The Wayback Machine - http://www.sovlit.com:80/minis/
SovLit.com Presents:

MINIATURE SUMMARIES OF
MOMUMENTAL WORKS

Over 1,000 Works of Soviet Literature summarized for those too lazy or unable to read them in the original.
For detailed summaries of selected works, visit the SovLit.com main page
Sorted By Author       Click Here to Sort By Year
Abramov, Fyodor At the Crossroads (Puti-pereput'ya, 1973). Volume 3 of the tetralogy "The Pryaslins". In a remote northern village in the fall of 1951, conditions are still harsh. Repressive, meddlesome, and blatantly unjust government and police measures hamper the development of the community and collective farm.1
Abramov, Fyodor Brothers and Sisters (Bratya i sestry, 1958). Volume 1 of the tetralogy "The Pryaslins". Shows the women, old folk and children of a village in the Arkhangelsk region while all the men are away at war. They struggle to provide food and wood for the war effort, avoid starvation, and survive as families and a community.1
Abramov, Fyodor House, The (Dom, 1978). Volume 4 of the tetralogy "The Pryaslins". In the 1970s, Mikhail, the head of the Prysalin family, is still firm and honorable but has become disappointed, bitter, and cantankerous. His siblings, one of which has become a criminal, are alienated to varying degrees. The collective farm has been engulfed by a state farm. 1
Abramov, Fyodor Pelageya (Pelageya, 1967 - 1969). A woman labors in a village bakery for twenty years to support an ailing husband and ungrateful daughter.1
Abramov, Fyodor Two Winters and Three Summers (Dve zimy i tri leta, 1968). Volume 2 of the tetralogy "The Prysalins". In the post-war years, the eldest son of the Prysalin family emerges as the extremely hard-working, devoted, and self-sacrificing anchor of his now fatherless village family. Faced with impossible demands from corrupt regional authorities for the rebuilding of the village economy, the community struggles on.1
Abramov, Fyodor Wooden Horses (Derevyaniye koni, 1969). A resilient, lovingly generous, selfless, and dignified old woman endures a life or hardship, a loveless arranged marriage, the lose of children in the war, and neglect and disappointment from other children.1
Aitmatov, Chingiz Ascent of Mount Fuji (xxx, 1975). Play dealing with Stalin's purges and their aftermaths, raising the question of moral responsibility. Co-written with Mukhamedzhanov.4
Aitmatov, Chingiz Camel's Eye (Verblyuzhii glaz, 1961). A boy, whose history teacher has imbued him with a romantic fascination for the lore and traditions of his steppe ancestors, is confronted by his compatriots' complete indifference to their cultural history.8
Aitmatov, Chingiz Day Last More Than 100 Years (I dolshe veka dlitsya den, 1981). A complex and deeply philosophical novel centering on a Kazakh railway worker journeying to bury his friend and, via his memories, the whole issue of history and cultural heritage. Intertwines a treatment of the ordinary people of Central Asia with a science fiction plot of space stations, aliens, and new planets.
Aitmatov, Chingiz Early Cranes (Rannie zhuravli, 1976). xxx
Aitmatov, Chingiz Execution Block (aka Place of the Skull) (Plakha, 1986). A theology student tries to convince some Central Asian drug runners and antelope slaughters to give up their evil ways. Also, a happy shepherd has his life ruined by a nasty Party secretary and a drunken lout who's jealous of his success.1
Aitmatov, Chingiz Farewell, Gulsary (Proshchai, Gul'sary, 1966). An old man reminisces about the parallel lives of himself and his old horse, which is dying. State Prize winner, 1968.
Aitmatov, Chingiz First Teacher (Perviy uchitel', 1967). xxx
Aitmatov, Chingiz Jamila (Dzhamila, 1958). A married woman in a Kirghizian village, falls in love with another man while her husband--who treats her more as an object of ownership than an object of love--is off at the front. In the end, the lovers run off together, abandoning their village and the traditional conventions
Aitmatov, Chingiz Little Soldier (xxx, 197x). A five-year-old boy thinks that one of the soldiers in a war movie is his father. Although it's just an actor, the boy believes, and the spirit of his dead father comes to life for him on that day.
Aitmatov, Chingiz Mother Earth (Materinskoe pole, 1963 - 1964). xxx
Aitmatov, Chingiz Spotted Dog, Running by the Seashore (Pegii pes, begushchii kraem morya, 1977). A boy goes out on his first seal-hunting expedition with his father, an uncle and an old man. The trip is ill-fated, as they become lost for days in a great fog and their fresh water supply runs out.
Aitmatov, Chingiz White Ship (Belii parakhod, 1970). An orphan boy dreams of becoming a fish so that he can join his father who, he believes, sails in the white ship on the Issyk-Kul Lake.
Aksenov, Vasili Colleagues (Kollegi, 1960). Novel telling the story of three friends, just out of medical school, and how they pass the initial tests of their ability, moral fibre, and stamina. While two of them are marking time in Leningrad awaiting assignment as ship's doctors, their Komsomol vigilance helps to break up a ring of embezzlers. The third, assigned to a rural dispensary, proves his medttle in a series of rugged adventures.8
Aksenov, Vasili Halfway to the Moon (Na polputi k lune, 1963). A tractor driver from the far east starts his vacation with a three-day binge, then boards a jet for Moscow. He is dazzled by a beautiful stewardess and spends the rest of his vacation--and all his money--flying repeatedly back and forth between Moscow and Khabarovsk hoping for another glimpse of her.8
Aksenov, Vasili Oranges From Morocco (Apel'siny iz Mapokko, 1963). A ship laden with oranges arrives in the dead of winter at a remote port on Sakhalin island. The locals--including Nanai tribesmen on dogslegs--clog the roads as they rush to the port. They gorge themselves on oranges, punctuating their revelry with fistfights.8
Aksenov, Vasili Overstuffed Barrels (Zatovarennaya bochkotara, 1968). A motley group of Soviet citizens are riding in a truckload of empty barrels. Each passenger has a series of dreams that reveal both his character and his aspirations. Gradually, the dreams of each penetrate and blend with the dreams of the others until they converge into a common vision of the Good Man.8
Aksenov, Vasili Papa, What Does That Spell? (xxx, 196x). A young lathe operator takes his six-year-old daughter to the park and discovers that his wife, who is supposed to be studying for her doctor's degree, really having a rendezvous.8
Aksenov, Vasili Rendezvous (xxx, 1971). A fantastically talented Soviet jetsetter--poet, musician, champion hockey and chess player as well as a virtuoso with the ladies--enjoys public adoration. He plays the self-appointed role of spokesman for a generation. However, he is made to realize that he is aging, has lost his charm, and is on the verge of becoming a laughing stock. So he returns home to his faithful wife.8
Aksenov, Vasili Starry Ticket (Zvyozdnii billet, 1961). An engagingly irreverent and rebellious group of Soviet teenagers, rock-and-rolling runaway from the discipline of both parents and society, with a pungent flip language loaded with foreignisms, openly mock Soviet sacred cows.8
Aksenov, Vasili Wild One (Dikoi, 1964). After a lifetime of state service--including 18 years in a Stalinist prison camp--a man returns to his native village. There he meets a strange boyhood friend who has spent his life making what may or may not be a perpetual-motion machine.8
Alekseev, G. Apartment House (Zhiloi dom, 1926). Communal life as a menagerie of social types.3
Aleshin, Samuil Alone (Odna, 1956). Play dealing with love, family, infidelity, and divorce, all from the point of view of the individual's private concerns.9
Alieva, Fazu Springs Are Born in the Mountains (xxx, 1971 ?). Tale of a Dagestani village woman's life from childhood to adulthood. She overcomes the cruelty and medieval attitude of her father to fall in love, become a doctor, and raise a daughter. (Avar)
Antonov, Sergei Alyonka (Alyonka, 1960). Account of a journey in an open truck across 150 miles of barren Siberian steepe by a bright 9-year-old girls, who is being sent to school in the city. Her fellow travelers are a motley group, each of them having a touching life story.8
Antonov, Sergei Application Form (xxx, 1956). Portrait of a rigid, lying bureaucrat with an obsession for routine and order and a timidity that comes from an indoctrinated fear of higher-ups.8
Antonov, Sergei New Office Worker (xxx, 1954). A married district Party secretary, dismayed at his wife's love of privilege, becomes infatuated with a young girl in his office. Ironically, at the same time he has to break up the extramarital affair of one of his subordinates.8
Antonov, Sergei Penkovo Affair (Delo bylo v Pen'kove, 1956). A love triangle is played out on a collective farm. Poor discipline, inefficient management, backward farming methods, window-dressing, and low morale are all showcased. Hooliganism and an all-out drunken wedding celebration are also featured.8
Antonov, Sergei Running Empty (xxx, 1960). A young journalist stumbles upon corruption at a Siberian logging site.8
Antonov, Sergei Torn Ruble (xxx, 1965). Problems on the collective farm.8
Argunova, Nora Day of Departure (Den' ot'ezda, 1967). Povest.
Argunova, Nora Hunter (Lovets, 1967). Short story.
Argunova, Nora Incident on the Line (Sluchai na linii, 1967). A dry, callous formalist--a railroad safety inspector--demonstrates surprising qualities when faced with a dramatic situation.
Argunova, Nora Nighttime Accident (Nochnoye proizshestviye, 1967). A female train engineer is in love with a fellow engineer, who is married and has children. The male engineer violates work rules and causes the death of a switchman. The woman tries to cover up for her lover, and even takes the guilt on herself. The man, cowardly and selfish, readily accepts the sacrifice.
Argunova, Nora Splendid Beast (Slavnii zver', 1967). A pilot, wireless operator, and conductors on a mail train save a bear cub when the dried up, formalist supervisor of the train wants to throw it off.
Arosev, A. On the Earth Beneath the Sun (Na zemle nod solntsem, 1927). A Cheka official named Obryvov turns himself over to his comrades as a "traitor" because years before one of his best friends had been killed by an anti-Red mob, which thought it was killing Obryvov, while the victim made no effort to correct the mistake. Obryvov failed to act not because he was more valuable to the Party than his friend, but simply because he wanted to live. The Party tells Obryvov he's being overly scrupulous and returns him to work in the Cheka.3
Arosev, A. Torment (Strada, 1921). Hopeless moral dilemmas tear apart the protagonist.3
Astafev, Viktor Liudochka (Liudochka, 1989). Disturbing account of the rape of a girl by a gang of hoodlums and of her subsequent suicide.1
Astafev, Viktor Sad Detective Story (Pechalnii detectiv, 1986). Experiences of a retired provincial policeman who has become a writer. Diatribe against drunks, pseudo-intellectuals, thieves, rapists, and cutthroats in glasnost-era Soviet society.
Astafev, Viktor Shepherd and Shepherdess (Pastukh i pastushka, 1974). Story of a brief love affair between and army lieutenant and a Ukrainian peasant girl in a lull between fierce battles.1
Astafev, Viktor To Live Life (Zhizn prozhit, 1985). Story of an orphan who grows up in harsh conditions in Siberia, goes to war, is wounded, returns to various modest jobs, gets married, widowed, and dies.1
Astafev, Viktor Tsar-Fish (aka Queen Fish) (Tsar-ryba, 1972). Detailed account of a lone fisherman's long battle with a huge sturgeon, which nearly drowns him before escaping.1
Avaliani, Lado New Horizon (xxx, 19xx). Novel depicting the life and work of Georgian coalminers. (Georgian)
Avaliani, Lado Zuloaga's Hat (xxx, 1969 ?). Story based on a 1920 meeting between Georgian artist Lado Gudiashvili and Basque painter Ignacio Zuloaga. (Georgian)
Azhaev, Vasili Far From Moscow (Daleko ot Moskvy, 1948). A portrayal of heroic endeavors involved in the building of an oil pipe line in eastern Siberia. State Prize winner, 1949.
Azhaev, Vasili Prologue to Life (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Babel, Isaak E. Church at Novograd (Kostel v Novograde, 1926). Red Army soldiers search a Catholic Church in Poland. They find hidden army uniforms and hoards of gold, banknotes, and jewels.
Babel, Isaak E. Crossing the Zbruch (Perekhod cherez Zbruch, 1926). A Red Army soldier is billeted with a Jewish family. On the floor is the corpse of an old man whose throat was slashed recently by the Poles right in front of the man's distraught pregnant daughter.
Babel, Isaak E. Death of Dolgushov (Smert Dolgushova, 1924). A disembowled Red Army soldier begs the narrator-intellectual to shoot him, thereby ending his misery and keeping him out of the hands of the Poles, who would probably torture him. The intellectual, concerned only with keeping his own hands clean, refuses. ( Click here for complete text of story in English.)
Babel, Isaak E. How It Was Done in Odessa (Kak Eto Delalos v Odesse, 1923). Gangster Benya Kirk becomes wealthy and gets the title of "King" through senseless murder, making the innocent pay for the murder, and forcing the community to pay the cost of extravagant funerals for his murder victims.
Babel, Isaak E. King (Korol, 1923). Thug, extortionist, murderer, gangster Benya Kirk portrayed lovingly as he hosts an obscenely opulent wedding and simultaneously extends his reign of terror and intimidation via arson.
Babel, Isaak E. Letter (Pismo, 1923). Some brothers fight with the Reds against their father, who is with Deniken's Whites. The father captures and kills one son. A second son captures and kills the father.
Babel, Isaak E. Lyubka the Cossack (Liubka Kazak, 1924). The head of a smuggling ring is off galavanting all day arranging deals while her infant son lies at home, crying for his mother's milk. A non-paying customer, temporarily imprisoned at Lyubka's inn, weans the child to the bottle. For this, the customer is rewarded and given a job.
Babel, Isaak E. Salt (Sol, 1923). Soldiers take pity on a woman with a baby and let her ride on their troop train. It turns out, however, that the baby is really a sack of salt. The soldiers feel insulted and cheated. (Thinking that she was a mother they didn't even try to violate her.) So they throw her off the moving train
Babel, Isaak E. Second Brigade Commader (Kombrig Dva, 1920). new brigade commander is appointed, receiving his third promotion in a week. He has a successful day in battle and displays the masterful indifference of a Tartar Khan.
Babel, Isaak E. Sun of Italy (Solntse Italii, 1926). A Red Army soldier, wounded and unable to fight, is bored and dreams of being sent to Italy, where, perhaps, he can assassinate the Italian king
Baklanov, Grigori Cost of War (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Bakunts, Aksel Kiores (xxx, 1962?). Biting satire aimed at a whole gallery of provincial Armenian philistines. (Armenian)
Bednii, Boris Lovers' Seat (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Bek, Aleksandr Life of Berzhkov (Zhizn' Berezhkova, 1956). Novel about the career and social development of an airplane engine designer. In the beginning, he blithely makes weapons for the Tsar. Over the ensuing years he learns various professional and personal lessons so that by the end he is working for the good of all, not just himself.9
Bek, Aleksandr Lucky Hands (xxx, 1962?). Story revolving around the life of the eminent Russian surgeon Sergei Petrovich Fyodorov, once the personal physican to Tsar Nikolai II who then used his skill, knowledge and "lucky hands" in the service of the young Soviet state.
Bek, Aleksandr New Assignment (Noviye naznacheniye, 1971, pub. 1986). A high-level apparatchik tries to base his behavior and career on Stalin's model. The results are self-destructive
Beliaev, Sergei Meat (Myaso, 1936). An "industrial novel" co-authored with Boris Pilnyak. It provides a disconnected, anecdotal, imaginataive history of the meat industry from the tsars to the present, including comparisons with American experience and capitalism's role in meat production. Boring.5
Beliayev, Aleksandr R. Flying Carpet (Kover-Samolet, 19xx). A wacky Soviet scientist named Professor Wagner is convinced that fleas are superior to humans--at least in terms of leaping ability. He sets out to right this injustice of nature and nearly ends up stranded in the stratosphere. Science-fiction comedy. Click here for complete text of story in English)
Beliayev, Aleksandr R. Hoity-Toity (Hoity-Toity, 19xx). A very sane--not at all mad--Soviet scientist transplants the brain of a man into the body of an elephant.
Beliayev, Aleksandr R. Man Who Does Not Sleep (Chelovek Kotorii Ne Spit, 19xx). Wacky Soviet Professor Wagner invents a way to cure people of the need to sleep. Evil German militarists-capitalists kidnap Wagner and steal his formula. They distribute the formula throughout Germany, keeping everyone awake. Increased worker productivity means they can fire half the work force, creating massive unemployment. Wagner manages to secretly alter the ingredients in his formula and put all of Germany asleep, except for the homeless and unemployed, who could not afford the anti-sleep pills. Wagner blasts his way out of his laboratory-jail, and, with the help of some of the non-sleeping proletariat, manages to make it back to the Soviet Union and freedom!
Beliayev, Aleksandr R. The Struggle in Space (Borba v Efire, 1928). Rocket-airships, radio-controlled tanks, and Death Rays. Evil Americans try to destroy the socialist paradise of the future, but the Soviets counterattack and win. Remnant capitalists flee to an underground base near Antartica, planning to escape into outer space. Socialism on one planet! (Click here for detailed summary.)
Belov, Vasili I. Everything Lies Ahead (Vse vperedi, 1986). A scientist-turned-bureaucrat steals another man's wife and children and aspires to move to America. Set in soulless Moscow, it portrays members of the intelligentsia as addicted to decadent Western culture, given to sexual excesses, marital infidelities, rock music, abortions, and scotch whiskey.1
Belov, Vasili I. Eves (Kanuny, 1972 - 1987). Story of middle peasants during a time of relative stability in the 1920s prior to the collectivization campaigns.
Belov, Vasili I. Ordinary Affair (aka That's How It Is) (Privychnoye delo, 1966). Study of an ordinary, industrious but poor peasant and his large family.
Belov, Vasili I. Year of Great Change: A Chronicle of Nine Months (God velikovo pereloma: khonika devyati mesyatsev, 1989). Depiction of the harsh and inhuman measures taken during the forced collectivization of the Vologda region. Deportation of Ukrainian peasants to the frozen north also shown.1
Berestov, Valentin Word of a Caterpillar (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Bieliauskas, Alfonsas Romance of Kaunas (Kauno romanas, 196x). An official in the employment trust is sent to quash a dispute between a female factory worker and her boss. His assignment is to vindicate the boss, but he determines that justice is on the side of the worker, and, for the first time in his life, he stands up to oppose the orders of his superiors. (Lithuanian) (n)7
Bitov, Andrei Country Place (xxx, 196x). A writer, caught up in a fallow period, spends a month of self-torment at a dacha with his wife and baby son.8
Bitov, Andrei Doctor (Doktor, 1978). xxx
Bitov, Andrei Door (xxx, 196x). An infatuated adolescent lingers in a hallway, waiting in vain for a glimpse of the woman who is deceiving him.8
Bitov, Andrei Journey to a Childhood Friend (xxx, 196x). Story of a man's complex attitude to a friend who has become a celebrity because of his feats as an explorer of volcanoes. On the one hand, he loves and admires his friend; on the other hand he views him with envy and hatred. Aim is also taken at the inflated need of the official press to create popular heroes.8
Bitov, Andrei Man in the Landscape (Chelovek v peizazhe, 1987). An eccentric painter gets into a long, drunken conversation about man, God, nature, beauty, Russia, culture, etc., etc.
Bitov, Andrei Penelope (Penelope, 196x). An office worker, killing time at a movie, strikes up a conversation with a young woman, agrees to help her find a job, then takes fright and ditches her.8
Bitov, Andrei Pushkin House (Pushkinskii Dom, 1978, pub. 1987). A young scholar is assigned to watch over the Pushkin House museum over a holiday. He gets drunk and is killed in a duel in the museum with an old nemesis. The duel is a parody of Pushkin's fatal duel, and the work is filled with 19th-century literary references in an attempt to study a shallow man of the 20th century.1
Bitov, Andrei Pushkin's Photograph (1799-2099) (Fotografiya Pushkina (1799-2099), 1987). A Pushkinologist from the future is sent back in time to get a photo and voice recording of the great poet. The scholar manages to wander around in old Russia for a bit, have a few brief encounters with the poet, and fail in an attempt to prevent Pushkin's fatal duel. In the end, he returns to the future with only blurry photos and garbled recordings.1
Bitov, Andrei Such a Long Childhood (Takoe dolgoe detsvo, 1965). A young man, on the threshold of manhood, gets expelled from a mining institute for poor grades. On an impulse, and without consulting with his parents, he joins former classmates who go to a mining town in the far north for their required summer of practical work. He gets a job as a regular miner, gets a girlfriend, and gets drafted into the army.8
Bitov, Andrei Taste (Vkus, 1987). xxx
Bitov, Andrei Wife's Not Home (xxx, 196x). The account of a few wasted hours in the life of an alienated young man, married to an actress who supports him. He wanders aimlessly about the city, has trivial and meaningless encounters with a few chance acquaintances, does a bit of drinking, goes home and waits jealously for his wife, quarrels with her, and goes to bed.8
Boldyrev, S. Deciding Years (Reshaiushchiye gody, 19xx). Socialist superhero among the blast furnaces.
Bondarev, Yuri V. Batallions Request Cover (Batal'ony prosyat ognya, 1957). Great Patriotic War novel.
Bondarev, Yuri V. Choice (Vybor, 1980). A terminally ill expatriot kills himself on a visit to Moscow so that he can be buried in the city of his youth. His fate causes his former Soviet friend to engage in a painful exploration of existential questions. 4
Bondarev, Yuri V. Commanders' Youth (Iunost' komandirov, 1956). xxx
Bondarev, Yuri V. Final Volleys (Poslednie zalpy, 1959). Great Patriotic War novel.
Bondarev, Yuri V. Hot Snow (Goryachii sneg, 1969). Novel about a Russian artillery unit and their struggle to prevent Manstein's Panzers relieving von Paulus's Army around Stalingrad during three days in December 1942. Narrative focuses on emotions and actions of combatants in critical situations.
Bondarev, Yuri V. Relatives (Rodstvennik, 1969). Children judge their parents behavior during the purges. 4
Bondarev, Yuri V. Shore, The (Bereg, 1975). A Soviet writer learns that a German woman, with whom he had a passionate romance as a young officer, still loves him. He dies, without reaching the promised shore of the dream of his youth.4
Bondarev, Yuri V. Silence (Tishina, 1962). Novel addressing themes of morality and Stalin's postwar repression.4
Bondarev, Yuri V. Two, The (Dvoe, 1964). Sequel to "Silence".
Bryl, Yanka The Birches White with Hoar-Frost (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Bubennov, Mikhail S. At Flood Time (V polovod'e, 1940). Collection of stories and sketches.
Bubennov, Mikhail S. Eagles' Steppe (Orlinaya step', 1959). xxx.
Bubennov, Mikhail S. Fire in the Taiga (Ogon' v taige, 19xx). Short story.
Bubennov, Mikhail S. Immortality (Bessmertiye, 1940). In this tale, set in the Civil War, the Whites sail a "death barge" down the Kama River. The barge's hold is full of prisoners--Bolsheviks and ordinary peasants--who are hauled out one by one to be shot or hung. The prisoners attempt a rebellion, partisans attempt a rescue, and everyone nearly drowns in a storm. After capturing Kazan, the Reds finally show up to liberate the barge. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Bubennov, Mikhail S. Life and Word (Zhizn' i slovo, 1978 - 1979). Autobiographical tale.
