Nice to see Oblomov on your list. That's a firm favourite of mine.
When you refer to 'grades', it would be useful to give an age as I have no idea what grades mean. You did say you had a "a Russian literature phase at fifteen" -- is *that* 10th grade?
An excellent and easy to understand guide for beginners like me to Russian literature, thank you so much, Liza! Russian literature is criminally underrated and English and American literature tends to hog the spotlight. But Russian literature contains countless historic and profound works of its own that also 100% belong in the overall western literary canon! It is clear from reading this piece that pride you take in your heritage as a Russian-American and that these stories had a profound effect on you. Your grandmother without whom Pens and Poison wouldn't exist, instilled your love of literature in you and she did it with works such as these. All of these authors and poets had a profound gift for distilling brilliant insights into human nature and existence into the written word thorough intriguing metaphors and parables. Their characters are multilayered, fascinating and cause you to feel and care for them. You can very easily become invested in them. Furthermore, these stories really cause you to think about the implicit moral questions or messages they seek to explore or convey respectively. Their works contain many such messages that are very much still relevant today especially in 21st Century America. To compliment Liza's comprehensive and thorough guide to Russian literature, I thought I'd provide some great non-fiction books on Russian history:
* The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes
* Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes
* Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921 by Antony Beevor
* A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1890-1924 by Orlando Figes
* Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time by Joseph Frank
* Tolstoy: A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett
* 200 Years Together I: The Jews Before the Revolution by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
* 200 Years Together II: The Jews in the Soviet Union by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
* Alexander Kerensky: The First Love of the Revolution by Richard Abraham
In closing, I wanted to say that I'm grateful for your kindness and patience with me, Liza as I've gone through my mental health struggles. I know I say, "I'm taking a break" and then come back. I do apologize for that, I know that's irritating and confusing. I'm still doing that and trying to commit to it, but I like to pop in occasionally to see what you're up to and how you're doing. I knew I did not want to miss this piece! But I don't want to make this comment all about myself, so back to the topic at hand, I really enjoyed this piece and learned a great deal! I have great respect for Russia's people and culture even if detest its government. I also have great respect for Soviet Jews like your dad who faced persecution, discrimination, social ostracism, veiled bigotry, injustices, imprisonment, summary execution, and exile. But nonetheless, he never gave up and his spirit remained unbroken. He came to America, made a good life for himself, worked incredibly hard, and raised an amazing daughter who went to an Ivy League school, founded her own business and wrote four books and four poetry collections!
That's a great list of non-fiction, some of which I was unaware of and am now adding to my TBR. Natasha's Dance is an absolute delight. Thanks for posting your list. If I may just add one: Black Earth by Andrew Meier. I'm reading it now and it's a very interesting editorial-style book about modern history.
Okay, two then: Hope Against Hope, by Nadezhda Mandelstam (a clever title, given that Nadezhda means hope). I'll stop there!
Thank you so much for this! I'd love to learn Russian one day, but realistically I won't make time at the moment, and I can get, ahem, existentially overwhelmed by the number of translations there are.
I'm a little disappointed at the dearth of female Russian writers! One of my favorite is
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya...
I am a high school English teacher and I regularly have my students read her short stories. I absolutely love her writing and how it conveys Russian culture.
I'd like to add Roger Cockrell to your list of translators to consider. His translations of Crime and Punishment and The White Guard are both excellent, and I'm looking forward to his forthcoming translation of The Brothers Karamazov.
I'm reading the Anthony Briggs translation of War and Peace again and it's good, other than the dropped -a suffix in feminine surnames—that annoys me. The Maude translation (Mandelker edit) is also decent. I've never tried the Garnett, though I have read other translations of hers.
I published an exhaustive comparison of Crime and Punishment translations on my Substack if anyone's interested.
Have you read any Eugene Vodolazkin? He’s contemporary. I’ve only read two of his books but he’s already one of my favorite authors. Laurus is his best-known, and I also highly recommend Solovyov and Larionov. His work has such reverence for traditions, religion, and historical accuracy. His characters are lovable and tortured. I think you’d get a kick out of him if you haven’t already.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. I’m apparently better read in Russian literature than I thought. I have read most of the works you discuss. I found your comments on Dead Souls interesting because I was baffled by the second part of that book. I enjoyed The Overcoat more.Life and Fate is a terrific novel. You might also want to take a look at Grossmans Everything Flows. Heart of a Dog is worthwhile and l quite like The White Guard . On Soviet life, Kolyma Tales gives you quite a harrowing and ultimately numbing portrait of camp life. Another interesting perspective on Soviet life can be found in Venedikt Erofev Moscow to the End of the Line.
