E. Bechhofer Roberts ]
• A MERRY DEATH
• THE BEAUTIFUL DESPOT
• THE CHOICE OF A TUTOR
• THE INSPECTOR GENERAL: A COMEDY IN FIVE ACTS
• SAVVA
• THE LIFE OF MAN
• Short Stories:
• Essays:
• On Russian Novelists by William Lyon Phelps
• Lectures on Russian Novelists by Ivan Panin