Bubennov, Mikhail S. River Rapids (Stremnina, 1969). Novel about the taming of the virgin lands. Honored in 1970 as one of the best works of literature about the working class.
Bubennov, Mikhail S. Son of the Detachment (Syn otryada, 19xx). Short story.
Bubennov, Mikhail S. White Birch, The (Belaya Beryozka, 1947 - 1952). Novel about the first stage of the Great Patriotic War with its heavy defensive battles and grim days of retreat. State Prize Winner (vol. 1), 1948.
Bubennov, Mikhail S. Year of Thunder (Gremyashchi god, 1930 pub. 1932). Novel about the establishment of kolkhozes in Siberia.
Budantsev, Sergei F. Army Commander (Komandarm, 1923). A vainglorious, spiritually empty left Social-Revolutionary, filled with a hatred of Soviet power, leads a revolt in Astrakhan in 1918.
Budantsev, Sergei F. House With an Exit into the World (Dom s Vykodom v Mir, 1930). A famous construction engineer decides to remain at a large factory construction site, far from his beloved Moscow. While he is impressed with the scope of the project and with the people selflessly working on it, he makes this decision not out of conviction, but rather because of the messy state of affairs in his own family.
Budantsev, Sergei F. Japanese Duel (Yaponskaya Duel, 1926). An eccentric bibliographer cannot find his way in the new revolutionary society, so he gets his revenge by burning his life's work--a bibliographic collection of translations of western European poets into Russian.
Budantsev, Sergei F. Locusts (Sarancha, 1927). A remote area of southern Azerbaijan is threatened with an imminent attack of ravenous locusts. A local factory director tries to prepare the region for the attack, but swindlers and saboteurs--both in and out of official positions--defraud the government, leaving the region without resources or equipment with which to battle the locusts. Natural disaster ensues. The innocent are arrested, but the guilty are punished. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Budantsev, Sergei F. Outpost of India (Forpost Indii, 1922). A local Persian Bolshevik attempts to lead the oppressed workers in a rebellion against the English colonialists. Betrayed, he dies a horrible death in prison at the insistence of the "cultured" English overlord, who also duplicitously despises the informer who helped him catch the Bolshevik.
Budantsev, Sergei F. Story of Labor (Rasskaz o trude, 1932). The story of a worker for whom the interests of the factory are a matter of his personal proletarian honor. He cannot abide shoddy work and undertakes to redo faulty welding himself. He works for more than 24 hours straight in order not to fall behind schedule.
Budantsev, Sergei F. Tale of the Sufferings of Mind (Povest o stradaniyakh uma, 1929). A brilliant scientist of the 1860s, suffering from reactionary individualism, tries to commit suicide twice, once with morphine, and once by catching a cold.
Budantsev, Sergei F. Wife (Zhena, 1926). The story of the four wives of a rich Uzbek in a remote village. The senior wife is dedicated to her husband and cruel toward the other wives, all of whom live a hard life with no rights. One of the younger wives, pregnant, dies as a result of her strenuous labor. Another wife is drawn to the new life and new people symbolized by the railroad which is being built through the area. Her attempt at flight is stymied, but there remains hope for her future.
Budantsev, Sergei F. Woman Writer (Pisatelnitsa, 1936). A woman writer arrives at a factory to gather material for her next work. The narrative follows her every step and thought. As the characters of the heroes of her future novel come more into focus, we see world view of the old woman writer herself changing.
Budantsev, Sergei F. Youth (Iunosha, 193x). Unfinished novel about a young man who comes to Moscow to study.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Adventures of Chichikov (Pokhozhdenie Chichikova, 192x). The hero of Gogol's "Dead Souls" arrives in the middle of the Soviet Union of the New Economic Plan (NEP) years.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Baptism by Rotation (Kreshcheniye Povorotom, 1925). A woman at a country hospital is having a difficult labor. The baby is presenting in a transverse position. The inexperienced doctor is nervous and tries to delay any action. Finally, he has to reach in and turn the baby around by the foot. The procedure is successful and the child is born healthy. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Crimson Island (Bagrovii ostrov, 1928). Satirical play.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Darkness of Egypt (Tma Egipetskaya, 1925). The village where a young country doctor works is plunged in darkness: both a literal darkness, because of a lack of lanterns, and a figurative darkness--the darkness or ignorance of the peasants. As a result of this darnkess, some patients almost die by not taking medicine according to instructions. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Fatal Eggs (Rokoviye Yaitsa, 1924). A scientist discovers an amazing new light ray which greatly accelerates growth in primitive organisms. Bureaucratic bungling leads to the wrong batch of eggs getting exposed to the ray. The result: giant, monster snakes, crocodiles, and ostriches roaming the countryside near Smolensk, terrifying and devouring the citizens. The army of monster creatures then marches on Moscow. The capital is saved, however, by an unusually early frost. But it's too late for the discoverer of the ray, who is done away with by a frenzied mob.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Flight (Beg, 1927). Play.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Heart of a Dog (Sobach'e serdtse, 1925). A scientist implants the testicles and pituitary gland of a dead criminal onto a dog, which then changes into a half-man, half-dog beast that goes by the name of Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharik. Poligraf turns the doctor's life into a nightmare, and the doctor is forced to reverse the process.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Lost Eye (Propavshii Glaz, 1926). A country doctor treats a gunshot wound. He makes a few minor mistakes, which, fortunately, do not lead to any tragic consquences. But the doctor humbly recognizes that he has to study more. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Master and Margarita (Master i Margarita, 1940). Novel played out on three levels. First level: Historical narrative set in Jerusalem where Pontius Pilate condemns Yeshua, a man he knows to be innocent; Second level: Set in contemporary Moscow where the Master has written a novel about Pilate; and Third level: fantanstic level where the devil and his retinue step into Moscow to do some good.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Morphine (Morfiy, 1927). A country doctor gives himself an injection of morphine to relieve abdominal pain. It also relieves his despair over a lost love and feeling of loneliness. He becomes addicted, and all attempts to end the habit fail. So, in the end, the doctor commits suicide. From Notes of a Young Doctor (with some scholarly dispute on this subject).
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Snowstorm (Viuiga, 1926). A country doctor travels through a snowstorm to treat a young bride, who suffered a skull fracture before her wedding. The doctor is unable to save her. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Starry Rash (Zvezdnaya Syp, 1926). A country doctor fights venereal disease, which is rampant in the area. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Steel Throat (Stalnoye Gorlye, 1925). A little girl suffering from diphtheria is brought to a rural hospital. She is having difficulty breathing. The young doctor sees that a tracheotomy is the only way to save the girl, but he is worried since he has never performed the procedure. The girl's mother at first objects to surgery, but then relents. The tracheotomy is successful and the child survives. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Theatrical Novel (Teatral'nii roman, 1937). When a writer's novel fails, he attempts suicide. When that fails, he dramatizes his novel. To his surprise, the play is accepted by the legendary "Independent Theatre". But now a vortex of inflated egos may prevent the play from ever being performed.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. Towel With an Embroidered Rooster (Polotenste s petukhom, 1926). A young doctor, fraught with anxiety over his inexperience, arrives at a country hospital. His first patient is a young girl, mangled in a flax-threshing machine. No one expects her to survive, yet the doctor feels compelled to try to save her, despite his ignorance. He amputates a leg, the girl hangs on and eventually recovers. In gratitude, the girl presents the doctor with an embroidered towel. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
Bulgakov, Mikhail A. White Guard (Belaya gvardiya, 1924). A family of White Guardists and their friends are forced to accept defeat as their side loses to Petlyura's Ukrainian nationalists in Kiev in December 1918. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Bulychev, Kir Abduction of the Sorcerer (Pokhisheniye charodeya, 1981). Time travelers from the future stop off in the Soviet Union of the 1980s on their way to the past to kidnap a 13th-century sorcerer. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Bykov, Vasili V. Alpine Ballad (Al'pinskaya ballada, 196x). xxx
Bykov, Vasili V. Cordon (Oblava, 1990). A peasant buys a threshing machine, which he sometimes rents out or just lends to others. He is denounced as a kulak, forced from the village then driven to suicide.1
Bykov, Vasili V. Dead Men Feel No Pain (Mertvym ne bol'no, 196x). xxx
Bykov, Vasili V. Death of a Man (Smert' cheloveka, 195x). xxx
Bykov, Vasili V. In the Mist (V tumane, 1987). Two Belorussian partisans are ordered to execute a third, who is mistakenly thought to have informed on them. The would-be executioners, however, die before they can carry out their instructions. The innocent man, knowing that he cannot prove his innocence, commits suicide.1
Bykov, Vasili V. Live Till Dawn (Dozhit' do rassveta, 197x). xxx
Bykov, Vasili V. Obelisk (Obelisk, 197x). xxx
Bykov, Vasili V. Pack of Wolves (xxx, 19xx). In the forests of Belorussia in 1942, a group of disabled Russian partisans makes its way to a medical unit while being pursued by German soldiers.
Bykov, Vasili V. Quarry (Kar'er, 1986). During the Great Patriotic War, an Soviet officer hides out in a Belorussian village. In his attempt to rejoin Soviet forces, he unwittingly causes the death of one of his protectors.
Bykov, Vasili V. Sign of Misfortune (Znak bedy, 1983). The sufferings of a peasant couple first during the forced collectivization of the 1930s, then under the brutal yoke of Nazi occupation. Lenin Prize winner, 1986.
Bykov, Vasili V. Sotnikov (xxx, 197x). The story of two very different individuals and their behavior when mortal danger threatens.
Bykov, Vasili V. Third Rocket (Tret'ya raketa, 1962). xxx
Bykov, Vasili V. To Go and Not Return (Poiti i ne vernut'sya, 197x). xxx
Bykov, Vasili V. Twentieth (Dvadtsatii, 195x). xxx
Chapygin, Aleksei P. On Swan Lakes (Na lebyazh'ikh ozyorak, 1922). xxx
Chapygin, Aleksei P. Stepan Razin (Razin Stepan, 1926). Grand epic concerning the 17th-century rebel leader. One thousand pages long.
Chernyonok, Mikhail Ya. Losing Bet (Stavka na proigrysh, 1979). In Novosibirsk, militia detective Anton Biriukov unravels a web of fraud, illegal book speculation, icon forgery and murder. But don't worry...Soviet justice triumphs in the end. Written by the "Siberian Simenon". (Click here for detailed summary.)
Davydov, Yuri Adkhalib (Adkhalib, 19xx). xxx
Davydov, Yuri Blue Tulips (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Davydov, Yuri Evenings at Kolmovo (Vechera v Kolmove, 1988). A doctor in a rural mental hospital in the late 19th century treats the Populist writer Gleb Upsensky1
Davydov, Yuri Fate of Usoltsev (Sudba Usoltseva, 1972). In the late 1880s, a group of Russian peasants and intellectuals go to Ethiopia to start a socialist colony. The experiment eventually collapses in an atmosphere of thought control and spy-mania. 1
Davydov, Yuri March (Mart, 1959). Historical novel about the early revolutionaries of the People's Will political movement.
Davydov, Yuri Sailor and Voyages (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Davydov, Yuri Scent of Almond (xxx, 19xx). Novel recalling certain episodes in the story of the Russian revolution of 1905. 2
Davydov, Yuri Slack Period of Autumn (Glukhaya Pora Listopada, 1970). Historical novel focusing on German Lopatin, a friend of Marx and Engles and the first Russian translator of Das Kapital.
Davydov, Yuri Two Sheaves of Letters (Dve Svyazki Pisem, 19xx). xxx
Davydov, Yuri Watershed (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Davydov, Yuri White Rider (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Dombrovsky, Yuri Department of Unnecessary Things (Fakultet nenuzhnikh veshchei, 1978, pub. 1988). Law and ethical norms shown as unnecessary for NKVD agents and interrogators as they frame an innocent philologist-historian and put on a show trial. They regularly use beatings, trickery, and deprivation of sleep at tools.
Dombrovsky, Yuri Keeper of Antiquities (Khranitel drevnostei, 1964). xxx
Drabkina, Elizaveta Golden Autumn (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Drozdov, A Demon (Bes, 1922). Tale of the erosion of old humanistic values by sensuality and fear.3
Dudintsev, Vladimir Dusya and Timofei (Dusya i Timofei, 1950). A young wife named Dusya gets upset because her husband, Timofei, a bulldozer operator, spends weeks at a time away on the job. She changes her attitude, however, when she learns what a Stakhanovite he is. Meanwhile, Timofei is not only doing his job, but also helping out a explosives brigade, blasting rock out of the way for a new railroad. A fire starts in a pit of explosives. Timofei is the first to raise the alarm and join the fight to save the day.
Dudintsev, Vladimir Hands of Friends (Ruki Druzei, 1947). A young soldier being evacuated by train to Siberia falls in love with his nurse, who, unfortunately, is married and has a child. As he recovers, friends use various subterfuges to get the soldier to forget her without breaking his heart.
Dudintsev, Vladimir Mad Boy (Beshenii malchishka, 1958). A friendly homeless dog is adopted by an entire Moscow apartment building. Everyone likes and is nice to the dog, except for the son of a haughty, Volga-owning intellectual--an intellectual who, by the way, never dirties his hands with manual labor and is extremely negligent in his maintenance of the Volga. The boy teases the dog mercilessly. One day, unable to endure the taunting any longer, the dog bites the boy on the finger. The boy's father complains to the house manager, who, after hearing the evidence, quite rightly says it's the boy's fault and refuses to do anything about the dog. The intellectual gets into his Volga and goes off somewhere to complain. As a result, the house manager is disciplined and ordered to kill the dog. Knowing that the dog is doomed, a truck driver in the building takes the dog in his truck and drives him down to his parents in Kharkov. The dog is able to live out his days happily guarding the kolkhoz apple trees. Things are not so happy for the boy who started it all, however. His father forces him to undergo a series of painful anti-rabies shots. And, of course, all the other children taunt him as "mad" or "rabid". (Click here to read complete text in Russian.)
Dudintsev, Vladimir Meeting with a Birch Tree (Vstrecha s Berezoi, 1946). A young soldier returns to Moscow after the war. He looks for his girlfriend, intending to propose, but she has disappeared. She was evacuated with her factory during the war to an unknown location. He is despondent but then finds a message carved for him on a birch tree where he and she used to meet. He hugs the tree and cries.
Dudintsev, Vladimir Mountain Sickness (Gornaya bolezn, 1947). A relatively inexperienced woman mountain climber joins two men on a climb. One of the men--with a bad leg which he is trying to hide from the others--is having a difficult time. The woman understands and provides surprising help which enables the whole team to reach the peak.
Dudintsev, Vladimir New Year's Tale (xxx, 1957). A fable for adults that takes place on a distant planet where half the people live in complete darkness, the other half in light. Thugs run the dark continent, but things work out in the end.
Dudintsev, Vladimir Not By Bread Alone (Ne khlebom edinim, 1956). An inventor struggles against the invisible empire of bureaucracy and self-servers in a courageous attempt to advance the Soviet pipe industry. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Dudintsev, Vladimir On the Night Shift (V nochnoi smene, 1948). Jealousy over a woman threatens to disrupt work at a factory. But in the end the peaceful principles of socialist competition win out and even the loser in love congratulates his rival.
Dudintsev, Vladimir Ski Tracks (Lyzhnii sled, 1951). A healthy young mechanic skis the long distance from his Machine Tractor Station to a remote Siberian village to see his girlfriend. A trouble-maker tries to separate the lovers, but a wise older mechanic sets them back on the right path.
Dudintsev, Vladimir Snarsky's Hut (Izbushka Snarskovo, 1946). A flood sweeps away a workers' hut with a man trapped inside. A daring rescue ensues.
Dudintsev, Vladimir Station "Nina" (Stantsiya "Nina", 1949). A pretty young geologist named Nina is having a hard time figuring out if a large granite mountain in Kirghizia can be blast out of the way for a new railroad. She needs drawings and samples from high up top. The members of the demolition team fail in their attempts to do this. But a young Kirghiz boy makes it up to the highest cliff, where he scrapes out "Nina" in giant letters for all to see, so he can prove that he actually got there. Based on the infornation and samples brought back by the boy, the demolition proceeds. The giant slab with the "Nina" inscription lodges itself right at the entrance to the newly created gorge, thus ensuring that the future railway stop here will be named "Nina".
Dudintsev, Vladimir White Robes (Beliye odezhdi, 1987). In the late 1940s, despite Lysenko's denunciation of genetics as the "whore-child of imperialism", some brave Soviet scientists secretly carry on research in the field.
Dudintsev, Vladimir With Seven Bogatyrs (U semi bogatyrei, 1951). A woman is assigned to a brigade of explosives workers, working through the winter in the high mountains, clearing the way for a future railroad. The woman helps come up with a way to double their pace of work.
Dumbadze, Nodar Blood Knot (xxx, 1984?). An old man and an old woman battle each other to win the custody of their less-than-perfect grandson. (Georgian) (Click here for entire text in English.)
Dumbadze, Nodar Granny, Iliko, Illarion and I (xxx, 19xx). The story of the wartime childhood of an orphaned Georgian boy and his youth and studies at Tbilisi University. (Georgian)
Dumbadze, Nodar Kukaracha. (xxx, 19xx). Novel about love and loyalty, bravery and betrayal centering about a Georgian militia man, affectionately called �Kuckracha� by both the kids and the adults. He is a conscientious divisional inspector investigating various incidents, calling to order local hoodlums and settling family arguments. He helps out a young woman who fell prey to Murtalo, a bandit and murderer. The young people fall in love with each other. But Murtalo decides to take revenge on Kukaracha. (Georgian)
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Conspiracy of Equals (Zagavor Ravnikh, 1928). Historical novel concerning the Babeuf movement in Revolutionary France, which rejected terror and advocated an egalitarian democracy. Dismissed by Stalin as "pulp literature" suitable for "a real bourgeois chamber theater."
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Curious Incident (Liubopitnoe Proizshestvie, 1922). A Bolshevik leader tours the jail where he was once imprisoned under the tsar. He accidentally gets locked up with a Menshevik. By the time the mistake is discovered, the Bolshevik leader has gone looney and refuses to leave. The Cheka have to forcefully remove him to a sanitarium where, every morning, he shouts, "I only want to subvert!"
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Extraordinary Adventures of Julio Jurenito and His Disciples (Neobychainiye Pokhozhdeniye Khulio Khurenito i Evo Uchenikov, 1921). A mysterious Mexican named Julio Jurenito meets up with a fictional Ilya Ehrenburg and several other disciples, who follow him on a quest to disrupt Europe, undermining its myths and complacent assumptions about religion, politics, love, marriage, art, socialism, and the rules of war. The Pope is lampooned, as is the eternal internal bickering among socialist factions. Eerily, the Nazi Final Solution is presaged as Julio sends out invitations to the extermination of the Jewish tribe. In Moscow, Jurenito meets with a Bolshevik leader obviously meant to represent Lenin. This fictional Lenin shows himself to be ruthless, vowing to exterminate all enemies. Praised by Zamyatin as a perfect example of literary heresy.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Fall of Paris (Padeniye Parizha, 1941). Novel giving a portrait of France between 1935 and 1941, showing that the salvation of France can come only from its working class and Communist Party. Offers character studies of French politicians, industrialists, intellectuals, and workers. In the end, the hero-Communists, who have an unshakable trust in the Soviet Union, look forward to the coming battles and to the positive future which will result from them. Stalin Prize winner, 1942.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Grabber (Rvach, 1924). A Social-Revolutionary flees Moscow after his party's anti-Bolshevik revolt fails in 1918. He survives the Civil War and makes his way back to Moscow as the NEP is in full swing. But he no longer understands society's rules, gets arrested because of links to a currency speculator, and commits suicide in jail.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Improved Communist Man (Uskomchel, 1922). A thoroughly Communist Kremlin bureaucrat creates the ideal Communist agitator. The agitator, however, turns on the bureaucrat, so completely disrupting the bureaucrat's life that he goes mad and dies.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Life and Death of Nikolai Kurbov (Zhizn' i Smert Nikolaya Kurbova, 1923). A dedicated member of the Cheka works tirelessly against enemies of the people and signs death warrants without hesitation. However, his faith is shaken when the NEP is announced, and he ends up shooting himself.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Lion on the Square (Lev Na Ploshchadi, 1948). A play that is a blistering, vicious attack on the behavior of Americans in post-war Europe.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Love of Jeanne Ney (Liubov Zhanny Nei, 1923). A young, respectable French bourgeois woman falls in love with a Russian Communist who is sent to France on a subversive mission. He is arrested on a murder charge and the only way to prove his innocence to to reveal his true mission. He remains heroically silent and is sentences to death. Jeanne sacrifices her honor in a vain attempt to save her lover.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (Moskva Slezam ne Verit, 1932). Novel about the difficulties of a Russian artist who has the opportunity to study in Paris. He is attacked by a critic at home who denounces his work as degenerate and bourgeois. Western capitalist society is compared to a lavatory in a fifth-rate Paris hotel.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Ninth Wave (xxx, 1951). Crude propaganda novel about the Peace Movement and the Cold War. Later renounced by Ehrenburg, who refused to have it included in his Collected Works.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. On Portochnoi Lane (aka "A Street In Moscow") (V Portochnoi Pereulke, 1927). Graphic and often sordid account of daily life in a Moscow working class area during the mid-1920s, as characters come to terms with changes brought by the Revolution.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Second Day (aka "Out of Chaos") (Den' Vtoroi, 1933). Day-to-day account of the harsh conditions of life and heroic efforts of workers to over come nature's resistance as they built a blast furnace in Kuznetsk. A weak dreamer tries to fit in with the more dedicated workers but fails. He becomes complicit in an act of vandalism. Ashamed of his own spiritual bankruptcy, he commits suicide.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Storm (Burya, 1948). Novel about World War II with action set both in the Soviet Union and in France. It described the enormous efforts of the Red Army to defeat Nazi Germany. Containes descriptions of the massacres of Jews at Babi Yar, portrays a shocking liaison between a Russian and a French actress (marriages with foreigners were illegal at the time), and makes an oblique jibe at the Hitler-Stalin pact. Stalin Prize winner, 1948.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Stormy Life of Lasik Roitschwantz (Burnaya Zhizn' Lazika Roitshvantsa, 1928). A simple, good-natured Jew from Belorussia wanders to Moscow, Warsaw, Germany, France, England and Palestine, suffering beatings, jailings, and indignities of all sorts wherever he goes.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. The Thaw (Ottepel, 1954). The novel which gave its name to an entire era of Soviet history, consisting mainly of interior monologues of a wide range of characters most of whom---willingly or unwillingly--are living inner personal lives at odds with their outer, public lives. The wife of an unimaginative but successful factory director struggles with her growing alienation from her husband. Others struggle to keep love out of their souls because it conflicts with their duties to the factory and to the Party. A talented artist who squandered his talent and became a hack for the sake of success struggles to maintain his cynical outlook so he won't have to face his own spiritual bankruptcy. But as the cold winter passes and the spring thaw comes, a change is beginning--loves and childlike exuberances with all their unexplainable contradictions are blossoming out into the open, with no regard to poltical correctness. Stalin and his passing are nowhere referred to in the work, but the time frame of the action is clear to the readers. Explosive for its time as well were passing references to the injustices of the terror and the absurd Doctors' Plot. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Trust D.E. (Trest D.E., 1923). American millionaires finance a plan to destroy Europe. Viruses and poison gas are used to reduce the continent to a desert.