Thank for complimenting Constance Garnett , who’s become quite unfashionable.
Did you ever read Andrei Bely’s Petersburg? I’d seen it lauded for years and read it and was thoroughly bored .
Finally , only a little off topic, I want to put in a plug for Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Beginning of Spring . It’s English with a Russian setting. It’s a good and in some respects strange novel.
Thanks for this. I’m pleased to say I have read most of these, but aim not completed that much if it was read under duress of many kinds, mostly ridiculous time pressure. In one case, (this is pretty funny), my mom caught me sneezing a bite of something she had apparently asked to be saved and so insisted I read Crime and Punishment. Anyway, you inspire me to return to… well, shoot, I don’t know how much time I have left. I’m most inclined to reread Karamazov, in part because I consider my favorite book ever to be David James Duncan’s The Brothers K. All of this is a too long way of asking if you were to advise/suggest only two from this list, which would you most enthusiastically support?
A great list for the pre-Soviet era and a very limited for the Soviet one. It misses so much brilliance! Babel, Platonov, Sholokhov, Pasternak (both as a poet and a novelist), Dovlatov, Yerofeev -- are all sorely missed.
Some time ago I tried to compile the "Great Russian Novels" list. It may be a companion piece to yours; a lot of similarities but a lot of differences as well.
Nice to see Oblomov on your list. That's a firm favourite of mine.
When you refer to 'grades', it would be useful to give an age as I have no idea what grades mean. You did say you had a "a Russian literature phase at fifteen" -- is *that* 10th grade?
Oblomov
An excellent and easy to understand guide for beginners like me to Russian literature, thank you so much, Liza! Russian literature is criminally underrated and English and American literature tends to hog the spotlight. But Russian literature contains countless historic and profound works of its own that also 100% belong in the overall western literary canon! It is clear from reading this piece that pride you take in your heritage as a Russian-American and that these stories had a profound effect on you. Your grandmother without whom Pens and Poison wouldn't exist, instilled your love of literature in you and she did it with works such as these. All of these authors and poets had a profound gift for distilling brilliant insights into human nature and existence into the written word thorough intriguing metaphors and parables. Their characters are multilayered, fascinating and cause you to feel and care for them. You can very easily become invested in them. Furthermore, these stories really cause you to think about the implicit moral questions or messages they seek to explore or convey respectively. Their works contain many such messages that are very much still relevant today especially in 21st Century America. To compliment Liza's comprehensive and thorough guide to Russian literature, I thought I'd provide some great non-fiction books on Russian history:
* The Story of Russia by Orlando Figes
* Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes
* Russia: Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1921 by Antony Beevor
* A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1890-1924 by Orlando Figes
* Dostoevsky: A Writer in His Time by Joseph Frank
* Tolstoy: A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett
* 200 Years Together I: The Jews Before the Revolution by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
* 200 Years Together II: The Jews in the Soviet Union by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
* Alexander Kerensky: The First Love of the Revolution by Richard Abraham
In closing, I wanted to say that I'm grateful for your kindness and patience with me, Liza as I've gone through my mental health struggles. I know I say, "I'm taking a break" and then come back. I do apologize for that, I know that's irritating and confusing. I'm still doing that and trying to commit to it, but I like to pop in occasionally to see what you're up to and how you're doing. I knew I did not want to miss this piece! But I don't want to make this comment all about myself, so back to the topic at hand, I really enjoyed this piece and learned a great deal! I have great respect for Russia's people and culture even if detest its government. I also have great respect for Soviet Jews like your dad who faced persecution, discrimination, social ostracism, veiled bigotry, injustices, imprisonment, summary execution, and exile. But nonetheless, he never gave up and his spirit remained unbroken. He came to America, made a good life for himself, worked incredibly hard, and raised an amazing daughter who went to an Ivy League school, founded her own business and wrote four books and four poetry collections!
