Soviet Fiction

В 20-е годы прошлого столетия в СССР, огромным по тем временам тиражом 60 тысяч экземпляров издавался сатирический еженедельник, журнал "Бегемот".

Одним из самых могучих сородичей домашней кошки по праву считается лев. Львы обитают в саваннах, следуя за мигрирующими многотысячными стадами зебр и антилоп. В таких условиях выгоднее охотиться сообща, а не в одиночку.

Ру-ру - повесть Юза Алешковского, действие которой разворачивается в начале 80-х годов в небольшой деревне, затерянной в Смоленской области. Герои повести, в их числе даже участковый милиционер, предаются занятиям, совершенно не свойственным советскому человеку. Одно из них - закуска самогона лягушачьими лапками.

Замешанная на борьбе добра и зла повесть предстала на суд широкой публики с заранее сформулированным в русской литературе вопросом: "Каковы отношения денег и вдохновения, и без чего человеку живется хуже - без материальных благ или утраченного таланта?"

Под общим названием "Повести Белкина" объединены пять произведений: "Выстрел", "Метель", "Гробовщик", "Станционный смотритель" и "Барышня- крестьянка". Они были написаны Пушкиным в 1830 году в Болдине. Пушкин решил напечатать повести анонимно, с предисловием "от издателя", содержащим биографию И.П. Белкина.

Николай Семёнович Лесков (1831-1895) - выдающийся русский писатель, великолепный мастер слова, живописавший быт, нравы и настроения всех сословий России второй половины XIX века. Слушателям предлагается спектакль по его знаменитой повести "Леди Макбет Мценского уезда".

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s "A Faint Heart" (1848) is a short story about two close friends, Arkady Ivanovitch Nefedevitch and Vasya Shumkov. After a lengthy rumination on their names, Dostoevsky recounts the tale of how one of them is so overwhelmed by his good fortunate and happiness that he becomes consumed by it. The prospect of marrying his sweetheart brings him such euphoric joy that he experiences a masochistic transformation because the world wasn’t equally happy. So he ends up in an institution and his bride-to-be marries another.

Can an ordinary object - a watch, a piece of furniture, or an old rug - change the course of one's life? "Listen and find out" suggests an underappreciated master of Russian classical literature, Alexander Kuprin.

The short story The District Doctor by Turgenev, written in 1848, is part of the "Sportsman's Sketches" cycle. It tells the tale of a hopeless love between a dying girl from a noble family and a humble county doctor. Other famous works, such as "Asya", "Fathers and Sons", "A Nest of Noblemen", "Biryuk", "On the Eve", "Mumu","Fire at Sea", "The Wayside Inn", "The Watch", "Three Portraits", "A Strange Story", "The Meeting", etc.

Seance is a famouse short story by Mikhail Bulgakov, written in 1922. Published in the magazine "Rupor" (1922, No. 4). The epigraph to the work, created on the basis of the author's life observations, is Mephistopheles' Patter "Do not invoke him!"

The Komarov Case' - is an exciting story by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891 - 1940), an outstanding writer, playwright and theatre worker. Moscow is in a cold sweat - people disappear one by one, and then the bags with their corpses are found in different parts of the city. According to the same mode of wounds and the method of tying of victims - all these murders is the work of the same person.

Moscow settings - is an exciting story by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891 - 1940), an outstanding writer, playwright and theatre worker. Bulgakov was a Soviet playwright, novelist, and short story writer best known for his humor and penetrating satire. Because of their realism and humor, Bulgakov's works enjoyed great popularity, but their trenchant criticism of Soviet mores was increasingly unacceptable to the authorities.

Champagne is a short story by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, written in 1887. The story is written in the first person. The young head of a remote railway stop lived with his wife and without children in solitude, amusing himself with vodka and watching passing trains. Life was boring. One day before celebrating the New Year, he sat with his wife at the festive table, drank enough and thought about boredom. We waited for the clock to show the arrival of the New Year. At five minutes to twelve he uncorked the bottle, the cork flew out, and the bottle slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor.

Miguev, a married, intelligent collegiate assessor, is haunted with anxiety and worry. Miguev has a secret that he doesn't want his wife, the town, or his colleagues to discover. His mistress, after becoming pregnant and having his child, has recently tried to extort money from him in exchange for her silence. She threatens to ruin his reputation and divulge his secret shame to everyone unless he pays her. In the height of his fear and worry about his present situation, his fears seem to come alive when he discovers a baby bundled in a blanket on his porch.

The First Lover is a famous story by Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. The main character, Evgeny Alekseevich Podzharov, tells the guests a story about his love adventure. However, the story causes slight bewilderment and makes one of the listeners blush.

In Exile was first published in May 1892 issue of the Vsemirnaya Illustratsiya magazine. The story was inspired by Chekhov's journey through Siberia and his stay in Sakhalin and, in particular, two episodes of this trip. While on Sakhalin, Anton Chekhov met a boatman nicknamed Krasivy, a self-professed 'happy man' who struck him with his own peculiar brand of Tolstovian philosophy. It was Krasivy, apparently, who became a prototype for Semyon Tolkovy, the story's hero.

Misery by Anton Chekhov is a short story that explores the working-class, human despair, and suffering in Tsarist Russia. Chekhov's brief portrait of working-class life follows a sledge driver named Iona as he attempts to process his grief about his son's untimely death.

When several employees of the bank are arrested for corruption, the merchant Avdeyev doesn't give the ordeal much thought, figuring the men going to jail deserve it. His opinion changes however when he returns home to find his wife and son very upset - his house had just been searched by officials in connection to the bank corruption. Avdeyev had signed papers for the bankers without knowing what they were and so had essentially signed his life away by his carelessness. During the following trial, he learns the danger of being a "sheep" and just following along without a mind of his own.

Doctor Starchenko and Lyzhin, a young deputy examining magistrate, arrive at Syrnya to attend to the case of Lesnitsky, an insurance agent, who, upon arrival to the village three days before, entered the local zemstvo house, ordered himself a samovar, unpacked his food packets, and then all of as sudden shot himself. The suicide was so bizarre, that the inquest was deemed to be necessary.

In Old Age by Anton Chekhov we have the theme of change, loss, renewal, memories, guilt and despair. Taken from his The Complete Stories collection the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and very early on in the story the reader realises that Chekhov may be exploring the theme of change. Since Uzelkov has returned to his hometown he cannot imagine the differences the town has undertaken. It is not the place that he has left and there is a sense of modernity. Even the old waiter cannot remember the parts of the town that Uzelkov can.