Ehrenburg, Ilya G. Without Taking Breath (Ne Perevodya Dikhaniya, 1934). Novel centering on heroic efforts to develop a modern timber industry in the far north. Also describes the wholesale destruction of wooden churches from the 17th and 18th centuries and the neglect of tradtional Russian lace-making in the region.
Ekimov, Boris Boy on the Bicycle (Malchik na velosipede, 1984). An engineer comes to his native village to visit his mother. He becomes engrossed in bitter-sweet nostalgic reminiscences.1
Ekimov, Boris Chelyadins' Son-in-Law, The (Chelyadinskii zyat', 1986). A released convict appears in a village to settle in with a woman he's known only through correspondence. He shirks his job at the collective farm, but forces the locals to accept him through intimidation and threats.1
Ekimov, Boris House for Sale (Prodaetsya dom, 1986). A lonely old widow stipulates such impossible conditions for the sale of her house that it will remain unsold until she dies.1
Ekimov, Boris Meeting is Postponed (Vstrecha otmenyaetsya, 1986). A schoolteacher arranges for her mother, a renowned champion milkmaid, to visit her class as an example of high accomplishment. A complication arises when the mother is to be tried for stealing milk and fodder from the collective farm. The mother admits it, saying "Everybody does it."1
Ekimov, Boris Solonich (Solonich, 1986). A peasant, the proud owner of a well-constructed cow-shed, makes a heart-rending decision to sell out his holding and move to a larger settlement so his children can go to decent schools.1
Ekimov, Boris What's All the Crying About? (O chem. slezy?, 1989). A widow and her old mother make vodka, which they use to pay for the necessities of life. The militia confiscates the still and impose a heavy fine. The women tearfully bewail their fate.1
Esin, Sergei Imitator (Imitator, 1985). Frank and boastful confession of a corrupt portrait painter and museum director whose cynical intrigues have made him famous and wealthy.1
Esin, Sergei Memoirs of a Forty-Year-Old (Memuaryi Sorokaletnego, 1984). A series of portraits of the authors contemporaries, extending from the post-war years to the mid-1970s. 1
Esin, Sergei One's Work is Never Done (Nezavershenka, 1986). A public baths attendant makes money selling illicit vodka and snacks to customers. When reforms are initiated, the attendant tries to stop them by setting fire to the establishment and flooding it.1
Esin, Sergei Present Day (Tekushchii den', 1979). The ambition, conniving wife of a bureaucrat, pushes her husband into a job beyond his powers, resulting in a fatal heart-attack. An indictment of materialism and unscrupulous selfishness in the bureaucratic class.1
Evdokimov, I. Bells (Kolokola, 1926). Historical fiction on the Bolshevik underground.3
Fadeev, Aleksandr A. Last of the Udeghe (Poslednii iz Udege, 19xx). Unfinished novel about the Udeghe people of far eastern Siberia.
Fadeev, Aleksandr A. Rout, The (Razgrom, 1927). Red Army partisans flee from pursuing Cossacks and Japanese interventionist forces in Russia's Far East. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Fadeev, Aleksandr A. Tale of Our Youth. (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Fadeev, Aleksandr A. Young Guard (Molodaya Gvardia, 1945). Account of the heroic exploits of young Communist underground workers in the Donbass town of Krasnodon during the Nazi occupation. Stalin Prize winner.
Fedin, Konstantin Arktur Sanitorium (xxx, 1940). Life among patients in a Swiss health sanitorium.
Fedin, Konstantin Bonfire (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Fedin, Konstantin Brothers (Bratya, 1928). A musician and composer attempts to claim an expemption from Revolutionary service in pursuit of his individual artistic expression. He argues with his brother, a Bolshevik who goes off to die in battle. In the end, the musician takes up his brother's cause and believes, therefore, that he has overcome the contradiction between art and Revolutionary activity. However, his view of art as essentially tragic, born in solitude, remains unchanged.
Fedin, Konstantin Cities and Years (Goroda i Godi, 1924). A spineless Russian intellectual is interred in Germany at the start of World War I. He falls in love with a German girl, Mari, who helps him in an escape attempt. Once back in Russia after the war, he struggles to find his place in Revolutionary society. Forgetting his promises to send for Mari, he gets another girl pregnant. He also helps a personal acquaintance, now a counterrevolutionary, escape Soviet justice. For this betrayal of the Soviet cause, his best friend kills him. Told in a disjointed, non-sequential narrative with frequent lyrical digressions. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Fedin, Konstantin First Joys (Perviye Radosti, 1945 - 1946). A broad, realistic novel set in Saratov on the Volga on the eve of World War I. Shows the actions of a young, budding revolutionary (Izvekov) and an older revolutionary factory worker (Ragozin), both of whom get arrested. Various other strata of pre-revolutionary Russia are also shown. Stalin Prize winner.
Fedin, Konstantin Muzhiki (Muzhiki, 19xx). Cruelty and brutality abound in several episodes from the life of a village shepherd and his daughter.
Fedin, Konstantin No Ordinary Summer (Neobyknovennoye leto, 1948). In 1919, a Russian soldier escapes from a German prisoner of war camp and makes it back to Russia, which is caught up in the Civil War. Back, too, are Izvekov and Ragozin from First Joys, and they meet up with old enemies and friends. Stalin, not Trotsky, the hero of the Battle of Tsaritsyn. And a nonpolitical writer tries to maintain his artistic freedom and express his sympathies for the suffering, no matter what side they are on. Stalin Prize winner.
Fedin, Konstantin Orchard (Sad, 1920). An old gardener watches sadly as the orchard he cared for and the manor house of the old owners are turned over to a Soviet orphanage and fall into neglect. He sets the house and orchard on fire.
Fedin, Konstantin Rape of Europe (Pokhishcheniye Evropy, 1934). A bourgeois Dutch family bicker among themselves as they try to hold onto a timber concession in the Soviet Union. In the end, the Soviet Union is strong enough to kick them out, reducing them to the status of timber broker. Told through the eyes of a Communist journalist, who absconds with the wife of one of the Dutchmen.
Fedin, Konstantin Test of Feelings (Ispytanie chuvstv, 1942). A play depicting a heroine, Aglaia, involved with the anti-German resistance during World War II.
Fedin, Konstantin Transvaal (Transvaal, 1926). A tough Estonian of Boer extraction comes to wield almost dictatorial ecomonic power over the peasants of his village.
Fedoseev, Grigori Along the Eastern Sayan (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Fedoseev, Grigori Forest Mysteries (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Fedoseev, Grigori Last Campfire (Poslednii koster, 1967). The long life and death of an Evenk hunter/trapper/guide, full of joys and tragedy in the magnificent taiga wilderness. He battles bears, wolves, forest fires; loses children to hunger, frost, and freezing rivers; herds reindeer, hunts moose, and blazes trails into unexplored regions to uncover nature's vast wealth. He dies half naked and frozen by an expiring fire in a grave of snow made with his own hands.
Fedoseev, Grigori Meeting in the Taiga (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Fedoseev, Grigori Not This Time, Death (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Fedoseev, Grigori Pashka of Bear Ravine (xxx, 196x). As the taiga awakens to spring, an old man and a boy guide a young geologist through its midst. The trek is rigorous and dangerous, but there is joy in it too for Pashka and his grandfather love the wild, untamed land and its people.
Fedoseev, Grigori Trial of Endurance (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Fomenko, Vladimir The Earth Remembers (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Forsh, Olga D. Contemporaries (Sovremenniki, 1925). Historial fiction on Gogol and his times.3
Forsh, Olga D. Dressed in Stone (Odety Kamnem, 1927). A 19th-century revolutionary becomes a "secret prisoner", locked by the tsar in solitary confinement for 20 years.
Forsh, Olga D. Mad Ship (Sumashedshii Korabl, 1931). A fictionalized account of life in the Petrograd House of Arts (Dom Iskusstv) during the 1920s. Features fictionalized versions of Zoshchenko, M. Shaginyan, Shklovsky, Kliuev, Blok, Bely, Gorky, and Forsh herself.
Forsh, Olga D. Mikhailovsky Castle (Mikhailovsky Zamok, 1946). Historical novel concerning three generations of Russian architects: V.I. Bazhenov, A.N. Voronikhin, and K.I. Rossi.
Furmanov, Dmitri Chapaev (Chapaev, 1923). A straightforward, factual narrative concerning the exploits of Chapaev, a colorful and charismatic commander of Red Amry forces, who, along with his faithful political commisar, Klichkov, fights a never-ending battle against Kolchak, Cossacks, and other enemies of Communism during the Civil War. But in the end, the Cossacks catch him with his pants down. Perhaps the granddaddy of all Socialist Realism. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Furmanov, Dmitri Red Landing (Krasnii Desant, 1923). A story about a Red Army operation against Wrangle's forces.
Furmanov, Dmitri Revolt (Myatezh, 1925). A semidocumentary account of the Civil War in Central Asia.
Gaidar, Arkady Distant Lands (Dalniye Strani, 1932). The hum of construction comes to a backwoods village, where the children dream of distant lands.
Gaidar, Arkady Fourth Dug-Out (Chetvyortii Blindazh, 1929). Tale about some children being accidently exposed to artillery fire.
Gaidar, Arkady Tale of the Military Secret (Skazka o Voennoi Taine, 1935). The peaceful Soviet motherland is subjected to a perfidious sneak attack by bourgeois forces. As the Soviet fathers and older brothers are killed, little children have to join the battle. One such child is the Malchik-Kilbachish. He is captured and tortured, but remains true to his word and does not reveal the great military secret of what makes the motherland and the workers of the world so strong. His bravery gives the Red Army the time it needs to ride to the rescue. (Click here for complete text in Russian and English.)
Gaidar, Arkady Timur and His Gang (Timur i Evo Komanda, 1940). A gang of kids sneaks around a village secretly doing good deeds, protecting families whose fathers and husbands are in the Red Army, and doing battle against nasty hooligans. This story was part of the curriculum in every Soviet school up until 1991.
Galshoyan, Mushegh Bovtun (xxx, 1977?). A social drama which tells about the children of refugees from Western (Turkish) Armenia, who construct a new village in a stone valley. (Armenian)
Ganina, Maya Matvei and Shurka. (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Gelman, Aleksandr Feedback (xxx, 197x). Play dealing with the difficulties of industrial management and production. It contains criticism of "working for the record", bureaucracy, and careerism of some Party workers. Human factors are stressed, such as the harm of pursuing selfish aims and the importance of everyone's individual effort.
Genatulin, Anatoli Tunnel (Tunnel, 1987). A Russian, whose sweetheart was raped and murdered by Nazis, is consumed by a hatred of Germans. After the war, some German prisoners save his life, and the Russian comes to accept the Germans as human beings.1
German, Yuri P. Aleksei Zhmakin (Aleksei Zhmakin, 19xx). An escaped criminal is tracked down by a virtuous OGPU agent more inclined to "reform" his quarry than punish him.
German, Yuri P. Eternal Battle (xxx, 19xx). A young doctor deals with his disappointment and volunteers for experiments studying the effects of x-rays.
German, Yuri P. Our Friends (Nashi Znakomiye, 1936). Story of a young woman who searches for meaning and purpose in life as she drifts aimlessly through a series of bad marriages (one to a smuggler and one to an old bourgeois). She finally finds regeneration, happiness, and a socially useful purpose when she marries a kind OGPU agent.
German, Yuri P. Young Russia (Rossiya molodaya, 1953). Historical novel set in the period of Peter the Great.
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Cement (Tsement, 1924). True Communists fight White Guards, bandits, lust and corruption as they struggle to bring a cement factory and the Soviet economy back to life in post-Civil War days. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Conversations with Pasternak (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Deadwood (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Energy (Energiya, 1938). Deals with construction of the Dneproges hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River.
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Firey Steed (xxx, 1922). Depiction of the Revolution in the Kuban Cossack region.
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Freemen (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Gulf (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Hard Times (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Hoard (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Restless Youth (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Story of My Childhood (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Gladkov, Fyodor V. Wolves (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Glebov, Anatoly Pravdokha (Pravdokha, 19xx). xxx
Godenko, Mikhail Early Frosts (xxx, 1970). Novel focusing on life in a Ukrainian village from pre-collectivization days, on through the post-war years.
Godenko, Mikhail Minefield (xxx, 1964). Novel.
Golovin, Genadii Anna Petrovna (Anna Petrovna, 1985 pub. 1987). Account of the last days and death of an old woman who lives alone in a tiny Moscow apartment, neglected by her only relative, an exploitive granddaughter. Contains dreamlike flashbacks to her early years--Civil War, socialist construction, etc.1
Golovin, Genadii Birthday of the Deceased (Den' rozhdeniya pokoinika, 1988). Satire of the Brezhnev period.
Golovin, Genadii Foreign Country (Chuzhaya strana, 1989). A woman dies in a Moscow suburb and her son, depressed, ordinary factory worker from the provinces, starts a journey to bury her. Coincidentally, Brezhnev has also just died and all airplanes, trains, etc., are reserved for official use. Making his was as best he can to Moscow, the factory worker is robbed of his suitcase, money, and passport. He is subject to the abuse and indifference of his fellow countrymen, for all of whom their own native land is a "foreign country". He eventually makes it to Moscow, but dies just as he approaches the site of his mother's funeral. Includes biting satire of Party fatcats and bureaucrats.1
Golovin, Genadii Jack, Little Brother, and Others (Dzhek, Bratishka i drugiye, 1988). Story of the relationship of people and dogs.1
Golovin, Genadii Millions with Big Zeros (Milliony s bol'shimi nulyami, 1980 pub. 1988). Detective story set in the Civil War
Golovin, Genadii Sentence of the Executive Committee (Prigovor ispolnitel'nogo komiteta, 1971 pub. 1988). Historical novel about the People's Will movement.
Gontar, Avram Just a Plain Family (xxx, 1961). Story of an ordinary Jewish family which, through hard work and sacrifices during the Great Patriotic War, rises from poverty to a good living during the years of Soviet power. They all pitch in to buy a car as a wedding present for the youngest daughter.
Gorbatov, Boris L. Cell, The (Yacheika, 1928). Story of life of the Komsomols in the 1920s.
Gorbatov, Boris L. Donbass (Donbass, 195x). xxx
Gorbatov, Boris L. Ordinary Arctic (xxx, 19xx). An account of the heroic lives of polar explorers in the far north.
Gorbatov, Boris L. Unconquered (Nepokoryonniye, 1943). The life and reactions of a Soviet family in the Kuban after it is overrun by the Nazis. The family structure is modeled on that of Gogol's Taras Bulba. Stalin Prize winner.
Gorbunov, Nikolai Mistake (Monologue of a Professor) (Oshibka (Monolog professora), 1956). A prominent geographer analyzes his life and finds his personal achievements as well as the entire academic field of geography to be failures, despite all appearances of success by Soviet standards.9
Gorky, Maksim Artamonov Business, The (Delo Artamonovykh, 1925). Story of three generations of a self-made bourgeois family. In the end, after the Revolution, the family business is confiscated and the old owner left to die a natural death from hunger.
Gorky, Maksim Dostigayev and Others (Dostigayev i drugiye, 19xx). xxx
Gorky, Maksim Egor Bulychev and Others (Egor Bulychev i Drugiye, 1932). In a provincial town in February 1917, as social order crumbles, the owner of a successful local firm is dying. The vultures--his family--gather, eager to divide up his wealth. He rages against the fraud in their lives and in his own; consults priests and sorcerers, even though he knows them to be quacks; and, in the end, not surprisingly, dies.
Gorky, Maksim Fat-Faced Passions (Strasti-Mordasti, 1917). A kvas-seller meets an abused young woman and her 12-year-old crippled son, who have been driven into grinding poverty. Despite the hoplessness of their situation and the alcoholism of his mother, the boy--who keeps a menagarie of cockroaches and other bugs--holds onto his dreams of a brighter future. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Gorky, Maksim Hermit (Otshelnik, 1922). A cave-dwelling hermit dispenses advice and somewhat non-Orthodox religious comfort to his many visitors, who come telling their tales of woe. His specialty is understanding women, a result of his serious womanizing many years earlier.
Gorky, Maksim Sky-Blue Life (Golubaya zhizn', 1924). xxx
Gorky, Maksim Somov and Others (Somov i Drugiye, 1931). Play about an evil plan by some engineers to sabotage the Soviet economy. But don't worry, the evil-doers are arrested by the GPU.
Granin, Daniil Bison (Zubr, 1987). A Soviet geneticist decides to spend 1925 to 1945 working in Germany instead of the Soviet Union, where Stalin and Lysenko terrorize the scientific community.
Granin, Daniil Personal Opinion (Sobstvennoe mneniey, 1956). The head of a research laboratory faces the criticism of a young subordinante. The younger man is an enthusiastic, undiplomatic, truthful, tactless, crusading dissenter--everything the director used to be in his youth. But, through a series of supposedly temporary compromises with authority, the director has transformed himself from youthful rebel into a successful, opportunistic careerist. He allows the brash and brave young engineer to be transferred so as to be rid of him. 9
Granin, Daniil Picture (Kartina, 1979). A provincial government official faces a tough decision when he learns that a needed new industrial development will destroy important cultural sites and despoil the local river. The fate of the city as well as his career rides on the decision.
Granin, Daniil Those Who Seek (Iskateli, 1955). An electrical engineer shocks his academic colleagues by accepting a pay cut to take charge of a practical laboratory and work on the development of a leak-locator. He alienates the bureaucratic elite as well by insisting that his facilities and personnel are not to be used to repair the radios of higher-ups. His dedication to collective work is intense, and in the end, his lab produced the needed invention.9
Granin, Daniil Track is Still Noticeable (Eshche Zameten Sled, 1984). Two middle-aged Leningraders recall--from two different points of view--a lieutenant they knew in the war. The revelation of the lieutenant's character through reminisce and old letters leads to a reevaluation of opinion about him.1
Grekova, I. Beyond the Entryway (Za prokhodnoi, 1962). Story consisting of a series of character sketches of the personalities in a scientific research laboratory. A journalist who comes to write bombastic nonsense about the lab is lampooned.8
Grekova, I. Faculty (Kafedra, 1978). The personal and professional lives of teachers, students, and staff at an institute of cybernetics.
Grekova, I. Ladies' Hairdresser (Zhenskii master, 1963). A middle-aged professional woman tells the story of her male hairdresser. He is a perfectionist, fanatically dedicted to his art. But eventually he becomes frustrated by the state bureaucracy that runs the hairdressing trade, and quits to go work in a factory.8
Grekova, I. Masters of Life (Khozyaeva Zhizni, 1960, pub. 1988). A man on a train relays his life of woe: imprisoned by Stalin, everything and everyone he held dear destroyed.1
Grekova, I. Pheasant (Fazan, 1985). A dying man reviews his life. Although he had promise early on, he squandered it with dishonesty, womanizing, and other faults. Ultimately, he feels his life was a waste.
Grekova, I. Ship of Widows (Vdovii Parakhod, 1981). Five very dissimilar widows live in a run-down communal flat immediately after the Great Patriotic War. They squabble and fight, but help each other in times of trouble.1
Grekova, I. Summer in the City (Letom v. gorode, 1962). Story of a gossipy petty philistine.8
Grekova, I. Thresholds (Porogi, 1984). An engineer in a genetics laboratory is blamed for an accident at work, which kills some colleagues. Although cleared of responsibility, he has a nervous breakdown and struggles to rebuild his life. His wife's infidelity and anonymous letters denouncing the lab's management add to the excitement.
Grekova, I. Without Smiles (Bez Ulibok, 1986). A worker at a scientific institute, accused of an ideological deviation, is shunned, subjected to back-stabbing, petty abuse, and bureaucratic harassment.
Grin, Aleksandr Scarlet Sails (Aliye Parusa, 1923). The daughter of a sailor meets a sorcerer who tells her that a prince will come for her. She believes the story and waits. In the end, her prince does in fact come.
Grossman, Vasilii Life and Fate (Zhizn I sudba, 1960, pub. 1988). Panoramic work centering on the Battle of Stalingrad. Focuses mainly on the Soviet population behind the lines, but Germans, including Hitler, are also portrayed. Draws parallels between Nazism and Stalinism. Novel was arrested by KGB and not published in the USSR until 1985.
Grossman, Vasilii People Are Immortal, The (Narod bessmerten, 19xx). xxx
Guk, Gennady The Throbbing Heart of the Ship (xxx, 19xx). Short novel about sailors.
Gurevich, Georgi Infra Draconis (Infra Draconis, 19xx). Cosmonauts spend 14 years traveling past our solar system to a dark planet that is warmed by its core, not by any sun. They discover that the planet is covered entirely by water, giving them no place to land. The commander volunteers for a one-way mission in the bathysphere. He discovers that the the ocean is teeming with life, including an underwater city.
Gussein, Mekhti The Deer (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Ilf, Ilya & Petrov, Evgeny Columbus Comes Ashore (Kolumb Prichalivaet k Beregu, 19xx). Columbus discovers 20th-century America, but finds he just can't get any respect without publicity, lying, and shameless fabrication in the news media, as is typical in capitalist countries. A trip to a burlesque house also helps.
Ilf, Ilya & Petrov, Evgeny Nervous People (Nervniye liudi, 19xx). A doctor and his patient both work themselves up into a nervous tizzy as they recount the various injustices they have suffered waiting for a new apartment assignment.
Ilf, Ilya & Petrov, Evgeny Strong Feeling (Silnoye chustvo, 1933). The bride at a wedding party won't begin the festivities until a foreigner--any foreigner--arrives. When one finally does show up, the guests find out that he isn't rich or influential, so they ignore him. There isn't enough vodka, but that doesn't stop the bickering. Unfortunate family and professional secrets get revealed, and the bride abandons her groom for another man. A vaudeville in one act.
Ilf, Ilya & Petrov, Evgeny Twelve Chairs (Dvenadtsat stulev, 1928). Con-man Ostap Bender travels far and wide in an attempt to find diamonds hidden in one of a set of twelve chairs which have been dispersed throughout the USSR. Hilarious hijinks ensue. Includes the greatest piece of chess humor ever written. (Click here for complete chapter "Interplanetary Chess Congress.")
Ilin, Yakov The Big Conveyor Belt (xxx, 1934). A tractor plant director, depressed by failure to get production going at his new plant, resigns. But then he attends a Kremlin conference at which Stalin explains the causes of current difficulties and how to overcome them. Inspired by the great leader's words, the plant director rushes to Ordzhonikidze and begs to be sent back to work wherever he is needed.
Ilus, Vyaino Golden Fund (xxx, 1967). The old-style director of a metal works is replaced by a younger man. The workers don't resent the innovations the new man brings, but they resent the fact that he comes in with a diploma and an arrogant style, whereas the old boss--coarse and vulgar sometimes--was one of them, a worker from the ranks. (Estonian)
Iskander, Fazil Old House Under the Cypress (Starii dom pod kiparisom, 1987). xxx
Iskander, Fazil Rabbits and Boa Constrictors (Kroliki I udavy, 1982). A community of submissive rabbits, led by a corrupt king, live only to be consumed by a nearby community of snakes...until one day a dissident rabbit refuses to be swallowed.