That's a great list of non-fiction, some of which I was unaware of and am now adding to my TBR. Natasha's Dance is an absolute delight. Thanks for posting your list. If I may just add one: Black Earth by Andrew Meier. I'm reading it now and it's a very interesting editorial-style book about modern history.
Okay, two then: Hope Against Hope, by Nadezhda Mandelstam (a clever title, given that Nadezhda means hope). I'll stop there!
Thank you so much for this! I'd love to learn Russian one day, but realistically I won't make time at the moment, and I can get, ahem, existentially overwhelmed by the number of translations there are.
Great idea, thank you!
Your very first recommendation Eugene Onegin was not translated (?)by the group of translators mentioned.
As poetry the question of translations is even more important,any suggestions?
I'm a little disappointed at the dearth of female Russian writers! One of my favorite is
Lyudmila Petrushevskaya...
I am a high school English teacher and I regularly have my students read her short stories. I absolutely love her writing and how it conveys Russian culture.
I'd like to add Roger Cockrell to your list of translators to consider. His translations of Crime and Punishment and The White Guard are both excellent, and I'm looking forward to his forthcoming translation of The Brothers Karamazov.
I'm reading the Anthony Briggs translation of War and Peace again and it's good, other than the dropped -a suffix in feminine surnames—that annoys me. The Maude translation (Mandelker edit) is also decent. I've never tried the Garnett, though I have read other translations of hers.
I published an exhaustive comparison of Crime and Punishment translations on my Substack if anyone's interested.
https://camscampbellreads.substack.com/p/translations-in-this-project
I'm keen to do the same for Anna Karenina after having just spent a fortune on the new Pasternak-Slater translation!
Have you read any Eugene Vodolazkin? He’s contemporary. I’ve only read two of his books but he’s already one of my favorite authors. Laurus is his best-known, and I also highly recommend Solovyov and Larionov. His work has such reverence for traditions, religion, and historical accuracy. His characters are lovable and tortured. I think you’d get a kick out of him if you haven’t already.
This is such a great guide - thank you!
Thank you!
I thoroughly enjoyed this. I’m apparently better read in Russian literature than I thought. I have read most of the works you discuss. I found your comments on Dead Souls interesting because I was baffled by the second part of that book. I enjoyed The Overcoat more.Life and Fate is a terrific novel. You might also want to take a look at Grossmans Everything Flows. Heart of a Dog is worthwhile and l quite like The White Guard . On Soviet life, Kolyma Tales gives you quite a harrowing and ultimately numbing portrait of camp life. Another interesting perspective on Soviet life can be found in Venedikt Erofev Moscow to the End of the Line.
Thank for complimenting Constance Garnett , who’s become quite unfashionable.
Did you ever read Andrei Bely’s Petersburg? I’d seen it lauded for years and read it and was thoroughly bored .
Finally , only a little off topic, I want to put in a plug for Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Beginning of Spring . It’s English with a Russian setting. It’s a good and in some respects strange novel.
I personally can't recommend Magarshack. Very very Anglo translation of C+P. Made it a tad too British, for my taste.
I thought the same about Katz in an American sense.
Thanks for this. I’m pleased to say I have read most of these, but aim not completed that much if it was read under duress of many kinds, mostly ridiculous time pressure. In one case, (this is pretty funny), my mom caught me sneezing a bite of something she had apparently asked to be saved and so insisted I read Crime and Punishment. Anyway, you inspire me to return to… well, shoot, I don’t know how much time I have left. I’m most inclined to reread Karamazov, in part because I consider my favorite book ever to be David James Duncan’s The Brothers K. All of this is a too long way of asking if you were to advise/suggest only two from this list, which would you most enthusiastically support?
A great list for the pre-Soviet era and a very limited for the Soviet one. It misses so much brilliance! Babel, Platonov, Sholokhov, Pasternak (both as a poet and a novelist), Dovlatov, Yerofeev -- are all sorely missed.
Some time ago I tried to compile the "Great Russian Novels" list. It may be a companion piece to yours; a lot of similarities but a lot of differences as well.
https://tapwatersommelier.substack.com/p/the-great-russian-novel
(deleted a previous comment because I also wanted to share it as a Note)