Professor Weil introduces you to masterpieces such as Tolstoy's War and Peace, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin, Gogol's Dead Souls, Chekhov's The Seagull, Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, and many other great novels, stories, plays, and poems. In all, you plunge into more than 40 works by a dozen writers, from Aleksandr Pushkin in the 19th century to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in the 20th century. You also investigate the origin of Russian literature itself, which traces its lineage back to powerful epic poetry and beautiful renderings of the Bible into Slavic during the Middle Ages. All of these works are treated in translation, but Professor Weil does something very unusual in the literature-in-translation arena. For almost every passage that he quotes in English, he reads an extract in the original Russian, with a fluent accent and an actor's sense of drama.

    Do you live yet, my poor old mother?I, too, live, sending you my love.May the twilight climb up like a ladderyour poor cottage and hover above.I`ve heard say you conceal fear,that you miss me, that your life is hard,and along that path, my dear, that you walk, funny-clad, gazing far.But when evening showers down its gloom,you are seeing, you are seeing close,murky inns… bloody killers loom…my heart… pierced… and your fear grows.That`s a trifle, mother! Please stay calm.You see nightmares dance and play.I could never cause you such a harmas to die, without you, far away.I still miss your gentle, fondling hands,and I dream every night that I couldleave this anguish, leave these foreign lands,and return to our home made of wood.I`ll come back when the day is bornand our orchard whitens in its glow.Only never wake me at the dawnas you used to, as you did years ago.Please don`t rouse what I`ve dreamt away,let it sleep, let it sleep for ever.Life too early had managed to slayall my dreams, all my hopes, all my lovers.Please don`t teach me how to say my prayer;what has gone is erased, erased.You`re my grace, you alone are fair,you`re my only light in the haze.So give up, abandon your fear,stop that longing, soothe your sorry heart,and along that path, my dear,walk no more, funny-clad, gazing far.

    These stories all deal with the common theme of the awakening of love at unpremeditated time and place, catching the victims off-guard. For the essential flavor of the tales, read Sunstroke, the story of a chance encounter on board ship; and A Night at Sea, perhaps the most unusual story of the group. Russian -- some about cultured people, some about peasants. The market is:- all who like exceptional short stories; all who are interested in getting the feel of one of the most famous writers.

    Book of Pilnyak's short stories.

    Sketchbook. Informal guide-book.By Sofia Kolovskaya (the author of the vk-page "one day one sketch" https://vk.com/1day1sketch)

    

    

    But her passionless marriage to a senior statesman leads her into the arms of Count Alexey Vronsky. The dashing cavalry officer stokes in her something exciting and defiant. In abandoning the rules of her noble station, she’s aware of the risks: a degraded reputation and the hostile recriminations of St. Petersburg society. But there are even greater stakes as Anna follows desires both romantic and carnal, emancipating and destructive.The embodiment of the clash between Russia’s old-world tradition and its liberal reform, Leo Tolstoy’s willful heroine remains one of the most notorious and tragic in all of world literature. Revised edition: Previously published as Anna Karenina, this edition of Anna Karenina (AmazonClassics Edition) includes editorial revisions.