Iskander, Fazil Sandro of Chegem (Sandro iz Chegema, 1983). A loose compilation of stories about a rougish neer-do-well and trickster in Abkhkazia. Tall tales, amusing adventures, parodies and satires of Soviet life abound.1
Ivanov, Vadim We Grew Up (xxx, 196x ?). Siberian story.
Ivanov, Vsevolod Adventures of a Fakir (xxx, 1934 - 1935). Autobiographical novel featuring the author's experiences as a circus performer.
Ivanov, Vsevolod Armored Train 14-69 (Bronepoezd 14-69, 1922). In remote Siberia, a band of Red partisans are given the assignment of blocking a White armored train with only small weapons and bare hands. How do they do it? A Chinese member of the group lies across the tracks, getting mangled and killed, but stopping the train.3
Ivanov, Vsevolod Azure Sands (Golubie peski, 1922). Various forces try to capture a remote Siberian town during the Civil War. In the end, all the heroes die--White, Red, and Green--and the town again sinks into obscurity.3
Ivanov, Vsevolod Baby, The (xxx, 1926?). Red partisan peasants in Mongolia discover an unweaned Russian baby. To feed the baby, they kidnap a young Kirghiz woman. When they discover that the woman is feeding her own baby more than the Russian baby, they abandon the Kirghiz baby in the wild so that the Russian baby can grow up fat and healthy.
Ivanov, Vsevolod Colored Winds (Tsetniye vetra, 1922). Civil War tale.
Ivanov, Vsevolod Cotton (Khlopok, 1928). An English secret agent and a Red commissar discover that the common struggle for survival dissipates their class hatred.3
Ivanov, Vsevolod Duty (Dolg, 1923). A Red officer saves the life of a White. Later, when the tables are turned, the White returns the favor.3
Ivanov, Vsevolod Fecundity (Plodorodie, 1926). Short story.
Ivanov, Vsevolod God Matvei (Bog Matvei, 1927). A peasant in a Red Army regiment, claims that he is God and orders the fighting to stop. He "miraculously" dodges bullets for a time, but in the end his mortality is proved. After his burial, the Reds march on to victory.3
Ivanov, Vsevolod How Burial Mounds Are Made (Kak sozdaiutsya kurgany, 1924). In Siberia during the Civil War, 8,000 corpses lie stacked waiting for burial in the frozen ground. It is difficult, but a grave is carved in the ground, the bodies dumped in, and dirt thrown on top in the shape of an ancient Sythian burial mound.3
Ivanov, Vsevolod Khabu (Khabu, 1925). Short novel revolving around a building of a railroad in the trackless taiga. Nature is defeated, and the hero dies the moment his dream is realized.3
Ivanov, Vsevolod Kyzymil, Golden River (Kyzymil' - zolotaya reka, 1922). xxx
Ivanov, Vsevolod Life of Timofei Smokotinin (Zhizn' Timofeiya Smokotinina, 1926). Short story.
Ivanov, Vsevolod Mystery of Mysteries (xxx, 192x). xxx
Ivanov, Vsevolod Night (Noch, 1926). Short story.
Ivanov, Vsevolod Off To Meet the Southbound Birds (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Ivanov, Vsevolod Parkhomenko (Parkhomenko, 1939). Idealized biography of a Civil War general.4
Ivanov, Vsevolod Partisans (Partizany, 1921). Four carpenters run afoul of the law and take the the hills, pursued by the authorities. They turn into partisans, die heroic deaths, and become Red heroes.3
Ivanov, Vsevolod Severostal (Severostal', 192x). xxx
Ivanov, Vsevolod Water Patch (Polyn'ya, 1926). Short story.
Karavaeva, Anna A. Golden Beak (Zolotoi Kliuv, 1925). Story of runaway Siberian peasants and workers in a state mine under Catherine II.
Karavaeva, Anna A. Sawmill (Lesozavod, 1928). Depiction of the industrialization of a Soviet village.
Kataev, Ivan Ivanovich Bus (Avtobus, 1928). Description of a happy bus ride from the countryside dachas back to the city--the people, the scenery, the best place to sit, etc. Also gives lyrical tribute to the calm and dedicated driver, who so deftly avoids an accident that the passengers never even notice the danger.
Kataev, Ivan Ivanovich Great Glacier (Velikii Gletcher, 1929). A Moscow student is parted from his girlfriend, who has to go study in Leningrad. But on Great October Socialist Revolution Day, as the student is getting ready to parade through Red Square, his girlfriend shows up. She couldn't live without him and has arranged to transfer back to Moscow. Hand-in-hand, they march through Red Square, receiving the salute from Kalinin, Stalin, and other big wigs.
Kataev, Ivan Ivanovich Milk (Moloko, 1923). A Communist, swayed by the appealing human qualities of his kulak adversary, chokes down his class revulsion and gives vent to a feeling of sympathy for his fellow man.3
Kataev, Valentin P. Beautiful Trousers (xxx, 1922). A very hungry philologist writes a play, hoping to sell it and make some money for food. But the play is too hard to produce, with infants, snakes, and crows in the cast. So, instead, the philologist steals a beautiful pair of trousers and sells them for food.
Kataev, Valentin P. Embezzlers (Rastratchiki, 1926). Two employees of a Moscow trust embezzle some money and go on a merry romp in search of "high society". Plenty of amusing adventures and interesting types are met before justice eventually catches up with them.
Kataev, Valentin P. Father (Otets, 1928). A quiet schoolmaster in a southern Russian town devotes himself to his son, who is arrested as a counterrevolutionary. When the son is released, he scorns his father, gets a cushy job and moves to Moscow, leaving his father to die a lonely death.
Kataev, Valentin P. Flag (xxx, 19xx). Nazis have surrounded a group of Soviet fighting men and called on them to give up. But instead of the white flag of surrender the Soviet soldiers run up a crimson flag which they improvised from pieces of cloth of different shades of red.
Kataev, Valentin P. For The Power of the Soviets (Za vlast sovetov, 1949). Portayal of the underground activities of partisans in Odessa during World War II. Their headquarters are in the catacombs under the city.
Kataev, Valentin P. Holy Well (Syatoi kolodets, 1967). A lyrical-philosophical account of dreams the author has while under anesthesia for surgery. Scenes of family, friends, lovers, travels, and events of Soviet history are woven into a stream-of-consciousness autobiographical narrative that reflects the influence of Marcel Proust, James Joyce, and Franz Kafka.
Kataev, Valentin P. I, a Son of the Working People (Ya, Syn Trudovovo Naroda, 1937). In 1918, a demobilized soldier, returns to his village, hoping to marry Sofya, daughter of the wealthy Tkachenko. The latter hopes to restore the old order and plots with loyalist elements and Germans to undermine the revolution and to thwart Semyon's marital intentions. In the end, Semyon, after Tkachenko's intrigues have cost the lives of two friends, is reunited with Sofya, and Tkachenko is arrested and executed.
Kataev, Valentin P. Rodion Zhukov (Rodion Zhukov, 1926). A sailor deserts from the Battelship Potemkin in Rumania and makes his way through formidable obstacles back to Russia in response to the pull of the soil.3
Kataev, Valentin P. Son of the Regiment (Syn polka, 1945). A homeless orphan boy named Vanya is picked up by a Soviet front-line artillery unit. At first, the commander wants to send the boy to a children's home in the rear. But Vanya refuses to go, so the army relents and lets him stay on to fight with them. He gets his first bath in three years, a real Red Army uniform, and an opportunity to fire a cannon at those nasty Germans. He is sent on a dangerous secret mission behind German lines where he is captured. But, despite an unpleasant interrogation, he does not reveal the location of Soviet troops. Near the end, Vanya takes part in a fierce and bloody battle in which many of his new comrades are killed or wounded. But Vanya survives and his new, many-numbered Soviet family sends him to a military academy where dreams of Stalin urge him on to future success. Stalin Prize winner, 1946. (Click here for detailed plot summary)
Kataev, Valentin P. Squaring The Circle (Kvadrature Kruga, 1927). Comedy play based on the housing shortage in Moscow during the 1920s. Two young couples who share a room try to resolve inter-marital conflicts under the new morality of a new regime.
Kataev, Valentin P. Struggle to the Death (xxx, 1925). The struggle against bureaucracy gets bogged down in bureaucracy as the director--acting both as director and as deputized deputy of his deputy who is on vacation--gets involved in intense bureaucratic in-fighting with himself.
Kataev, Valentin P. Time, Forward! (Vremya, vpereyod!, 1932). As the metallurgical plant at Magnitogorsk is constructed, a brigade of workers rush to break the world record for concrete-pouring. Considered one of the best of the Five-Year-Plan novels, it shows the influence of John Dos Passos.
Kataev, Valentin P. White Sail Gleams (Beleyet Parus Odinokii, 1936). Treatment of the 1905 revolution from the viewpoints of two Odessa schoolboys.
Katerli, Nina Barsukov Triangle (Treugol'nilk Barsukova, 1977). Harsh, episodic portrayal of a neighborhood of ordinary Leningraders as they live brutish and crude lives in close quarters, queue up in food stores, and switch sexual partners. A number of Jewish characters experience anti-Semitism as they ponder emigration.1
Katerli, Nina Between Spring and Summer (Mezhdu vesnoi i letom, 1983). A lively young woman is in love with a married man 20 years older than she is.1
Katerli, Nina Colored Postcards (Tsvetnye otkrytki, 1987). A talented young man on the verge of a successful academic career, gives it all up and joins the army, unable to bear the prodding pressure of his mother and the neglect of his father.1
Katerli, Nina Farewell Light (Proshchal'nyi svet, 1981). A selfless, idealistic girl is criticized by her parents for her devotion to a crippled friend.1
Katerli, Nina Monster (Chudovishche, 1983). A one-eyed, scaly, dragonlike creature lives for years with ordinary humans in a communal apartment. The association is mainly peaceful, although the monster does occasionally turn obnoxious fellow residents into saucepans or rats.1
Katerli, Nina Polina (Polina, 1984). Contrast of two women, one a slovenly, disorganized person who has loved and been used by many men; and the other a careful, organized woman who has prospered in monogamy. The flibbertigibbet ends up enjoying life while careful woman goes to pieces when she learns her husband might be having an affair.1
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Artist Unknown (Khudozhnik Neizvesten, 1931). Novel addressing problems of culture in the Soviet Union of the late 1920s. It revolves around a philosophical discussion between and engineer and a painter.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Carpenters (Stolyari, 1923?). A wooden boy becomes a master carpenter and sets off on a fruitless quest for a magic plane.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Cask (Bochka, 1924). In his will, a mathematician reveals the location of a "treasure". A group of crooks race the mathematician's father, who's also a mathematician, to the spot. The "treasure" turns out to be the discover that the entire city of London and its outlying districts are on the inside of a giant wine cask which is rolling along on some hard surface. The location revealed in the will is the spot where people can assess the wall of the cask. The crooks and the old mathematician blow a hole in the side of the cask, but as they step out into the extra-cask world, the cask rolls over on them and crushes them.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Chronicle of the City of Leipzig for the Year 18.. (Khronika Goroda Leiptsiga za 18.. God", 1923?). A student, in love with the daughter of his philosophy professor, makes a deal with the devil: To win the love of the girl he agrees to take on a vow of silence. He loses the envelop in which his silence is sealed, breaking the deal and losing his love. In despair, he has himself sculpted into a small bronze statue and ends up on an obscure shelf in an antique shop. (Students...go figure.) Told in a mixed-up, non-chronological sequence with frequent interruptions by the author.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Clockmakers of Kutum (Kutumskiye Chasovshchiki, 1924). In a provincial Ukrainian town during the NEP, a crook, pretending to be a foreign watch-company representative, gets local clock makers to buy and pay in advance for nonexistent clocks.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. End of a Gang (Konetz Khazy, 1925). A gang of robbers plan to break into the safe of a state bank. They need a steel specialist, but kidnap the wrong one. Needing a stenographer, they kidnap one with whom the chief of the gang happens to be in love. The stenographer's former boyfriend, whom she jilted earlier, is a political prisoner. He escapes jail and, learning that she is missing, tracks her down. He enlists the aide of a prostitute to rescue the stenographer. Just as the stenographer is rescued, the prostitute's jealous boyfriend intends to kill the prostitute but, in a case of mistaken identity, kills the stenographer instead. The gang is arrested, and the stenographer's boyfriend is sent back to prison.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Engineer Shvartz (Inzhenir Shvartz, 1923?). A representative of the two-dimensional Country of Geometrists comes to the Soviet Union on a friendly visit. Before leaving, he entrusts his notes on the two-dimensional world to a young mathematician. Or perhaps it was all a dream.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Fifth Wanderer (Pyatii Strannik, 1921). The story of four wanderers. They are a puppet master (with his puppet "Pickelherring"), a scholarly master of many sciences, a philosopher, and an artisan-glazier. They sign a pact to go in quest of the solutions to their various pursuits. The searches end unsuccessfully. And, in the end, it turns out that all four wanderers are really just puppets, controlled by a mysterious fifth wanderer.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Friend of the Mikado (Drug Mikado, 1927). A Japanese samurai-diplomat in a Western capital receives word that the Mikado has died and that it is now his duty to disembowel himself. However, life in the West has had an influence on the samurai-diplomat and he no longers wants to kill himself just because the emperor has died. So he resigns his post and starts to leave the embassy. The samurai-diplomat's secretary is about to shoot him for this betrayal when the secretary suddenly remembers that he himself has just gambled away the embassy's documents and papers and is in plenty of hot water unless he disappears along with his boss.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Great Game, The (Bolshaya Igra, 1925). Russian and British intelligence agents battle each other in a cloak-and-dagger game over a prize of international imperialism--the testament of the Emperor of Ethiopia.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Inspector General (Revizor, 1926). A mental patient escapes from the asylum and hides in a public bath. There he takes over the personality, job, and life of a finance inspector, who gets shipped off to the asylum. In the end, however, things revert to the original situation and the patient is back in his cell at the asylum.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Nine-tenths of Fate (Devyat Desyatikh Sudby, 1925). In 1915, an ensign in the tsarist army named Shakhov is court-martialed for his revolutionary activities. To save his life, he betrays a comrade. Guilt-ridden, he exiles himself to Siberia, refusing to answer the letters of his girlfriend, Galya. Finally, he returns to Petrograd just in time for the Bolshevik uprising, in which he participates. During the assault on the Winter Palace he shoots and wounds an anti-Bolshevik officer, who turns out to be Galya. She recovers, but is alienated from him. Shakhov fights honorably during the Civil War, and finally he and Galya are reunited. But then the secret of his pre-Revolutionary disgrace is revealed. He is arrested and about to be given the death sentence when the comrade he betrayed suddenly appears. He had managed to escape exection back in 1915 and now pleads for Shakhov's acquittal. Shakhov is released and, along with Galya lives, happily ever after in a new life of dedication to the Revolution.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Open Book (Otkrytaya Kniga, 1956). A young biologist offers a new biological theory. The entrenched old guard resists, but the biologist bravely defends her theory, at great personal cost.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Purple Palimpsest (Purpurnii polimkpsest, 1923?). A bookbinder and a scholar are traveling to each other's towns. On the road, their carriages collide. Afterwards, they accidentally get into the wrong coaches and each is taken back to his home town. However, some of the bookbinder's personality has rubbed off on the scholar, and vice versa so that their identities become blurred and superimposed on one another.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Seven Pairs of Dirty Ones (Sem Par Nechistykh, 1962). The discrepancy between legality and morality of the Stalin time is revealed in a tragic episode during the transportation of convicts in the White Sea.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Shields (and Candles) (Shchity (i Svechi), 1922 ). A soldier comes to kill a carpenter for the disgrace and murder of his sister. Instead, he sits down to play cards with the carpenter, a shoemaker, and a mute. After the game, the soldier takes out his sword to complete his murderous mission. Instead, the carpenter and others set upon the soldier and kill him.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Short Summer Night (Vorobinaya Noch, 1927). A cashier gambles away all his money as well as the money of the cooperative for which he works. Thus shamed, he hits the road, looking for a life of adventure. He ends up naked in a provincial town, fleeing from a stone-throwing mob. He commits suicide by jumping from a bridge.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Sky-Blue Sun (Goluboye Solntse, 1927). An old colonel in the Chinese National Army is dying. He speaks with his ward, the grown son of a long-dead revolutionary leader. The ward has always been a disappointing good-for-nothing. In a final test to probe this ward's moral fiber, the colonel falsely confesses to having been a British spy for many years. The ward seems totally unconcerned about this confession of treason and leaves. The colonel is in despair, feeling that the revolution has failed if this apathetic young opium smoker is its successor. However, the colonel is then overjoyed when the ward returns with a knife and tries to kill him.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. This Morning (Sevodnya Utrom, 1927). A man apparently kills his wife in a jealous rage, then goes to a gambling house, where he loses everything. He is mistaken for a thief and runs. He manages to jump aboard an ambulance which is transporting his wife's lover, whom he accidentally shot when he was aiming at his wife. The lover mistakes the husband for someone to whom he owns money, so he gives him some cash. The man takes the money back to the gambling house and, this time, wins everything. He has a change of heart then and sends all his winnings to the dead man's mother just before he is arrested.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Troublemaker (Skandalist, 1928). Damning portrayal of old-fashioned, inflexible attitudes among the older academics in Leningrad. Formalism is parodied. One character possibly modeled on Viktor Shklovsky.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Two Captains (Dva Kapitana, 1938 - 1944). A young boy with a difficult childhood--worthy of a Dickens novel--grows up fascinated with the fate of a pre-Revolutionary explorer who disappears under mysterious circumstances in the Arctic before the first world war. As fate would have it, the boy grows up to be an arctic explorer himself with intimate ties to the old captain's family. The machinations of the family's duplicitous cousin, who has eyes on the old captain's widow, hinder our hero's development, as do the Spanish Civil War and World War II. But, in the end, the young captain returns to the Arctic, marries the old captain's daughter, and locates the remains of that long-lost expedition. Stalin Prize winner, 1946.
Kaverin, Veniamin A. Wish Fulfillment (Ispolneniye Zhelanii, 1934). Comparative study of two different students at Leningrad State University. The first student, Trubachevsky, a student of literature, begins his career brillilantly, deciphering a previously undecipherable Pushkin manuscript. Giddy with success, Trubachevsky is manipulated and seduced by evil-doers who manage to steal some valuable Pushkin manuscripts and make Trubachevsky the patsy. The second student, Kartashikhin, a medical student, is more slow in his progress, but shows more strength in character, avoiding many of the traps into which Trubashevsky fell. In the end, he helps rehabilitate the shamed Trubachevsky.
Kazakevich, Emmanuil By the Light of Day (Pri svete dnya, 1961). Shortly after the war, a one-armed demobilized soldier visits the widow of a beloved officer who died in his arms two years earlier during the war. As the soldier tells the widow about he wonderful qualities of her husband, she realizes that she had underestimated him. The soldier is mortified to learn that the woman married soon after the officer's death and has a new happy life. In the end, everyone is filled with bewildered remorse.8
Kazakevich, Emmanuil Father Visits His Son (xxx, 1962). A greedy father tries to sue his son for insufficient support, even though even though the son has gone heavily into debt to take care of the father.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. Adam and Eve (xxx, 196x). A yong woman, expecting love, comes to visit an artist at a northern lake. The artist, absorbed in self-doubt, self-pity, and anger at the art world, refuses to communicate or make love to the woman, so she leaves.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. Arktur - Hunting Dog (Arktur - gonchii pec, 1957). Story of a dog whose indomitable instinct triumphs over his blindness.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. At the Station (xxx, 196x). A young village fellow suddenly becomes harsh and insensitive toward his sweetheart in his impatience to catch a train and start his new life in the city.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. Autumn (Osen', 1961). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Autumn in Oak Woods (Osen V Dubovikh Lesakh, 1961). Lovers are reunited in a small cottage in the woods. They recall past awkward times in the big city, but their love is confirmed as they take in the sights and smells of the beautiful forest.
Kazakov, Yuri P. Blue and Green (Goluboye i zelyonoye, 1956). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Boy from the Snow Pit (Mal'chik iz snezhnoi yamy, 1976). Tale about the German artist Tyco Vylke.
Kazakov, Yuri P. But We Are Not Strangers (xxx, 196x). Set in northern fishing village.
Kazakov, Yuri P. Damned North (Proklyatii sever, 1964). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Easy Life (xxx, 196x). A rootless, wandering worker avoids responsibility and is vaguely troubled over his own spiritual emptiness.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. Goblins (Kabiasy, 1960). The director of a village club, upset with the superstitions of the people, wants an increase in atheist propaganda. However, during a late night walk through the woods alone, he himself falls prey to superstition, thinking that he sees goblins.
Kazakov, Yuri P. Going to Town (xxx, 1963). A carpenter leaves the country to take his sick wife to Moscow. He is sure she will die there and hopes she will, for he has long since stopped caring for her and she has prevented his settling in the city. He drops her off at the hospital and goes to a restaurant where he drinks beer and watches the trains go by, while "a waitress in a white apron and cap will wait on him, the orchestra will play, and there will be the smell of food and the smoke of good cigarettes."
Kazakov, Yuri P. Hunting (Na okhote, 1956). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. I Cry and Sob (Plachy i rydaiu, 1963). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Little Candle (Svechehka, 1973). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Lodging for the Night (Nochleg, 1963). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Manka (Manka, 196x). A 17-year-old girl is bewildered and ambivalent in her first encounter with a sexually aroused man.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. Nestor and Kir (Nestor i Kir, 1961). Story about the life of fishermen in a northern fishing village.
Kazakov, Yuri P. Night (Noch', 1955). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Nikishkin's Secrets (xxx, 196x). Set in northern fishing village.
Kazakov, Yuri P. Old Men (xxx, 196x). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. On the Island (xxx, 196x). A reasonably happily married man, searching for a perpetual state of romantic love, has a brief affair with an unmarried girl, knowing all along that his quest is impossible.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. On the Road (Po doroge, 1960). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Outsider (xxx, 196x). A nocturnal fellow wastes his life on a simple job as a bouytender along a river because he has repudiated society for some mysterious reason.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. Pomorka (Pomorka, 196x). Portrait of a 90-year-old peasant woman.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. Quiet Morning (Tikhoye utro, 1954). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Smell of Bread (xxx, 196x). A woman from the city returns to her native village to settle the affairs of her mother, who recently died. A smell of bread breaks through the woman's hardened exterior and evokes a sincere sense of bereavment. However, the effect doesn't last long, and the woman is soon in her callous shell again.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. Teddy (Teddi, 1956). A trained bear escaped from a circus and returns to life in the wilds.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. There Goes a Dog (Von bezhit sobaka, 1961). On a bus ride out of the city for a fishing trip, a man meets a trouble, lonely young woman, desperate for companionship. Eager to get on with his fishing, the man ignores the woman's cry for help. Only after three days of idyllic fishing does the man realize that he acted selfishly.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. Two in December (Dvoe v Dekabre, 1962). xxx
Kazakov, Yuri P. Unattractive (Nekrasivaya, 1956). A plain young woman's first timid attempt at a liaison meets with callous indifference.8
Kazakov, Yuri P. You Were Crying Bitterly in Your Dream (Vo sne ty gor'ko plaka, 1977). xxx
Kazantsev, Aleksandr Martian (xxx, 195x?). As Sputnik is launched, a strange man appears in an amateur astronautics organization in Moscow and volunteers for the first mission to Mars. He leaves behind a manuscript in a strange hieroglyphics. Computers decipher the manuscript, showing it to be the diary of a Martian who got left behind on Earth after an accident in Siberia in 1908.
