Customer Reviews

An Anthology of Russian Literature from Earliest Writings to Modern Fiction: Introduction to a Culture

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This book provides an deeper insight into Russian literature and it's culture. Mr. Rzhevsky has done this by writing an introduction to each period in the history of Russian literature and showing us how all these works have resonated in Russian culture like music, theatre, cinema etc. So find out why Pushkin's 'Boris Godunov' and Mussorgsky's opera interpretation of it have had a great impact especially in times of moral instability and the collapse of values and historical insecurity of the Gorbachov era or why Nikolai Gogol was misunderstood by many of his readers.
This was exactly the book I was looking for and it is an great introduction to an very interesting culture and its literature.

This book is an excellent compilation of some of the greatest writers Russia has ever produced. On these pages we find literature by Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenyev, Lermentov, Tolstoy, Blok, Babel, Kharms, Bulgakov and many others, as well as a few anonymous authors. There are stories, plays and poems in this anthology, giving the reader a fine selection of the rich variety of literature that Russia had contributed to the world. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in literature (especially, but not limited to Russian literature) and I believe the reader will appreciate this book's true creativity.

This served as the text for a Russian Literature class I recently took. I am only a student so I cannot go deeply into the works provided or translations but the general content is great. The book serves as a good representation of Russian literature over a broad time period. The notes on the works provide decent insight into Russian culture that an American student like myself sometimes lacks. Highly recommend.

I really like this anthology. This book contains many of the greatest works in Russian literature, from the first stories to be recorded to modern literature. To have Pushkin, Gogol, Kharms, and Tsvetaeva in the same anthology provides a wide range of literary styles and ideas. Also, the translations are some of the best available, and Rzhevsky's analysis is very comprehensive.

I bought this book for a Russian Literature in translation survey course. Their selection was good. However, I felt that the preface sections, meant to give background information and help conceptualize the authors, were not as clear as I would have liked.

This is a good compilation of the influential works throught out Russia's history. Even thought the volume is large, the author had to omit a lot of works and people, but this is a great start.