Kazantsev, Aleksandr Visitor From Outer Space (xxx, 19xx). A scientist puts forth his theory that the great Tunguska crater in Siberia was formed as the result of the explosion of a Martian space ship which had come to Earth for water desparately needed by the Red Planet.
Kekketyn, Ketsai Khoyalkhot (Khoyalkhot, 19xx). xxx. (In the Koryak language.)
Keshishian, G. World in the Mirror (Ashkharhe Hayelu Mej, 1979). Story about one day in the life of a taxi driver who is ready to share the troubles of his passengers. (Armenian)
Ketlinskaya, Vera Courage (xxx, 19xx). Dramatic novel about the pioneers who built the town of Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
Khalafian, Z. Mulberry (Tteni, 1979). Two families live next to each other. Only the mulberry tree unites and at the same time separates their houses. The tree is the source of their joys and disorders. (Armenian)
Khalov, Pavel Bearing 307 (xxx, 19xx). About the life of Far-Eastern fishermen.
Khalov, Pavel Calling All Ships (xxx, 19xx). About the life of Far-Eastern fishermen.
Khansadian, S. Mkhitar Sparapet (xxx, 1978?). Historical novel about David Bek and Mkhitar Sparapet, leaders of an 18th century Armenian liberation movement. (Armenian)
Kharms, Daniil Elizaveta Bam (Elizaveta Bam, 1927). An absurdist play in which Elizaveta Bam is pursued by two police agents determined to arrest her for a crime no one can name. Absurdist antics and banter ensue. ("When buying a bird, first examine its teeth." "My feet are like cucumbers.") Ms. Bam's father undertakes a battle of the bogatyrs, a war of words with one of the police agents and kills him. Absurdly, the agent returns to life and, dressed as a fire fighter, comes to arrest Elizaveta for his murder.
Kharms, Daniil Ivan Ivanych Samovar (Ivan Ivanych Samovar, 1928). A friendly samovar dispenses tea. Late risers, however, are in for a surprise. A children's poem. (Click here for complete text.)
Kharms, Daniil Pushkin and Gogol (Pushkin i Gogol, 192x). Pushkin and Gogol are falling all over each other. A short play. (Click here for complete text.)
Khodzher, Grigori Lake Emoron (xxx, 19xx). In the Nanai language.
Khodzher, Grigori Seagulls Gather Over the Sea (xxx, 19xx). In the Nanai language.
Kholopov, Georgi Stories of the War (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Kim, Anatolii Eglantine of Myoko (Shipovnik Myoko, 1976). Recounts the sacrifices of a girl on Sakhalin who is berated by her family and community for having become pregnant and jeopardized the boy's future. They marry. She works hard to support her son and send money to her husband, who is off in Leningrad studying. She dies, and only years later does her husband realize her true character and value.1
Kim, Anatolii Father Forest (Otets les, 1989). A forest spirit decides to periodically inhabit the souls of individual men to study the different between men and trees. After experiencing mankind's wars, Gulags, and irresponsible treatment of the environment, the spirit decides that humans are stupidly and unnecessarily cruel and self-destructive and that the main motive of the human race is suicide.1
Kim, Anatolii Link of Tenderness (Zveno nezhnosti, 1976). A personal meditation involving a supernatural family legend, boyhood memories, the nature and folklore of the Far East.1
Kim, Anatolii Lotus (Lotos, 1980). After an absence of 16 years, an artist returns to Sakhalin, where his mother is dying. He feels remorse over his neglect of her, and cuts and orange into the shape of a lotus for her.1
Kim, Anatolii Smile of the Vixen (Ulibka lisitsy, 1976). A young man, returned on vacation from his studies in Leningrad, goes drinking with village friends and listens with urban disdain to their ghost stories. On the way home, he is confronted by a fox who weirdly grins at him.1
Kim, Anatolii Squirrel (Belka, 1984). Supernatural part-animal, part-human creatures engage in a conspiracy to destroy all of mankind's loftier impulses--artistic creativity, morality, idealism, etc.1
Kimonko, Djansi Where the Sukpai Flows (xxx, 19xx). Strikingly effective imagery and an unusual poetic quality are displayed in this collection of stories which describe the renaissance of the Udeghe, a small nationality in the taiga in the spurs of the Sikhote-Alin range. By the first writer among the Udeghe. (Udeghe)
Kireev, Ruslan Apologia (Apologiya, 1980). xxx
Kireev, Ruslan Feast Alone, A (Pir v odinochke, 1989). A writer tries to write a novel about a schoolboy acquaintance, but keeps getting bogged down in his own life and problems, the nature of art., etc.1
Kireev, Ruslan Furious Woman Tatyana (Histovaya zhenshchina Tat'yana, 1983). A one-armed female war veteran eagerly looks forward to a visit from a wartime friend. The visit turns into disaster, ruined by the woman's smothering hospitality and domineering arrogance.1
Kireev, Ruslan Glow-worm (Svetlyachok, 1985). A mousy librarian lives vicariously through books, and, like one of his favorite fictional characters, he loses his shadow.1
Kireev, Ruslan Prepatory Notebook (Podgotoitel'naya tetrad', 1981). xxx
Kireev, Ruslan Sandy Acacia (Peschanaya akatsiya, 1984). An actor fears that his hometown will be obliterated by approaching sands.1
Kireev, Ruslan Staircase (Lestnitsa, 1968). A 13-year-old girl is seduced in an attic by a greasy-haired punk who promised to teach her to play the accordion.1
Kireev, Ruslan There Lived Poets (Tam zhili poety, 1983). An irascible, eccentric painter undergoes a personality changed after suffering a heart attach, during which he was prematurely declared clinically dead.1
Kireev, Ruslan Ulya Maksimovna, My Love and Hope (Ulya Maksimovna, lyubov' moya i nadezhda, 1981). A busy factory manager is jealous of a strange mechanical genius who becomes attached to the manager's wife.1
Kireev, Ruslan Victor, The (Pobeditel', 1972 - 1979). xxx
Knorre, Fyodor The Good Ship Cormorant (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Kochar, R. Nahapet (xxx, 1977?). The story of a strong-willed man, Napapet, who lost his family during the 1915 Turkish genocide and found a new family and happiness in Soviet Armenia. (Armenian)
Kochetov, Vsevolod The Zhurbins (Zhurbiny, 19xx). Chronicle of working-class shipbuilders, who before the revolution endure the horrors of capitalist exploitation, and then fight for Soviet power.
Koltsov, Mikhail Stupidity (xxx, 1936). A typographical error results in a village cooperative undertaking an intensive effort to gather and stock 13,530 sparrows. Scandal, of course, ensues.
Kondratev, Vyacheslav Sashka (Sashka, 1979). Story of a selfless, steadfast and kind infantryman involved in the battle around Rzhev during the Great Patriotic War.1
Kononov, Aleksandr Visit to Koshino (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Koptelov, Afanasi Come Forth the Flames (xxx, 19xx). Siberian novel.
Koptelov, Afanasi Great Beginning (xxx, 19xx). Siberian novel.
Koptelov, Afanasi Great Nomad Camp (xxx, 193x). Siberian novel about the lives of the Altai people in the new conditions of a socialist economy.
Korneyuchuk, Aleksandr The Front (xxx, 1942). A play contrasting two commanders during World War II. The first, a distinguished veteran of the Revolution and Civil War, while personally brave, scorns modern tactics. The second, a much younger man, understands modern warfare and eventually comes to be placed in charge.
Korneyuchuk, Aleksandr Wings (Krylya, 1954). For years, a dictatorical government official holds sway in a distant province. He bullies, intimidates, and threatens. He ignores the needs of people, whitewashes bad conditions, shortages, and inefficiencies with pious quotations and bloated but meaningless reports. A new Party official arrives, sniffs out the truth, has the official arrested and shipped off to Moscow for trial.9
Kozakov, Mikhail E. Abram Nasatyr, the Innkeeper (xxx, 1926). A hard-hearted innkeeper in the NEP period gets rich as the result of a murder he inspired his brother to commit. When his position is threatened, he then kills this same brother.
Kozakov, Mikhail E. Philistine Adameiko (Meshchanin Adameiko, 1926). The Raskolnikov-like Adameiko plots the murder of a userer because, as he sees it, the parasites who survived the Revolution must be eliminated. Unlike Raskolnikov, he plans to manipulate someone else into doing the actual killing.
Kozakov, Mikhail E. When I'm Alone (xxx, 1945?). A play about a Soviet intellectual who despairs over backbiting and fighting among people around him. Labeled "harmful" and "pacifict" by Stalin.
Krasnobryzhy, Ivan Rare Find (xxx, 1973). A reporter from Moscow is sent to Siberia and told to find a story about a young geologist making a first discovery. Instead, he ends up trekking through the taiga for four days with a young female geologist named Alyonka and making many small discoveries of his own. Alyonka teaches him how to make a fire without matches, how to make a raft, when and how one may hunt, and other aspects of the taiga law. The reporter learns that the real find or discovery is people like Alyonka, who love and are attuned to nature and who also know how to make others better.
Krupin, Vladimir Fortieth Day (Sorokovoi den, 1981). Novel consisting of a writer's letters to his wife during a visit to his ill and aged parents in the countryside. The writer expresses remorse about his inability to tell in print the truth about the countryside.1
Krupin, Vladimir Handbell, The (Kolokol'chik, 1981). The narrator, a writer, visits Vyatka for its 600th anniversary. He is embarrassed as two of his works, previously recorded, are read over the local public address system. The works seem false and superficial, and the writer is ashamed of this condescending role as city folk "going to the people."1
Krupin, Vladimir Living Water (Zhivaya voda, 1980). In a remote forest settlement, a miraculous spring is discovered, whose waters make everyone uniformly handsome and decent and eliminate the craving for alcohol. Only one man, Kirpikov, on a personal quest for meaning in life, is unaffected by and uninterested in this magic elixir. When the spring is closed by an earthquake, everyone reverts to their flawed, drunken ways. Only Kirpikov, who has found a new serenity on his own, remains permanently changed.1
Krymov, Yuri S. Engineeers (Inzheniri, 1940). A tale concerning of the erection oil-mining installations.
Krymov, Yuri S. The Tanker "Derbent" (Tanker "Derbent", 1938). A rag-tag crew of riff-raff and misfits is assigned to a new oil tanker. They are undisciplined and uncaring, and their ship has one of the worst records in the fleet. But then, led by the example of an "ordinary" Communist, the crew gets swept up in the excitement of the Stakhanovite movement and completely transform themselves. Not only do they become the most efficient crew in the fleet, but they also show personal bravery, undertaking a dangerous rescue of another crew from a disabled and burning tanker in the middle of a fierce gale. Along the way--just like the real Stakhanov--they have to battle entrenched unimaginative administrators afraid of anything new. And although spending months at sea at a time takes a great personal toll on the hero of the work, in the end, the sanctity of marriage wins out. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Kungurov, Gavriil Natasha Bruskova (Natasha Bruskova, 196x ?). Siberian novel about young specialists just entering life and by their devoted work winning their right to be called true Soviet citizens.
Kuraev, Mikhail Captain Dikshtein (Kapitan Dikshtein, 1987). A sailor who took part in the Kronstadt uprising of 1921 protects himself from retribution by assuming the identity of another sailor who was executed during the rebellion. He lives a mundane life, supporting himself with petty jobs like raising rabbits until he dies of a heart attack in the 1960s. The work expresses sympathy for the Kronstadt rebellion, at odds with the official interpretation.1
Kuraev, Mikhail Night Watch (Nochnoi dozor, 1988). The reminiscences of an NKVD-KGB operative who has retired after 40 years of service. He speaks proudly of his work--surveillance, interrogations, burial of executed prisoners--and of the many interesting prisoners (especially intellectuals) he had the privilege of interrogating. The beauty of Petersburb/Leningrad also contrasted with its brutal history, extending from Peter the Great to Stalin.1
Kurchatkin, Anatolii Gasification (Gazifikatskya, 1981). A rather selfish and preoccupied young man in Moscow neglects his physiciall mother, who is living frugally in a poselok. After his mother's death, the man finds trunks of papers that document her death from 1917 on. This sparks an interest in his mother's life and in his family history in general.1
Kurchatkin, Anatolii Guillotine (xxx, 19xx). A depressed man, after several attempts at suicide, stubles upon an Institute of Quick and Easy Death, where they mercifully decapitate him.1
Kurchatkin, Anatolii Maze, The (xxx, 19xx). An unnamed and unidentified narrator spends his life from young manhood to old age trying to work his way out of an impossibly flexible, semi-animated labyrinth of brick walls.1
Kurchatkin, Anatolii Notes of an Extremist: The Construction of a Subway in our City (Zapiski ekstremista: stroitel'stvo metro v mashem gorode, 1990). Idealistic college students want to build a subway and donate it to the city. The local authorities persecute the students so severely, that the go underground, building an entire subterranean community--with factories, farms, schools hospitals, etc.--so they can continue their work. Subway construction takes an entire generation, during which time the underground society becomes totalitarian, with coercion and thought control. When the subway is completed, and the undergrounders emerge, they discover that the above-ground society has wonderful mass transportation, and the subway is useless. Most of the underground founders have nervous breakdowns, and many commit suicide.1
Kurchatkin, Anatolii Owner of a Cooperative Apartment (Khozyaika kooperativnoi kvartiry, 1978). A woman worker in a fur factory deals in winter hats she has stolen from work. In various other ways, she shows herself to be a completely shallow, vulgar, dishonest individual, well equipped for survival in a corrupt society.1
Kuusberg, P. How Do You Know that Robert Viyrpuu is Dead? (xxx, 1967). Story. (Estonian
Kuznetsova, Agnia Komsomol's Word of Honor (xxx, 196x ?). Story about a Siberian Komsomol.
Kuznetsova, Agnia Your Home (xxx, 196x ?). Story about a Siberian Komsomol.
Latynin, Leonid Face-maker and the Muse, The (Grimer i muza, 1977 - 1978). In a vauge, unidentified city, plastic surgeons work to reshape the inhabitants' faces to conform to an ideal image. This ideal keeps changing, so inhabitants have their faces reworked numerous times. Unruliness, nonconformity, and an unacceptable visage are all punishable by death. One plastic surgeon, happy and proud of his work, nonetheless gets ensnared in intrigue in the higher echelons of society.1
Latynin, Leonid Sleeper at Harvest Time (Spyashchii vo vremya zhatvy, 1991). A time traveler named Emelya, born in the tenth century in a tribal settlement on the site of the future Kremlin, is the son of a pagan priestess and a bear. In 21st-century Moscow, when it is discovered that Emelya has bear in his blood, he is stoned to death. He dies happy, knowing that he is being sacrifices for the good of society. His mother, a thousand years ago, also was sacrificed for the good of the tribe.1
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Commendant Pushkin (xxx, 1927). A sailor named Aleksandr Semyonovich Pushkin is placed in charge of the defense of Detskoye Selo, where, of course, the great poet Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin spent much of his time. Commendant Pushkin, just barely literate, knows nothing of the great poet, but others teach him and he comes to love the poet and his poetry. He successfuly defends the town against a White onslaught, but is shot and killed in battle. He dies, quoting the poet.
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Count Puzyrkin (Graf Puzyrin, 1926). During the Civil War in Ukraine, a Red Army regiment picks up a countess, who was lying wounded on the side of the road. The regiment's uneducated peasant cook, Puzyrkin, falls in love with the countess, and--dreaming of raising educated children-- he proposes to her. The countess, offended, rejects him and ends up running off with some snooty adjutant. Unable to endure the shattering of his dreams, Puzyrkin kills himself. Years later, this same ex-countess is seen haughtily doing the foxtrot in a fashionable restaurant.
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Fall of the Republic of Itl (Krusheniye Respubliki Itl, 1926). A satire describing a fictional foreign intervention in southern Russia and the establishment there of a so-called democratic republic with the help of "Nautilia", an obvious reference to England.
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Forty-First (Sorok-Pervii, 1924). The daughter of a Volga fisherman becomes a sniper with a Red partisan detachment. She misses her 41st vicitim (a White officer), then winds up stranded with him on a desert island, where they fall in love. However, the White's essentially selfish, bourgeois nature becomes apparent and she shoots him, fulfilling her mission and her class destiny. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Revolt (Myatezh, 1925). A play concerning an attempted counterrevolutionary uprising in Turkestan.
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Seventh Satellite (Sedmoi Sputnik, 1927). An old White General is arrested in 1918 and eventually released, reduced to taking a job as a laundryman. His sympathies change and he joins the Red Army. He is captured by Whites and shot.
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Sky-blue Cap (Nebesny Kartuz, 1926). A distinguished professor buys an absurd cap, and immediately his life changes. Valuable watches, golden cigarette cases, expensive earrings, etc., begin appearing in his coat pockets mysteriously. Is he an unconscious kleptomaniac? Are supernatural phenomena or political enemies at work? The answer only comes when he appeals to the chief prosecutor, who sets a pipe-smoking, Sherlock-Holmes-type detective on the case. A very amusing satire.
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Story of a Simple Thing (Rasskaz o Prostoi Veshchi, 1924). An old Bolshevik and member of the Cheka, carries on underground work in a town occupied by the Whites. After some breath-taking adventures, he is captured and shot.
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Thalassa (xxx, 1926). Ordinary, meek Soviet citizen gets involved in a smuggling expedition along the Black Sea coast.
Lavrenyov, Boris A. Wind (Veter, 1924). A sailor, turned into a class-conscious revolutionary, engages in peaceful civilian activity. He grows bored and returns to the adventurous life at the front, where he dies.
Lavrov, Ilya Girl and the Rowan (xxx, 196x ?). Siberian story.
Lavrov, Ilya Meeting with a Miracle (xxx, 196x ?). Siberian story.
Leonov, Leonid M. Badgers (Barsuki, 1925). Two brothers from a village grow up in a merchant quarter of pre-revolutionary Moscow. Later, one runs off to join the proletariat as a factory worker. The other returns to his home village and leads a peasant revolt, which is eventually crushed by his brother, now a commissar.
Leonov, Leonid M. End of a Petty Man (Konets melkovo cheloveka, 1923). A world-famous paleontologist is writing a major scientific work and ignores the world around him--War Communism, famine, etc. He slips into madness and is visited nightly by his double. Before dying, he decides to destroy his manuscript.
Leonov, Leonid M. Evgenia Ivanovna (Evgenia Ivanovna, 1963). A Russian woman flees to Europe and remarries to a British archeologist. Years later, on a trip to Georgia, she bumps into her ex-husband, who is now a guide for Intourist. He has shed his old identity and professes enthusiasm for Bolshevism, but, really, he is just a shabby, compromising, fellow-traveling opportunist.8
Leonov, Leonid M. Invasion (Nashestvie, 1942). A play set in a small town along the road of the German advance to Moscow. The son of a local doctor, lost and without purpose, returns to the town on the eve of the Germans' entry. Refused membership in the local partisan organization, he kills some Germans on his own. When captured, he pretends to be the head of the local underground, accepting responsibility for all its works, and is hanged. Soviet paratroopers then retake the town. Stalin Prize winner.
Leonov, Leonid M. Lyonushka (Lyonushka, 1943). A play about a group of partisans in German territory during World War II. Two plot lines concern a traitor in the ranks of the partisans and the love of the Lyonoushka, the heroine and only woman among the partisans, for a tank commander. Stalin Prize winner.
Leonov, Leonid M. Road to the Ocean (Doroga na okean, 1935). The political director of the Volga-Revizan railroad, a Communist with an illustrous past, struggles against an incurable disease and faces the fact that he has had little personal enjoyment in life. A former White officer, who has infiltrated the Party organization, tries to wreck the railroad, but is foiled. An additional subplot focuses on a utopian world of the future, which arises as a result of a war between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world.
Leonov, Leonid M. Skutarevsky (Skutarevsky, 1932). Foreign-inspired sabotage hits a secret electric-industry lab. Those implicated include the son of Professor Skutarevky, head of the lab. The old professor, educated in pre-Revolutionary times, changes and joins the Party.
Leonov, Leonid M. Sot (Sot, 1931). Communists struggle to construct a huge paper mill on a small river in a remote forest area. Saboteurs, monks, and reluctant peasants pose problems, all of which, in the end, are overcome.
Leonov, Leonid M. Taking of Velikoshumsk (Vzyatiye Velikoshumska, 1944). Exploits of a Soviet tank corps involved in the anti-German offensive in Ukraine. Good character studies. Culminates in an attack on a German column.
Leonov, Leonid M. Thief, The (Vor, 1927). A prominent Red Commisar suffers a crisis after murdering a White officer. He is also disallusioned by the NEP. He changes and becomes ringleader of a gang of burglars. In the end, he gives up his life of crime and retires to seclusion in the countryside. Contains a novel-within-a-novel.
Libedinsky, Yuri N. Birth of a Hero (Rozhdeniye geroya, 1930). A Communist commissar, himself not perfect, is beset by various temptations, especially of the flesh. In the end, however, he overcomes all and is reborn as a true proletarian hero.
Libedinsky, Yuri N. Commissars (Kommisari, 1925 ). As the transition to NEP begins, Red Army Political Commisars gather in a provincial town for a refresher course. The different social origins and attitudes of the Party members are highlighted. Some are confused and bewildered by the new economic policy. Some, essentially bourgeois in nature, must be purged. Good insight to Party life of the time.
Libedinsky, Yuri N. Dawn (Zareva, 1953). Chronicle of the revolutionary movement of the early twentieth century, particularly in the Caucasus.
Libedinsky, Yuri N. Tomorrow (Zavtra, 1923). Centers around the fictional news of a successful Communist revolution in Germany and the effect the news has on Bolsheviks in the USSR. Later denounced by the author as ideologically unsound, written under the pernicious influence of Trotskyism.
Libedinsky, Yuri N. Week (Nedelya, 1922). A story of a peasant revolt in a remote town in the Urals. Individual Communists are shown as imperfect, with doubts and contradictions. Some are mere self-servers. Contractions between the Party and the peasants as well as many of the failings of the Party are frankly presented. In the end, the revolt is put down, but most of the leading Communists are brutally murdered. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Lidin, Vladimir Great or Quiet (Veliki ili tikhi, 1932). Story of the construction of a hunting and fishing collective in far eastern Russia.
Lidin, Vladimir Renegade, The (Otstupnik, 1928). A student is involved in a murder and passes through a series of moral trials. In the end, when he decides to confess his part, he realizes the beauty of life, toil, and love.
Lipatov, Vil Deep Stream (xxx, 1960 ?). Siberian novel.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Antonovka (Antonovka, 1925). Short Story.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. At the Waystation (Na peregone, 1925). Short Story.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Bitter Rowan-berry (Gor'kaya ryabina, 1937). Povest.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Bronze Helmet (Mednaya kaska, 1926). Short Story.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Daughter of the Land (Doch' zemli, 1925). Short story.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. In the Wilds (V glushi, 1927). Short Story.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Indeterminate Height above Sea Level (Neopredelennaya vysota nad urovnem morya, 1928). Short Story.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Inheritance (Nasledstvo, 1926). Short Story
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Only Shirt, The (Edinstvennaya rubashka, 1926). Short Story
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Steppe Herds (Stepnye tabuni, 1927). Povest.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Sun Under Hand (Solntse pod rukoi, 1926). Short Story.
Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S. Wild Field (Dikoye pole, 1928). Novel.
Lyashko, N.N. Song of the Chains (xxx, 1926?). A political prisoner in tsarist times manages to keep his shackles when released from prison. He sends them back to his home town, where they become an important symbol and inspiration for his family and workers at the local factory throughout the Revolution and Civil War.
Lyashko, N.N. Thief's Mother (Vorova mat', 1921). Story of a woman whose heart is too pure for the world around her.3
Makanin, Vladimir Antileader (Antilider, 1980). A plumber becomes upset and enraged by men who stand out in his circle by being affluent, popular, or powerful. He launches a series of physical attacks on such persons and, of course, winds up in jail.1
Makanin, Vladimir Blue and Red (Goluboe I krasnoe, 1981). A boy living in a crowded barracks suffers from loneliness and the inability to carve out a personal life within the collective.1
Makanin, Vladimir Citizen Runaway (Grazhdanin ubegayushchii, 1984). A highly qualified worker roams about Siberia seeking increasingly out-of-the-way job sites until he finds the most remote of all, far in the north, where he dies.1
Makanin, Vladimir Left Behind (Otstavshii, 1987). Combines three narrative lines: (1), a middle-aged man recalls his days as a student, aspiring writer, and lover in the 1960s; (2) a veteran builder from the period of socialist construction has a recurring nightmare in which he tries to catch up with a truckload of his contemporaries; and (3) several versions of an ancient legend about a persecuted boy in the Urals who has an uncanny gift for diving the presence of gold ore.1
Makanin, Vladimir Loss (Utrata, 1987). Centuries ago, a drunken gang of drifters lead by a mean-spirited bully dig a tunnel under the Ural River. Subsequent generations, through distortions of legend, turn the bully into a regional saint.1
Makanin, Vladimir Man and a Woman, A (Odin i Odna, 1987). Two Moscow loners, talented eccentrics, gradually and in different ways repudiate society and come to be scorned by it.1
Makanin, Vladimir Man of the Suite (Chelovek svity, 1982). A middle-level bureaucrat, suddenly and for no apparent reason, ceases being invited to regular tea with the secretary of his superior. This loss of status causes him great anxiety over his career.1
Makanin, Vladimir Safety Valve (Otdushina, 1977). The married manager of a furniture factory loses his mistress, wins her back, then abandons her to settle down with his wife for good.1
Makanin, Vladimir Straight Line (Pryamaya liniya, 1965). xxx.
Makanin, Vladimir Where the Sky Met the Hills (Gde skhodilos' nebo c kholmami, 1984). A successful composer, who adapted many folk themes and melodies he learned as a boy in the poselok, returns to the poselok, intending to teach music and keep alive this cultural heritage. The locals, however, content with their transistor radios, are not interested.1
Makayonok, Andrei His Wife in Orbit (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Malyshkin, Aleksandr G. Fall of Daira, The (Padeniye Daira, 1921). The Red Army breaks through at Perekop, bringing to an end organized White resistance in the Crimea. The masses are the heroes.
Malyshkin, Aleksandr G. February Snow (Fevral'slii sneg, 1927). Historical fiction on the Februrary Revolution.3
Malyshkin, Aleksandr G. Sevastopol (Sevastopol, 1929). In the Black Sea fleet, a sailor from the intelligentsia, after some struggles, comes to accept the Revolution and his place as just another one of the masses.
Marcinkevicius, Justinas Pinetree that Laughed (Pusis, kuri juokesi, 1961). Lithuanian novel.
Markov, Georgi M. Salt of the Earth (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Markov, Georgi M. Siberia (Sibir, 1973). A sweeping epic of love, revolution, and nature set in the snow-swept expanse of Siberia. Bolsheviks, kulaks, Social Revolutionaries, honest hard-working peasants, and giant fish-creatures of legend all clash as tsarism crumbles. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Markov, Georgi M. Strogovs, The (Strogovi, 19xx). Chronicles the adjustments of Siberian peasants to the new Soviet power.
Matevossian, H. Autumn Sun (Ashnan Areve, 1977). The story of the life of a village woman with a complex and contradictory character and about her difficult relationship with her husband and sons. (Armenian)
Mayakovsky, Vladimir V. Bedbug, The (Klop, 1929). A philistine from the NEP era gets accidentally frozen and is revived fifty years later in 1979. The moderns at first mistake him for an honest worker, but then correctly identify him as a bourgeoisus vulgaris, a blood-sucking insect similar to, but more dangerous than, the bedbug. He is put on display in a cage equipped with special filters to trap all the dirty words. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Melezh, Ivan People of the Swamps (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Merilaas, K. Several Sunny Days on the Paths of Childhood (xxx, 1967). Story. (Estonian)
Mikhalkov, Sergei I Want To Go Home (Ya Khochu Domoi, 1948). In Germany following World War II, the evil British keep displaced Soviet children captive in their sector, lying about their existence and refusing to allow them to go home. They plan to turn the children into wage slaves and future spies. They resort even to murder in an attempt to keep their secrets hidden. Also, honest Germans, driven into poverty and despair by the bullying, land-grabbing, capitalist monopolist Americans, flee to freedom in the Soviet sector. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Mikhalkov, Sergei Ilya Golovin (Ilya Golovin, 1949). Play about the rise, fall, and regeneration of a Soviet composer. Somewhat based on the stories of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, it tells of a composer who comes to fame and privilege, but then drifts off into "imcomprehensible and formalist" music. Pravda of course condemns him for this, while Voice of America sings his praises. A friend of the composer, a Red Army general, advises him to once again write music for the masses. The composer repents and takes his friend's advice. He again becomes a fighter for peace and ends the play with adulations of Stalin. Stalin Prize winner, 1949.
Mozhaev, Boris From the Life of Fyodor Kuzkin (Iz zhizni Fedora Kuzkina, 1966). Story describing the battles of one stubbornly courageous and resourceful peasant against stupid and often vicious political authorities in the mid-1950s.1
Mozhaev, Boris Peasant Men and Women (Muzhiki i baby, 1976 - 1987). Two volume portrayal of peasant life before and after collectivization. In the first volume, pre-collectivized life is seen as generally positive. Volume two presents collectivization as an onslaught against the positive peasant heritage and a grave political error committed by drunken Party activists and corrupt bureaucrats.1
Muguev, Khadzhi-Murat Death of Nikola Bunchuk (Smert' Nikoly Bunchuka, 1927). A young Cossack--Nikola Bunchuk--in service to the Whites is assigned to a firing squad executing Red prisoners. Bunchuk's best friend in the squad lowers his rifle and refuses to fire. He is arrested, and Bunchuk is assigned to guard him. Instead, Bunchuk frees his friend, and the two of them flee. Then, trapped between Red and White lines, Bunchuk is shot and killed. Which side fired the deadly bullet is not known.3
Mustafin, Yamil Bridge, The (xxx, 1986?). xxx.
Mustafin, Yamil Savage (xxx, 1973?). A standoffish wild cat named Savage is adapted by a navy lieutenant and his wife. After a while, the cat becomes attached to the lieutenant. But when the lieutenant is absent for several weeks, the cat runs away. The lieutenant returns and searches for the cat, but it refuses to come back, not wanting to be disappointed a second time.
Nagibin, Yuri M Chetunov, Son of Chetunov (xxx, 19xx). A cocky young geologist, eager to quickly emulate the fame of his father, volunteers to get samples from a remote marsh. He gets trapped and almost bakes to death. He manages, eventually, to save himself and win his fame, but not before learning a humbling lesson about his own inadequacies.8
Nagibin, Yuri M. Arise and Go (Vstan I idi, 1987). Account of the relationship between a son and his father during the Stalin years. The father--innocent, of course--is arrested and sent to the prison camps. The boy and his family hide their relationship with the "criminal" father. Only later does the son, remorseful, understand the injustice done as well as the courage and fortitude of his father.1
Nagibin, Yuri M. Butterflies (Babochki, 19xx). A young boy is very excited about his butterfly collection, even though he has all the names of the various butterflies wrong; this excitement and fun is crushed, however, when an adult insists on telling the boy all the correct names.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Chase (xxx, 19xx). A onoe-legged duck-hunting guide, in a self-imposed test of courage and stamina, pursued an armed poacher through marshes and dense forest and finally captures him.8
Nagibin, Yuri M. Darkness at the End of the Tunnel (T'ma v kontse tunnelya, 19xx). Povest.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Downpour (xxx, 1973?). A boy on the verge of manhood moves to a new apartment building. He has one last outing to a park with his old friends. He and one of the girls are drawn together by a sudden downpour. The romance is nipped in the bud, however, when the boy learns that his best friend is already sweet on the girl.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Echo (Ekho, 19xx). Episode in the lives of a pre-adolescent boy and girl, conveying the enchantment of a child's world combined with a child's capacity for selfish and callous behavior.8
Nagibin, Yuri M. Friend of the Family (xxx, 1973?). The author recalls a garrulous, intellectual, dilettante of an uncle he had in his childhood. The uncle was popular at parties, but the author's parents looked down on him as lazy. The boy remembers praying that he would not grow up to be like his uncle, but later he wished that he had inherited some of his uncle's light-heartedness.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Get Out, We're Here (Slezai, Priekhali, 1954). A snooty young agonomist, just graduated from the university, volunteers for work in the countryside--knowing that she'll lose her Party card unless she does so. However, she finds conditions on the kolkhozes too primitive for her tastes and refuses every assignment offered her.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Green Bird with a Red Head (xxx, 1972?). A father loses faith in his sons who he thinks are obsessing excessively on some fatasically colored bird they claim to have seen in the nearby forest. The father, of course, doesn't believe that the bird even exists. However, one day, the father comes upon the remains of just such a bird, obviously eaten by a predator--proof that the children were telling the truth all along.
Nagibin, Yuri M. House No. 7 (xxx, 1973?). The author takes a stroll down memory lane, visiting a house that made him happy in his childhood.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Into Those Young Years (V te iunye gody, 19xx). Povest.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Khazar Ornament (xxx, 1956). Story criticizing the backwardness and neglect of rural areas and the spoliation of their natural resources.8
Nagibin, Yuri M. Light In The Window (Svet v okne, 1956). A luxurious suite of rooms at a rest home is kept spotlessly clean, but no one is ever allowed to stay there because the suite is reserved for a certain big wig if he should ever decide to visit. Two years pass this way, and the maid in charge of cleaning the suite, insulted by this great waste, invites some friends to play pool and watch TV in the suite. The director of the rest home angrily tosses out the interlopers, even though he secretly agrees with them.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Man and a Road (xxx, 19xx). A wastrel truckdriver picks up a woman hitchhiker and tries to seduce her. When she rejects him, he tells her the sad story of his life. She is unmoved, but the act of telling his story has made the driver change for the better.8
Nagibin, Yuri M. My First and Most Beloved Friend (xxx, 1973?). Two boys develop a deep and lasting relationship which carries them through the usual boyhood and adolescent experiences, adventures, and the search for identity. They are separated only by war, when one of them dies. Years later, an accidental visit by the surviving friend to the battlefield where the other died brings back a whole host of memories as well as feelings of guilt for not also dying. (Click here for complete text in English.)
Nagibin, Yuri M. My Golden Mother-in-law (Moya zolotaya tyoshcha, 19xx). Povest.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Outsider, The (xxx, 1977). The visit of a famous film director to a Siberian factory town is the occasion for two old friends to get together again. Unfortunately, one of the friends has divorced his enormously lovable and popular wife of long-standing and married a dry, reserved type. It is hard for everyone to get used to this new outsider.
Nagibin, Yuri M. School Album (Shkol'nii al'bom, 19xx). Povest.
Nagibin, Yuri M. There Were Four Of Us (Nas Bylo Chetvero, 1945). Four young boys play at being Musketeers. They then change their play to "Red Guards" and they organize the "liberation" of a local pond from some bullies, making it safe for children from throughout the region to swim and fish there. The boys grow up and fight for real in the Great Patriotic War.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Vaganov (Vaganov, 1944). During the Great Patriotic War, an orphan boy joins up with the Red Army. He becomes a brave warrior and energetic dancer. The girls like him, but he vows no sex until Victory Day. Unfortunately, he gets squashed by a Nazi tank before then.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Whip (xxx, 1941). A 10-year-old city boy comes to visit a village. Feeling awkward and weak, he gets hold of a whip, thinking that with it he will be able to control this strange rural world. As he snaps the whip, he accidentally kills a white cock. The boy, feeling sorry for the poor bird, bursts into tears.
Nagibin, Yuri M. Winter Oak (Zimnii Dub, 1953). In winter, a village boy is constantly late for school because he is always stopping to admire and observe a majestic oak tree and the many animals living in and around it. The teacher is angry, until she meets the oak tree herself. She, too, is enchanted by it and stops complaining.
Nagishkin, Dmitri Heart of Bonivur (xxx, 19xx). Novel about a romantic young revolutionary who took part in the Civil War and the partisan movement in the Far East.
Nagishkin, Dmitri Tales of the Amur (xxx, 19xx). Stories of the lives of people of the far north.
Nekrasov, Viktor Both Sides of the Ocean (Po obe storony okeana, 1962). Notes on his trip abroad, portraying the United States in a positive manner.4
Nekrasov, Viktor Dugout (xxx, 196x). Story about the unbridgeable psychic gap between those who fought in the war and the younger generation that, although sympathetic, has only heard about it.8
Nekrasov, Viktor In His Home Town (V rodnom gorode, 1954). A soldier returns from the front to Kiev, which was destroyed in the war. His wife, who had no word of him for more than two years, is living with another man. Everyone has to sort out their feelings and come to grips with the changes in themselves, others, and the world.9
Nekrasov, Viktor In the Trenches of Stalingrad (V okopakh Stalingrada, 1946). Simple, realistic account of the Battle of Stalingrad from the point of view of field officers and plain soldiers. Shows how heroic deed are done by unheroic individuals in an unheroic manner. Political officers portrayed in a negative light. Stalin Prize winner, 1947.4
Nekrasov, Viktor It Happened at Mamai Mound (Sluchai na Mamaevom Kurgane, 1965). The author revisits Stalingrad, the scene of his novel "In the Trenches of Stalingrad". He suddenly finds himself transported back in time to war-time Stalingrad. He is surrounded by real people he knew from the war as well as characters from his novel. His is also burdened with the foreknowledge of who will die and when as well as the history of the coming 23 years.8
Nekrasov, Viktor Kira Georgievna (Kira Georgievna, 1961). Novella dealing with the return of an ex-prisoner from a Stalinist prison camp. Also addresses the subject of art and creativitiy.4
Nekrasov, Viktor New Recruit (Novichok, 1963). A writer--keeping his profession a secret--joins a detachment of sappers, endears himself to them, and proves himself as a soldier. However, when his comrades find out who he really is, they become confused and remote.8
Nekrasov, Viktor Pike (Sudak, 1958). A diffident, unsoldierly lieutenant--a former ichtyologist who appears to be an untrainable misfit--leads an immensely successful night sortie against the Germans and displays extraordinary initiative, bravery, and resourcefulness.8
Nekrasov, Viktor Private Liutikov (Ryadavoi Liutikov, 1950). An apparently weak, malingering, useless soldier astounds his comrades by volunteering for a suicidal mission and dying a hero.8
Nekrasov, Viktor Senka (Senka, 1950). Story examining the cowardice of a young soldier in his first engagement, its psychological origins, and its cure.8
Nekrasov, Viktor Story Strange to the Highest Degree (xxx, 196x). A man edits a candid-camera-style film on Italy. Strangely, over time, characters in the film do completely different things and disappear altogether.8
Nekrasov, Viktor Vasya Konakov (Vasya Konakov, 1961). Story.
Neverov, Aleksandr A Bug, Winning His Freedom (Zhuk, Poluchivshii Svobody, 1922). A fly, trapped in a room, repeatedly bangs its head against the upper glass of a window trying to escape. The lower part of the window is open, but the bug doesn't see this. Frustrated with the bug's foolishness, a man finally grabs the bug and hurls it out the window to its freedom.
Neverov, Aleksandr Happiness (Schastye, 1922). A man tries to find happiness in personal possessions--a gramophone, a bed, a pig. But everything disappoints him and, in the end, he dies quietly.
Neverov, Aleksandr Love (Liubov, 1922). A flower declares its love for a butterfly, but is rejected.
Neverov, Aleksandr Marya the Bolshevik (xxx, 1923). Women's liberation comes to a post-revolutionary Russian village. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Neverov, Aleksandr Sparrow (Vorobei, 1922). A sparrow, dissatisfied with its life, wants to become a falcon, but then is frightened to learn that while a sparrow may be hunted by a cat, falcons are pursued by thousands of hunters.
Neverov, Aleksandr Tashkent, City of Bread (Tashkent, Khlebnii Gorod, 1923). A village boy sets out on a long and perilous journey to find food for his ailing mother. Chaos, revolution, civil war, famine, death, tragedy, and comedy all intermingle.
Nikandrov, N. Damned Cigarette Lighters! (Proklyatiye zaigalki!, 1923). "Physiology" of a self-employed, semi-skilled, artisan NEP type.3
Nikiforov, Georgi Ivan Brynda (Ivan Brynda, 1925). A worker--Ivan Brynda--in a provincial factory is happy until the NEP comes. The factory shuts down and 12,000 men are put out of work. Brynda goes to Moscow looking for a factory job, but things are no better there. He winds up working for a small shopkeeper. Friends acquire a lust for money, take to drink, or become criminals. Brynda remains steadfast and returns to his hometown as the factories begin to reopen.3
Nikitin, B. Solemn Vow (Tverdoye slovo, 1967). An old-fashioned hermit sits on the same bench for over a decade, dispensing ages-old wisdom, which has an effect on even the moderm a-go-go Soviet citizen. (ss)
Nikitin, Nikolai Barge (Barka, 192x). xxx
Nikitin, Nikolai Daisy (xxx, 19xx). Story of a young tigress and her escape from captivity.
Nikitin, Nikolai Fort Vomit (Rvotnii Fort, 1922). xxx
Nikitin, Nikolai Night (xxx, 19xx). An encounter between a Red armored train and a White armored train during the Civil War. Focuses on portraits of the passengers on the trains and their qualities, both good and bad. An old general prays in solitude while his wife fornicates with a drunken subordinate. The Red Commisar makes love to his American secretary. At the end, Cossocks try to profit by collecting scrap iron from the two burnt-out trains.
Nikolaeva, Galina Battle on the Way (aka Running Battle) (Bitva v puti, 1957). Novel exposing bureaucracy and inefficiency on collective farms and in factories. It delves into issues of personal love and refers to political and anti-Semitic persecutions. The first novel to portray the reactions of Russians to Stalin's death (his burial is described at length).9,4
Nikolaeva, Galina Harvest (Zhatva, 1950). Novel dealing with a returning war veteran, his wife who had matured during the war through a love affair and her responsible work at the kolkhoz, and the wife's lover. Stalin prize-winner, 1950.4
Nikulin, Lev V. Russia's Faithful Sons (xxx, 1950). Historical novel about the campaign of the Russian armies in 1813 and 1814 against Napoleon. Stalin Prize winner, 1951.
Nizovoi, Pavel Replacement (Smena, 1921). Depiction of the decay of a patriarchal peasant way of life.3
Nurpeisov, Abdizhamil Twilight (xxx, 1967). Historical novel set in Kazakh lands on the eve of the first world war. Translated into Russian by Yuri Kazakov. (Kazakh)
Ognyov, Nikolai Diary of Kostya Ryabtsev (Dnevnik Kosti Ryabtseva, 1927). The diary of a school boy, showing the goings-on at a Soviet high school of the time. It's like a miniature revolutionary republic with the students in charge.
Ognyov, Nikolai Eurasia (Evrasiya, 1923). Ornamentalism in the style of Pilnyak.
Ognyov, Nikolai Visions (Videniya, 1925). Historical fiction on the poet A.I. Polezhaev [1804-1838].3
Okudzhava, Bulat Art of Clothes-Cutting and Life (Iskusstvo Kroiki i Zhitya, 1987). xxx.
Okudzhava, Bulat Escapades of Shipov, or an Old-Time Vaudeville (Pokhozhdeniya Shipova, ili Starinii Vopdevil, 1971). Satirical account of the ridiculous activities of police spies and local gendarmes conducting surveillance of L.N. Tolstoy's school for peasant children in 1862. 1
Okudzhava, Bulat Girl of My Dreams (Devushka Moei Mechty, 1986). The mother of a university student returns to Tbilisi after ten years in a prison camp. She is, not surprisingly, sad and demoralized. 1
Okudzhava, Bulat Journey of the Dillettantes (Puteshestvie Diletabtov, 1978). Set in the mid-1800s, a young prince rebels against his class and its values, more in a personal than a political way. He attempts to run off with another man's wife, but is stopped and punished by the emperor. He ends his days in self-imposed exile on his country estate. 1
Okudzhava, Bulat Meeting with Bonaparte (Svidaniye s Bonapartom, 1983). The events surrounding Napoleon's occupation of and subsequent retreat from Moscow told from the viewpoints of four different persons. 1
Okudzhava, Bulat Poor Avrosimov (Bednii Avrosimov, 1978). Novel spun around the trial of Pavel Pestel, a leader of the 1825 Decembrist revolt. 1
Olesha, Yuri K. Cherry Seed, The (Vishnyovaya Kostochka, 1929). A dreamer spends most of his time in the invisible world of his imagination. He falls in love with a real woman, who does not return his love. She gives him a cheery seed, which he plants in a vacant lot, hoping that a cherry tree will grow to stand as the child of their love. However, it turns out that the spot where he planted the seed is scheduled to be the construction site for a new concrete giant called for by the Five Year Plan. Nonetheless, the dreamer imagines that the cherry tree will grow as part of a garden in front of the building. (Click here for complete text of story in English.)
Olesha, Yuri K. Envy (Zavist, 1927). Andrei Babichev, a respected and successful hero of the Soviet food industry, takes in Nikolai Kavalerov, an aimless drifter, and tries to help him. Kavalerov--irresponsible, self-centered and deluded about his own worth--dreams of personal glory and soon comes to envy and despise his host. Kavalerov joins up with Andrei's brother, Ivan, who claims to have created an "Ophelia machine" to annihilate his enemies. Together, Kavalerov and Ivan cook up a "conspiracy of feelings" to spit in the face of the new era. Kavalerov even plots the murder of Babichev. It all comes to nothing and, in the end, Ivan and Kavalerov settle into a life of indifference, sharing the bed and embraces of the same fat, middle-aged widow. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Olesha, Yuri K. Liompa (Liompa, 1927). As an old man lies dying, things, no longer necessary to him, desert him, leaving behind only their names to pester his brain. Meanwhile, children wander around exploring all sorts of new things which roll to them, their names unknown. The old man knows that he will die when he can find the name of the rat that is scurrying around in the kitchen, and that name is "Liompa".
Olesha, Yuri K. Natasha (Natasha, 1936). To hide from her father the fact that she's an amateur parachutist, a young girl pretends that she's always rushing off for a date with a man. The father knows the truth, however, and the veneer of secrecy is removed when the girl injures her leg in a landing.
Olesha, Yuri K. Three Fat Men (Tri Tolstyaka, 1924). A fantastic fairy tale of revolution. A tightrope walker, balloons, very large pastries and a brave little girl help topple the dictatorship of some very fat men. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Orlov, Vladimir Danilov the Violinist (Al'tist Danilov, 1980). A half-man, half-devil is commissioned by the netherworld to make mischief among mankind--earthquakes, avalanches, divorces, etc. His human side much prefers his job as an orchestra violinist, so he is inefficient and behind schedule in his trouble-making. The devils bring him to trial, but let him off, allowing him to live out his life on earth.1
Ostrovsky, Nikolai How The Steel Was Tempered (Kak Zakalyalac Stal, 1935). The story of a young Communist. His childhood in a working-class family, his part in the Civil War, and in the subsequent reconstruction.
Panfyorov, Fyodor V. Bruski: A Story of Peasant Life in Soviet Russia (xxx, 1928 - 1937). Following the Revolution, some poor peasants seize an estate called Bruski from a kulak. Eventually they learn that salvation for the peasant lies in doing away with individual ownership of land and organizing a collective. Originally, it was well received, but later criticized by Gorky for lacking in artistic craftsmanship.
Panfyorov, Fyodor V. In The Land Of The Vanquished (V Strane Poverzhennykh, 1948). A young and beautiful Soviet woman engages in diversionary work among the Germans during World War II.
Panfyorov, Fyodor V. Mother Volga (xxx, 1960). Life on a collective farm portrayed as rather bleak.
Panova, Vera F. Clear Shore (Yasny Bereg, 1949). Life on a stock-breeding sovkhoz (state farm). Stalin Prize winner
Panova, Vera F. Kruzhilikha (Kruzhilikha, 1947). Centers on the people and activities at a large factory in the Urals during the war years. Caused some controversy with its likeable negative character. Stalin Prize winner
Panova, Vera F. Seryozha (Seryozha, 1955). The story of a young boy named Seryozha. He learns of death and life, of good and evil, of people and places far away. He experiences desolation and, in the end, a glorious happiness.
Panova, Vera F. Travelling Companions (Sputniki, 1947). Story of an ambulance train, working to evacuated the wounded from the front during the war. Composed of series of episodes, and depicted human relationships and suffering. Stalin Prize winner
Panova, Vera F. Valya (Valya, 196x). A young girl and her younger sister are evacuated from Leningrad during the blockade. Three years later, they return to the city where their parents were killed and their family home destroyed. Valya wants to visit her mother's gave and olf neighborhood. Her younger sister, you remembers little from that time, is not interested.8
Panova, Vera F. Volodya (Volodya, 196x). Story of a teenage boy's difficult life in evacuation from Leningrad, then of his subsequent return to the city and his efforts to patch up his life and establish his identity.8
Panova, Vera F. Who's Dying (Kto Umiraet, 1965). Historical tale concerning the end of the reign of Tsar Vasili III.
Paperniy, Zinoviy Genya and Senya (Genya i Senya, 1956). Dramatic sketch parodying the typical Soviet socialist-realist play. Satirizes stereotyped anticapitalist propaganda and pokes fun at favorite themes of Soviet drama--industrial inventions and collective farm life.9
Paustovsky, Konstantin Black Sea (xxx, 1936). Short story.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Crossing Ships (xxx, 1928). Short story.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Distant Youth (xxx, 1946). First part of Paustovsky's autobiography.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Golden Rose (xxx, 1955). Story about literature in the making. It consists of stories and fragments dealing with creativity, the role of the writer, and the function of literature.4
Paustovsky, Konstantin Kara-Bugaz (Kara-Bugaz, 1932). Tale of adventure and exploration around and near the Kara-Bugaz Bay, where the air is mysteriously heavy. Moves from 1847 to the Civil War period when a group of Reds are abandoned to near-certain death on a desolate island. Survivors are rescued by an explorer. The exploration, development and study of the natural wealth of the region continues.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Kolkhida (Kolkhida, 1934). Historical adventure novel on the theme of industrialization and the building of Communism.4
Paustovsky, Konstantin Labels for Colonial Goods (xxx, 19xx). Romantic short story.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Merhchersakaya storona (Meshcherskaya storona, 1939). Story focusing on Russian nature.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Minetoza (Minetoza, 1927). xxx.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Precious Dust (xxx, 1955). A refuse collector spends two years gathering the grains of gold dust from the trash bins of a jewelry shop. When he has enough gold, he smelts it into a beautiful golden rose as a gift for the woman she loves. But, by then, she has moved to America and left no forwarding address. From "The Golden Rose".
Paustovsky, Konstantin Rainy Dawn (xxx, 1946). Short story.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Sea Sketches (Morskiye nabroski, 1925). Paustovsky's first collection of stories.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Shining Clouds (Blistaiushchieye oblaka, 1929). Romantic novel.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Smoke of the Fatherland (xxx, 1944). Novel telling the story of the Russian intelligentisa on the eve of the war.4
Paustovsky, Konstantin Snow (Snyeg, 19xx). New acquaintances, snow, and memories--real and imagined. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Paustovsky, Konstantin Steel Ring (xxx, 19xx). An old soldier makes a girl a gift of a magical ring. She loses the ring in the snow, but when the snow begins to melt she finds it and she hears the magical sounds of nature and of spring itself walking by. (Click here for complete translated text.)
Paustovsky, Konstantin Story of a Life (Povest o Zhizni, 1945 - 1963). Paustovsky's lyrical six-part autobiography covering over a half century of his life.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Summer Days (Letniye dni, 1937). Story focusing on Russian nature.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Tale of the North (Severnaya Povest, 1938). Following the anti-Tsarist Decembrist uprising in Petersburg, a wounded officer who took part in the uprising and a sailor try to make it by foot across the ice to Sweden. They are captured amid a series of dramatic events. Years later, in Leningrad of the 1930s, the great-grandsons of the participants in the events unexpectedly meet.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Tale of the Woods (xxx, 1948). In a remote forest, the composer Tchaikovsky is working on a symphony, and the young daughter of the forester brings him berries. Years later, during World War II, the daughter of that girl is a laboratory technician at the forest station in that same forest.
Paustovsky, Konstantin Telegram (xxx, 19xx). The aged daugher of a famous artist recalls a journey with her father to Paris and Victor Hugo's funeral, which they attended.
Pavlenko, Pyotr A. Barricades (Barrikady, 1932). Short historical novel about the Paris Commune of 1870.
Pavlenko, Pyotr A. Happiness (Schastye, 1947). As the Great Patriotic War comes to an end, a four-time wounded Army officer, with a wooden leg, comes to the devastated Crimea, hoping to settle down to a quiet and peaceful life. Instead, he finds happiness in working to inspire the locals and rebuild the smashed economy. He also plays a peripheral part in the Yalta Conference among Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill, getting to meet Comrade Stalin himself. Roosevelt is portrayed sympathetically; Churchill is shown to be a fat, drunken pig. U.S. Army officers are more interested in selling soap than in defeating the enemy. Stalin Prize winner, 1947. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Pavlenko, Pyotr A. In The East (Na Vostoke, 1936). Chronicles the adventures and enthusiasm of ordinary Soviets building new cities in the far eastern reaches of wildest Siberia. The area also prepares for war, and, sure enough, Japan starts one. But the Soviet Union bombs Tokyo, sinks the Japanese fleet with its submarines, and stops a Japanese attack with a new secret weapon.
Permitin, Efim Mountain Eagles (xxx, 19xx). Siberian novel.
Petrossian, V. Mother's House (Mor Tune, 1978). A man, who has not visited his native town for a long time already, arrives here to visit his mother. He can't find her for a long time, as many people need her help. (Armenian)
Pikul, Valentin S. Hard Labor (Katorga, 19xx). Novel about a little-known historical episode--the defense of the island of Sakhalin against Japanese interventionist forces in 1905. The defense was taken on mainly by prisoners from hard labor camps.
Pikul, Valentin S. Paris At Three O'Clock (Parizh na Tri Chasa, 19xx). Tale of a bold plan by the French general Malle to attempt the overthrow of imperial power in Paris in 1812 following the rout of Napoleon's army in Russia.
Pikul, Valentin S. To Each His Own (Kazhdomu Svoe, 19xx). The fate of the French Republican general Moro and his attempt to disrupt the ambitions dictatorial schemes of Napoleon.
Pilnyak, Boris Alone (Odno, 1917). A man's unfaithful wife and her lover conspire to deprive him of his daughter.5
Pilnyak, Boris Along the Old Road (Po staromu traktu, 1918). An old, impoverished prince lives alone on his estate, surviving by collecting fees from black marketeers who travel along an old road crossing his property. He is confused when hearing news of the tsar's abdication.5
Pilnyak, Boris At Nikola on the White Springs (U Nikoly, chto na Belykh Kolodeziakh, 1919). An anarchist commune breaks up following a deadly gun-battle among members, arguing over the distribution of confiscated property.5
Pilnyak, Boris Big Heart (Bol'shoye serdtse, 1926 pub. 1927). English capitalists try to subdue the "savage" Mongols. But a "primitive" chieftain terrifies them into fleeing.5
Pilnyak, Boris Birth of Man (Rozhdeniye cheloveka, 1934 pub. 1935). A devoted communist female lawyer, pregnant, awakens to maternal instincts and develops into a more complete human being.5
Pilnyak, Boris Boy From Trally (Mal, 1926). Chronicles the author's adventure near Constantinople as she seeks and finds a boy identical in appearance to the sculptor Miron's 1500-year-old statue.5
Pilnyak, Boris Country Roads (Proselki, 1919 pub. 1920). Story of three peasant families in rural Russian, living traditionally and close to nature, contrasted with hungry city dwellers, you show up looking to barter for food. One of Pilnyak's first �ornamental stories�
Pilnyak, Boris Damp Mother Earth (Mat' syra-zemlya, 1924 pub. 1925). A Party worker in the Volga area tries to keep peasants from ravaging the forest. He is almost killed by the rebellious local village council. A young woman revolutionary tries to restart a tanning works in the region. She adopts a young wolf pup, but as it grows up it becomes more vicious and attacks its benefactress.5
Pilnyak, Boris Death Beckons (Smertelnoye manit, 1918). Story of a young peasant woman. In her youth, she falls in love with a boy, but can't marry because her mother confesses that the boy is her illegitimate son. Eventually she falls in love with another and marries, but their child dies. The women then goes wandering around looking for God and death.5
Pilnyak, Boris Devils on the Periphery (Cherti na pereferii, 1929). Four-act play centered on an accountant who, burdened with a large family, succeeds in having his city commission declared legal guardians of his latest child after the commission prevents his wife from having an abortion. The action then revolves around their clumsy efforts to raise the child and culminates in the child's tragic death. Co-writen with Andrei Platonov.
Pilnyak, Boris Earth on Her Hands (Zemlya na rukakh, 1928). A woman must choose between her loving husband and her first husband, thought dead for 13 years, who suddenly shows up.5
Pilnyak, Boris Forest Dacha (Lesnaya dacha, 1922). Reworking of the earlier story "Spring Floods" (Polovod'e) with the nobleman recast as a forester.
Pilnyak, Boris Gland Slam (Bol'shoi shlem, 1934). Story of a bourgeois specialist in the oil industry who--like a birch tree being bent into an arch--is slowly bent into acceptance of the Communist scheme of things.5
Pilnyak, Boris Heirs (Nasledniki, 1919). A family of impoverished aristocrats--malicious, bored, trivial, superfluous, and alienated from life--gather on an old estate, hording their jewelry and hoping to hide out until the revolutionary ends.5
Pilnyak, Boris His Majesty Kneeb Piter Komandor (Evo velichestvo Kneeb Piter Komandor, 19xx). Short story.
Pilnyak, Boris Ivan Moscow (Ivan Moskva, 1927). The director of a radium factory in distant Komi descends into delirium and insanity, poisoned both by syphilis and the radioactive mineral he works with daily. He dies in a plane crash, but nevertheless leaves a positive legacy in the improvements he made in the life of the Komi.5
Pilnyak, Boris Machines and Wolves (Mashini i volki, 1924 pub. 1925). "A galaxy of narrative voices, points of view, mannequin characters, Russian cultural milieus, perspectives on life, ruminations on the spirit of the changing times, and artistic styles." Basic thesis is that the old "wolf" Russia (countryside, simplicity, spontaneity, freedom, poverty, ignorance, and unreliability) must be replaced by the new "machine" Russia (city, complexity, order, control, wealth, intelligence, and dependability).5
Pilnyak, Boris Mahogany (Krasnoye derevo, 1929). NEPmen come to a provincial town looking to buy mahogany furniture from impoverished townspeople. A Trotskyite also returns to see what has happened to his home town in that last ten years. He is not happy with the results he sees. Also wandering around are "fools in communism", idealistic communists who reject the bureaucratization they see going on.5
Pilnyak, Boris Materials for a Novel (Materialy k romanu, 1923). Tale built around sixty years of the inner life of a factory, focusing mainly on the years 1905 and 1921. Distinction made between the oppressive machine civilization of capitalism and the liberating machine civilization of Communism.3
Pilnyak, Boris Meat (Myaso, 1936). An "industrial novel" co-authored with Sergei Beliaev. It provides a disconnected, anecdotal, imaginataive history of the meat industry from the tsars to the present, including comparisons with American experience and capitalism's role in meat production. Boring.5
Pilnyak, Boris Naked Year (Golii God, 1922). Rich, polyphonic compendium of language swirled around the skeleton of the first year of the Revolution. Main theme is that of Europe (order, intellect, revolutionaries) vs. Asia (chaos, nature, peasants).
Pilnyak, Boris Nenashin Side (Storona nenashinskaya, 1924). In a provincial town, a land-office foreman accidentally discovers trunks filled with church valuables hidden in a monestary cellar. He connives with some NEPmen to sell off the treasures. Quarrels and bribery ensue. Arrests and executions inevitably follow.5
Pilnyak, Boris Nizhegorod Slope (Nizhegorodskii otkos, 1927). Story portraying and subtly defending sexual love between a mother and her 16-year-old son.5
Pilnyak, Boris O.K. (O.K., 1932). Called an "American novel", it is really Pilnyak's travel sketch about his six month visit to the United States, including his stint as a screenwriter for MGM. (He resigned when asked to produce anti-Soviet material.) His impressions of the US were mainly negative, seeing it as in the clutches of crass materialism.
Pilnyak, Boris Old Cheese (aka Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese (Starii syr, 1923). Some Russians are living on an anarchist commune on the steppe. The commune is raided by Kirghiz tribesmen, who kill the men and rape the women. One of the women becomes pregnant as a result, but she accepts and loves the child nonetheless. The Kirghiz raiders are swept away by the Red Army, and the commune again flourishes.5
Pilnyak, Boris Old House (Starii dom, 19xx). Short story.
Pilnyak, Boris Ripening of Fruits (Sozrevanie plodov, 1935). A formally complex work about the Palekh master painters. 5
Pilnyak, Boris Roots of the Japanese Sun (Korni yaponskogo solntsa, 1927). Account of the author's visit to Japan in 1926. Criticized in Pravda for harmful errors, ignoring the class struggle, and playing into the hands of imperialists.5
Pilnyak, Boris Salt Barn (Solyanoi ambar, 1937). Pilnyak's last novel, focusing mainly on two intellectuals in a provincial town. They waver and vaccilate, but eventually accept the Revolution.5
Pilnyak, Boris Settlers in Remote Places (Pereselentsy v glukhikh mestakh, 1936). A thief, who has been stealing conductors from electrical poles, is electrocuted when the annoyed electrician purposely leaves the power on.5
Pilnyak, Boris Snows (Snega, 1917). A continuation of the story begun in "Spring Floods". The main characters are living happily together when a former love of the nobelman's returns and tries to persuade him to father her child. He resists, however, and returns to his wife and child.5
Pilnyak, Boris Speranza (Speranza, 1923). Life aboard an aging English coal transport ship. It is buffeted by storms, and the crew is crudely exploited, but still they dream. An Estonian and a Russian on the ship long to return to the workers paradise of Russia. 5
Pilnyak, Boris Spilled Time (Rasplesnutoye vremya, 1924 pub. 1926). "The human mind, like a pitcher of water, just be guarded lest thoughts spill out.: Autobiographical story describing Pilnyaka's "important" literary work and two seeminstly "insignificant" episodes, which nevertheless inspire the writer.5
Pilnyak, Boris Spring Floods (Polovod'e, 1917). A provincial nobleman, whose wife is frequently absent and unfaithful, falls in love with a peasant woman, has a child with her, and lives happily ever after. The nobleman's wife and her lover, however, realize the barren, trivial nature of their lives. Reworked and republished in 1922 under the title of "Forest Dacha" (Lesnaya dacha).5
Pilnyak, Boris Story of Springs and Clay (Rasskaz o kluchakh i gline, 1926). Story telling of the return of exiles to the Palestinian homeland.3
Pilnyak, Boris Swindlers (Zhuliki, 1925). A young agronomist goes to Moscow to finalize her divorce. Along the way she meets nothing but petty and grotesque swindlers, robbing her of her optimism and her faith in mankind.
Pilnyak, Boris Tale of the Unextinguished Moon (Povest' nepogashennoi luny, 1926). Tale of the politically motivated murder of a prominent Communist on the operating table. Although Pilnyak denied it, everyone assumed it was a commentary on the death of Frunze under similar circumstances, with a finger pointed directly at Stalin.
Pilnyak, Boris The Volga Falls To The Caspian Sea (Volga Padaet V Kaspiskoye Morye, 1931). Sabotage and betrayal on the construction site as true communists struggle to alter nature and establish a new morality. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Pilnyak, Boris Things (Veshchi, 1918 pub. 1922). A woman, preparing to move, sadly remembers her engagement to a man, which was broken off 30 years ago. She decides to bring along on her move several things which she had intended to leave behind, witnesses to her her life.5
Pilnyak, Boris Thousand Years (Tisyacha let, 1919). Two Russian noblemen, brothers, have different attitudes abou the Revolutionary changes. In the end, tradition and nature reassure them.5
Pilnyak, Boris Twins (Dva dvoinika, 1933). Twin brothers--one, a frivolous artist; the other a serioius scientist--go on an ill-fated polar expedition. A confused admirer of the scientist sends him notes, detailing her work in Tadzhikistan. A combination and reworking or Pilnyak's previous stories "Zavoloche" and "Ivan Moscow" as well as his travel sketches of Tadzhikistan. "Twins" was never published during the author's lifetime.5
Pilnyak, Boris Without a Name (Beznazvaniya, 1926). Set in 1906, a revolutionary couple are assigned to kill a traitor to the cause. They carry out the assignment, true to their ideals, but also end up killing their love.5
Pilnyak, Boris Zavoloche (Zavoloche, 1925). A scientific expedition to the Arctic suffers shipwreck, starvation, scurvy, insanity, and murder. The magnitude of nature, love, and scientific obsession are examined.
Platonov, Andrei Blue Depth (Golubaya Glubina, 19xx). xxx
Platonov, Andrei Chevengur (Chevengur, 19xx). xxx
Platonov, Andrei Devils on the Periphery (Cherti na pereferii, 1929). Four-act play centered on an accountant who, burdened with a large family, succeeds in having his city commission declared legal guardians of his latest child after the commission prevents his wife from having an abortion. The action then revolves around their clumsy efforts to raise the child and culminates in the child's tragic death. Co-writen with Boris Pilnyak.
Platonov, Andrei Foundation Pit (Kotlovan, 1930). Nightmarish novel about collectivization. Describes the lives of a group of industrial workers who, in digging out the foundation pit for a huge communal apartment block really believe that they are laying the foundations for the radiant future. But when some of their numbers are drafted in to 'kick-start' collectivization in a village of reluctant peasants, what begins as an exercise in bustling optimism quickly takes on a murderous and hallucinatory aspect
Platonov, Andrei Happy Moscow (Schastlivaya Moskva, 19xx). In a variety of styles ranging from the grotesque to the absurd, Platonov explores the gulf between the rosy official picture of life in Moscow in the 1930s and the harsh reality of low living standards and expectations.
Platonov, Andrei Hidden Man (Sokrovenii Chelovek, 19xx). xxx.
Platonov, Andrei Homeland of Electricity, The (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Platonov, Andrei Inhabitant of the State (Gosudarstvenni Zhitel, 19xx). xxx.
Platonov, Andrei Jewel Sea (Iuvelirnoye Morye, 19xx). xxx.
Platonov, Andrei Lenin's Lamp (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Platonov, Andrei Moscow Violin (Moskovskaya skripka, 19xx). A musician from out of town comes to Moscow and buys a violin at a bazaar. The violin has a special quality which produces music more beautiful than the musician himself is capable of creating. The musician eventually meets the creator of the violin and learns the scientific secret of restoring harmony to disturbed matter, which in turn, creates a natural, inner music. Features poetic passages on teeming Moscow and the open-air bazaar.
Podlyashuk, Pavel Tale of the Red Doctor (Povest' o krasnom doktore, 1967). Historical novel about Ivan Rusakov, a Bolshevik-doctor, participant in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917.
Pogodin, Nikolai Petrarch's Sonnet (Sonet Petrarki, 1956). In a Siberian town, a middle-aged married man falls in love with a young girl from Leningrad who had come to work in their library. Theirs is a pure, non-physical, Petrarchian love. The girl's roommate, a fanatical Party girl, denounces the couple. Debate rages as to whether or not this is any of the Party's business. In the end, the lovers' honor is vindicatied, and although the girl departs for Leningrad, there is some indication of a future reunion.9
Pogodin, Radii. Who Warmed the Sea (Kto nagrel morye), 1977?). A young boy warms up the sea by tossing warm rocks into it...or so he thinks.
Pomerantsev, Vladimir On Sincerity in Literature (Ob iskrennosti v literature, 1953). The essay that began The Thaw. Appearing in "Novy Mir" in December 1953, it attacked the practice of "varnishing reality" in literature and the avoidance of distasteful topics. ( Click here to ready the text of this essay in English.)
Pomerantsev, Vladimir Used-Book Seller's Daughter (Doch' bukinista, 1951). Novel devoted to the conflict of ideas in post-war Germany.4
Popov, Valerii Dreams from the Top Berth (Sny na verkhnei polke, 1987). A man finds himself unable to complain about the abominable conditions on a freezing passenger train that is grotesquely mismanaged by its swindling crew because he obtained his own ticket through somewhat shady means.1
Popov, Valerii New Sheherzade (Novaya Shekherezade, 1987). A country girl moves to Leningrad and, as the the years pass, has a series of colorful and painful experiences. She is both the exploited and the exploiter; she is involved with numerous men, and moves frequently up and down the social ladder. But she surives.1
Popov, Valerii Superfluous Virtuosity (Izlishnaya virtuoznost', 1988). A poet of modest talent scrapes by as a writer of pop-song lyrics.1
Popov, Valerii Thirds Shall Be Firsts (Tret'i budut pervymi, 1988). A man goes to a resort hotel for a business conference. The rooms are being torn up for unnecessary "repairs" and the conventioneers are engaged in a drunken orgy of mythological dimensions.1
Prishvin, Mikhail Golden Horn (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Prishvin, Mikhail Root of Life (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Pristavkin, Anatoli Golden Cloud Spent the Night, A (Nochevala tuchka zolotaya, 1981, pub. 1987). The unhappy fate of two orphan boys caught up in the Soviet bureaucracy as part of the evacuation of European Russia to the Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War. Other victims are the Chechens, whom Stalin forcibly deports to Siberia.
Promet, Lilli File with Reproductions (xxx, 1967). Story. (Estonian)
Proskurin, Pyotr The Storm Reveals the Roots (xxx, 19xx). Novel about the lumberjacks of the taiga.
Prozorovsky, Lev V. Hunting For The Past (Okhotniki Za Proshlim, 1985). Chasing a CIA spy with links to the Nazi past through Latvia and Estonia. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Rasputin, Valentin G. Farewell to Matyora (Proshchenie S Materoi, 1976). As part of a plan for the construction of a new hydroelectric power dam in Siberia, an island is flooded, bringing to an end the long-established way of life there.
Rasputin, Valentin G. Final Term (aka Borrowed Time) (Poslednii srok, 1971). As an old peasant woman lies close to death, her children, who no longer live in the village, gather, hoping to bury her soon. Being cut off from the land and nature has made the children callous and uncaring.
Rasputin, Valentin G. Fire (Pozhar, 1985). Resettled peasants, whose island was drowned (similar to the island in "Farewell to Matryona") live in a settlement and work as loggers. Torn form the land, the peasants have become a soulless mob. Because of their disunity and lack of preparation, the warehouse containing all consumer goods burns down. Drunken looting and even murder ensues.
Rasputin, Valentin G. Live and Remember (Zhivi i pomni, 1974). A front-line deserter, hiding out near his native village, descends into viciousness and inhumanity. His wife helps him hide, but becomes distraught because of fear and her husband's psychological abuse. In the end, she flings herself and her unborn child into the river to end her suffering.
Rasputin, Valentin G. Money for Maria (Dengi dlya Marii, 1967). A simple, honest peasant woman is put in charge of the village store. An inventory reveals a shortage and--although the woman is guiltless--she faces prison if she doesn't make up the shortfall. So her husband sets out to borrow 1,000 rubles from friends and relatives. He has mixed success.
Rekemchuk, Aleksandr E. Boys (aka "Boys Who Did A-Singing Go") (Malchiki, 1971). A novel about the Boys' Choir of Moscow. It details the lives of the boys, how they are introduced to music, and choose their paths in life. It is also a story about Moscow, since that is where the boys first come in contact with adult life, have their first failures and triumphs. The story revolves mainly about a boy named Zhenya. In the course of his work, his voice is damaged, but he meets this challenge nobly, finishes his studies and enters the conservatory's composition faculty
Rekemchuk, Aleksandr E. Callow Youth (Molodo-Zeleno, 1962). Workers run out of bricks at a remote Siberian construction site. A young worker named Nikolai is dispatched to a nearby town to demand bricks. He quickly succeeds in his mission and stays on in town to help convert the brick factory to new technology. A friend narrowly avoids involvement in a shady money-making scheme; a flood damages only private homes, not state-run housing; Nikolai gets a kiss; repressed Old Bolsheviks live happily ever after; and, inspired by Yuri Gagarin's success, practically everyone volunteers to go to the moon. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Rekemchuk, Aleksandr E. Shores (Berega, 1958). A dentist, a lecturer, and a cinema operator take a trip along the river Yuva, enjoying the beautiful scenery, visiting the taiga settlements, meeting and getting to know the happy, good-natured, and cheerful locals.
Rekemchuk, Aleksandr E. Summer Holiday Time (Vremya Letnykh Otpuskov, 1959). In the far north, an engineer-geologist named Svetlana, dreaming of the warm seas of the south, is just about to set off on her summer vacation. Her plans are put off, however, as she is temporarily appointed director of an oil-mining operation. The oil field has been pretty much exhausted and the operation regularly fails to meet the plan. Her friend, however, comes up with an idea to increase production with the help of water pressure. In the end, Svetlana gives up her vacation and decides to stay on to put the plan into action.
Rekemchuk, Aleksandr E. Tender Age (Nezhnii vozrast, 1979). Set in prewar times, it is the story of two boys who are classmates growing up. They go on to the same artillery school, then are sent to the front together.
Rimkevicius, Vytautas Students (Studentai, 1957). Lithuanian Thaw-era novel.
Rogal, Nikolai At Sunrise (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Rogal, Nikolai Meeting (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Rogal, Nikolai On the Border (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Romanov, Panteleimon S. About Cows (xxx, 1918). Peasants are confused about the new marriage and divorce laws, particularly what to do with a cow after divorce.
Romanov, Panteleimon S. Comrade Kislyakov (Tovarishch Kislyakov, 1930). Deals with Soviet youth, love, and marriage in an era when old moralities and taboos were crumbling.
Romanov, Panteleimon S. Without Cherry Blossoms (xxx, 192x). xxx
Romashov, B. One's Own House (Rodnoi Dom, 1938). A play about a factory director with a secret Trotskyite past who conspires with other wreckers to light fires in lumber yards, cause accidents at power stations, wound two workers and set off a factory explosion. The audience is warned that "The enemy is cruel, foul, and crafty."
Roshchin, Mikhail Evacuation Train (xxx, 19xx). Play set in the chilling void of an overburdened train as it strains its wheels to evacuate women and children to eastern Russia at the start of the Great Patriotic War.
Rozov, Viktor Brother Alyosha (xxx, 197x). Play based on Dostoevsky's "Brothers Kamarazov", in particular the story of Alyosha's love for the sick, paralysed girl Liza and the death of the little boy Ilyusha.
Rudnev, Oleg A. Long Road in the Dunes (Dolgaya Doroga v Diunakh, 1984). A story of life and love told against the backdrop of the great changes taking place in bourgeois, pre-war Latvia and extending into the 1980s.
Samadoglu, Yusif Children's Game of 1946 (xxx, 1978?). Some children playing war "kill" each other and even unleash an "atomic bomb." A girl, playing a mother, goes "mad with grief" as her "sons" are killed. But then she really becomes distraught when the doll who is her "daughter" becomes damaged and no longer able to open and shut her eyes, blinded by the atomic bomb. (Azerbaijani)
Sartakov, Sergei Barbin Cycle (xxx, 1970 ?). Cycle of three stories ("Mountain Breeze", "Don't Give the Queen Away", and "Slow Gavotte"), in which a Siberian river sailor is shown in the course of his maturing as a man and citizen, and in each story he is seen "a stage higher" in his moral and spiritual development. State Prize winner, 1970.
Sartakov, Sergei First Meeting (xxx, 19xx). Collections of stories portraying Lenin.
Sartakov, Sergei The Philosopher's Stone (xxx, 196x ?). Siberian novel, used as a vehicle for meditations on the heroic past of the Soviet people.
Savchenko, Vladimir Professor Bern's Awakening (xxx, 19xx). Expecting mankind to destroy itself shortly in nuclear war, a scientist freezes himself for 18,000 years. When he awakens, he is killed by a strange type of man-ape, which he assumes is the result of the new evolution taking place on the planet. However, it turns out that mankind never did annihilate itself and that the man-apes were just part of an anthropological breeding experiment.
Savich, Ovady Imaginary Interlocutor (Voobrazhaemy sobesednik, 1928). An ordinary employee of a Soviet trust makes a transition from his meaningless, boring, estranged life to his death with the help of an imaginary interlocutor, who sometimes appears as his double, and sometimes as a mysterious young dancer.
Savich, Ovady In the Mountains (V gorakh, 1925). Saga of love and war in Central Asia. Characters include an impulsive, vodka-swilling Red commander; a sensitive, but resolute and calculating political commissar; an impotent intellectual unable to grasp the harsh terms of revolutionary necessity; and a satanic White officer.3
Savich, Ovady Von Offenberg Pension (Pension fon-Offenberg, 1926). Menagerie of emigre types.3
Seifullina, Lidia N. Lawbreakers (Pravonarushiteli, 1921). Realistic treament of one of the army of homeless boys roming the countryside in the wake of the Civil War and their moral regeneration.
Seifullina, Lidia N. Mulch (Peregnoi, 1923). A good-for-nothing peasant is transformed by the Revolution, as is his village.
Seifullina, Lidia N. Old Woman (xxx, 19xx). An old peasant woman chases out of her house and disowns her son who has become a Bolshevik. Later, the son is killed by Cossacks. The old woman hears that her son left a child in the city. She intends to go visit her grandson, but dies before she can make the trip.
Seifullina, Lidia N. Virineya (Virineya, 1924). A peasant woman--a mindless rustic--develops into a Bolshevik activist and ends up dying as a martyr to the cause.3
Selvinsky, Ilya Pao-Pao (Pao-Pao, 19xx). Poem about an ape--representing the lower instincts and bourgeois culture--which rises to the human plane when introduced to the harmonious atmosphere of the Soviet factory.
Semushkin, Tikhon Z. Alitet Flees to the Mountains (Alitet Ukhodit v Gory, 1947 - 1948). Two-volume novel about a far-northern Siberian horseman of the Chukchi tribe.
Semyonov, Georgi Collection (Kollektsiya, 1985). A bombast with intellectual pretensions keeps his apartment filled with a large collection of stuffed birds.
Semyonov, Georgi Cuckoo Called (Kukovala Kukushka, 19xx). A man can't figure out why he's come to the countryside to rest.
Semyonov, Georgi Play of Fancy (Igra Voobrazheniya, 1979). A woman tells about her family, especially her artist husband, whose works are based on strange, supernatural experiences he claims to have had.1
Semyonov, Georgi Prewar Bed (xxx, 1975). A father and his adult son go on a fishing trip. The son is somewhat annoyed with his father's carefree attitude and penchant for abstract thinking. Nevertheless, there is mutual love. The son remembers an arduous trip with his father in winter to drag a fancy prewar bed 40 kilometers to their apartment in Moscow. "Man's memory is like a rudder."
Semyonov, Georgi Smell of Burnt Powder (Zapakh Sgorevshovo Porokha, 1984). Set in 1947, a boy buys a shotgun and goes to the Moscow zoo where he shoots ravens to bring home as food. He is arrested, but released, and the ravens delight his family.1
Semyonov, Julian Seventeen Moments of Spring (Semnadtsat Mgnovenii Vesny, 1968). Soviet super-spy Stirlitz, working undercover in the Nazi SS, defeats an attempt by the U.S. and Britain to conclude a separate peace with Nazi Germany and open a joint front against the Soviet Union. The villain is Allen Dulles, who wasn't keeping Roosevelt fully informed. Churchill, however, is caught in a lie. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Semyonov, Julian TASS Is Authorized To Announce (xxx, 19xx). KGB foils an attempt by the evil CIA to foster a right-wing coup in a fictional pro-Soviet African nation.
Semyonov, Sergei A. Hunger (Golod, 1922). Workmen in revolutionary Petrograd are starving. Written in the form of a diary.
Semyonov, Sergei A. Natalya Tarpova (Natalya Tarpova, 1927). A woman Party member deals with Party life, marriage, cultural work, ideology, and so on. Set in the period of NEP.
Semyonov, Sergei A. Typhus (Tif, 1922). xxx
Serafimovich, Aleksandr Iron Flood (Zheleznii potok, 1924). During the Civil War, a rag-tag army and thousands of tag-along refugees start out squabbling, undisciplined, and disorganized as they attempt to flee from some pursing Cossacks and join up with the main Red Army units. They escape annihilation only by finally uniting and submitting to the iron will of their newly elected commander, who promises death as punishment for the slightest insubordination. (Remind you of anyone?) It depicts mass action, mass mentality and the class essence of the Civil War. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Serafimovich, Aleksandr Two Deaths (Dve smerti, 1926). Street fighting rages in Moscow following the Revolution. A Red-sympathizer gets a job working as a nurse for the Whites so that she can spy on them. The Whites find out about it and shoot her. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Shaginyan, Marietta S. Adventures of a Society Lady (Prikliucheniya damy is obshchestva, 19xx). Povest.
Shaginyan, Marietta S. Agitation Train (Agitvagon, 19xx). Short story.
Shaginyan, Marietta S. Change (Peremena , 1922). xxx
Shaginyan, Marietta S. First All-Russian (Pervaya Vserossiiskaya, 1965). Historical novel on Lenin.
Shaginyan, Marietta S. Hydrocentral (Gidrotsentral', 1931). Early novel on industrialization and creative socialist labor.4
Shaginyan, Marietta S. K. and K. (KIK, 1929). Story of a missing Soviet commissar told from four different points of view by four different (fictional) authors.
Shaginyan, Marietta S. Mess-Mend, or a Yankee in Petrograd (Mess-Mend, ili yanki v Petrograde, 1923 - 1924). Amusing spy thriller, comedy, and science fiction novel all rolled into one. Western capitalists and members of the deposed nobility plot to assassinate Lenin and the entire Soviet government. But they are foiled by a secret American workers organization, the Soviet government, and nature itself, which afflicts the deposed princes, capitalists, etc., with a bizarre degenerative disease, literally turning them into beasts.(Click here for detailed summary)
Shaginyan, Marietta S. One's Own Fate (Sovya sud'ba, 1923). Anti-Freudian novel.
Shaginyan, Marietta S. Resurrection From the Dead (Voskresheniye iz mertvykh, 1964). Historical novel on Czech composer Josef Myslivecek.4
Shaginyan, Marietta S. Ulyanov Family (Sem'ya Ulyanovykh, 1938 - 1957). Historical novel on Lenin.
Shatrov, Mikhail Revolutionary Etude (Blue Horses on Red Grass) (xxx, 1979). An experiment in publicistic drama written in commemoration of Lenin's 110th birthday. It is acted out on three levels. First, we see contemporary youth strolling about, strumming guitars. Second, we return to the exciting days of the Revolution. The third and main line of the play is basically a day in the life of Lenin as he, ill, near the end of his life, struggles to leave behind a clear direction for the Revolution. The action takes place mainly in Lenin's office and in his kitchen. To stress the universal humanity of Lenin, the actor playing him is not made up to look like Lenin, but just an ordinary guy
Shestalov, Yuvan Blue Wind of Kaslania (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Shestalov, Yuvan Eyes of the White Night (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Shestalov, Yuvan Fire Upon Fire (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Shestalov, Yuvan Heathen Poem (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Shestalov, Yuvan Misne (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Shestalov, Yuvan Song of the Last Swan (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Shestalov, Yuvan When the Sun Rocked Me (xxx, 1972). Hearing a false report that his father is ill, a man hurries back to his native Mansi village. He uses the opportunity to engage in a lyrical celebration of Mansi tradition, culture, and legends as well as to reminisce about his childhood in the Siberian taiga. His father recalls turning down a chance to become a shaman and becoming a Communist and first head of the kolkhoz instead. In touching upon recent cultural and economic changes, the work welcomes the new oil- and gas-drilling projects but contains a warning against ecological carelessness.
Shestalov, Yuvan Wonderland of the North (xxx, 1973). A celebration of the culture and homeland of the Mansi, a tribe of northern Siberia. Suffused with the declamatory style, cadences, and poetic imagery of an oral tradition, the work features the folklore, traditions, and myths of the Mansi. (For example: the Ural Mountains are the rich, jeweled belt of a god tied around the earth to keep it from shaking.) The same techniques and myths are applied to descriptions of the cultural and economic developments of the 1960s and 1970s, including road-building in the dense taiga and the opening up of the rich Tiumen and Surgut oil fields. Beautiful evocation of a traditional culture. Tends to the propagandistic when touching on Soviet achievements. (Mansi)
Shimkevich, M. Wolf (Volk, 1921). Story showing bestiality as a human condition.
Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya. Cranes (xxx, 1928?). A young woman in a village marries a man in a Soviet wedding. Their families, however, won't let the couple live together until they have a church wedding, which they refuse to do. Despite the efforts of the families, the woman becomes pregnant. The child dies shortly after birth. The husband leaves his wife, and rumors spread that the woman strangled her baby. No other men approach the woman. In despair, the woman tries to hang herself, but fails. In the end, she leaves to join her brother in Petrograd to begin a new life. Her father is sad to see her go, but gives his blessing.
Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya. Emelyan Pugachev (Emelyan Pugachev, 1941-1946). A panorama of the famous 18th-century rebel leader and the era of Catherine the Great. State Prize winner.
Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya. Gang, The (Vataga, 1924). Peasants in Siberia rise up against Kolchak.
Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya. Gloomy River (Ugrium-Reka, 1933). Greed, love, success, failure, and violence surrounding the search for gold in Siberia. Over 800 pages long.
Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya. Play in the Village of Ogryzovo (Spektakl' v Sele Ogryzove, 1923). A post-Revolutionary village produces its first play. Most everything goes wrong, resulting in unintended hilarity. The author, however, retains the respect of the villagers for taking the first step in bringing them a new cultural life.
Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya. Wanderers (Stranniki, 1931). Novel about homeless delinquents in the wake of the war's destruction.
Shklovsky, Viktor B. Zoo, or Letters not about Love (Zoo, Pis'ma ne o liubvi, ili Tret'ya Eloiza, 1923). Collection of thirty letters exchanged between an autobiographical character residing in Berlin and one Alya in Petrograd. The letters provide fragmentary insights into moods and thoughts of the major characters but offer virtually no plot.4
Shmelyov, Nikolai Affair of the Fur Coat (Delo o shube, 1988). Story of a long, dismal marriage between a middle-level engineer, who career is permanently stalled, and his dissatisfied and unfaithful wife.1
Shmelyov, Nikolai Night Voices (Nochnye golosa, 1988). Transcript of three phone calls, years apart, made by an alcoholic model to a former lover. The calls disclose the woman's decline into penury and loneliness.1
Shmelyov, Nikolai Pashkov House (Pashkov Dom, 1982 pub. 1987). Tracing the life and career of a Moscow professor from the 1950s to the 1970s. At the beginning of his career, he is the only one to vote against expelling a scoundrel guilty of making secret denunciations. Later, his major intellectual work ("Mercy as a Political Instrument") is rejected for publication because it is at odds with official thinking.1
Shmelyov, Nikolai Performance in Honor of Herr Prime Minister (Spektakl' v chest' gospodina pervogo ministra, 1988). Portrayal of a day in the life of Goethe when, as Prime Minister of Weimar, he faces a complex political and moral decision and is forced to make an uncomfortable and humbling compromise.1
Shmelyov, Nikolai Presumption of Innocence (Prezumptsiya nevinnosti, 1977 pub. 1987). Story of a selfish, opportunistic hedonist and his mistress, an unbearable shrew.1
Shmelyov, Nikolai Silvester (Sil'vestr, 1991). The moral and spiritual struggles of Archpriest Silvester, the confessor and advisor of Ivan the Terrible.1
Shmelyov, Nikolai Visit (Vizit, 1988). A theatre manager and gambler, who is secretly wealthy with extensive underworld contacts, discovers that a prostitute a friend has procured for him is his own daughter.1
Sholokhov, Mikhail A. Fate of a Man (Sudba cheloveka, 1957). Harrowing story of a pathetic veteran, wounded in battle, tortured for two years as a prisoner of the Germans, and devastated by the loss of his wife and children, all killed in the war.8
Sholokhov, Mikhail A. Quiet Don (Tikhii Don, 1928 - 1940). Sweeping epic of politics, history, war, love, and culture among the Don Cossacks in peacetime, war, and revolution, 1912 - 1922. Protagonist vaccilates in sympathies between the Reds and Whites.
Sholokhov, Mikhail A. Virgin Soil Upturned (Podnyataya tselina, 1932 - 1960). Don Cossacks and White army officers struggle against collectivization.
Shpanov, Nikolai The First Blow (Pervii Udar, 1939). Published before the signing of the Stalin-Hitler friendship pact, it is a fictional account of the upcoming war between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Air Force stages a highly successful raid on industrial targets in Nuremberg. Withdrawn from publication after Stalin and Hitler made their deal.
Shtein, Aleksandr Personal Case (Personalnoe Delo, 1954). A dictatorial ministerial official, jealous of a hard-working engineer's success, persecutes the engineer. By means of unsubstantiated charges of disloyalty, he succeeds in having the engineer dismissed from his job and expelled from the Party. He twists insignificant, innocent facts into ominous offenses. He threatens similary retribution against anyone who would dare question his authority or defend the engineer. In the end, the engineer is vindicated and the official's villainy is exposed.9
Shudnik, Nikolai Fleet-Footed Deer (xxx, 19xx). Concerning life among the Chukchi and in the Far North.
Shudnik, Nikolai In the Far North (xxx, 19xx). Concerning life among the Chukchi and in the Far North.
Shudnik, Nikolai On the Soil of Chukotka (xxx, 19xx). Concerning life among the Chukchi and in the Far North.
Shudnik, Nikolai Well by the Birch (xxx, 19xx). Concerning life among the Chukchi and in the Far North.
Shukshin, Vasily Before the Cock Calls Thrice (Do Tretikh Petukhov, 1976, pub). An extravagant parody of the Russian fairy tale in which Ivan the Fool is sent on a search not for wisdom, but for a certificate attesting to his wisdom.
Shukshin, Vasily Classy Driver (Klassnii Voditel, 1963). A dashing young truck driver comes to work on a sovkhoz. He starts to romance a local beauty, but she loves another. He helps the lovers get together, then he abandons the sovkhoz, and sets off to find work elsewhere.
Shukshin, Vasily Country Dwellers (Selskiye Zhiteli, 1962). A old woman living in a Siberian village is invited to visit her son in Moscow. Having never flown before, she consults her neighbors, who assure her it's safe even though the pilots are rude, the planes sometimes catch fire and crash, the passengers are not given any parachutes, and you might very well end up in Vladivostok instead of Moscow.
Shukshin, Vasily Examination (Ekzamen, 1962). An ex-soldier does poorly on a literature examination about The Song of Igor's Campaign. Despite this, he and the professor have an interesting discussion of behavior in wartime and Russian feeling.
Shukshin, Vasily How The Old Man Died (Kak Pomiral Starik, 1967). The last day in the life of a sick old peasant. He's worried about who will dig a hole for his grave in the frozen earth.
Shukshin, Vasily I Have Come To Give You Freedom (Ya Prishel Dat Vam Voliu, 1974 ). Treatment of the peasant and Cossack revolt led by Stenka Razin in the 17th century.
Shukshin, Vasily I Want To Live (Okhota Zhit, 1966). A convict escapes from a Siberian prison camp in winter. He comes upon an old man in his remote taiga cabin. The convict takes advantage of the old man's courtesy and wisdom, then repays the old man's kindness by killing him. (Click here for complete text in English.)
Shukshin, Vasily In Profile and Full-Face (V profil' i anfac, 1967). A young man who's had lots of jobs still can't figure out what makes him happy or what the point of work is. Deciding it's best to live alone, abandons his mother and leaves the village to find yet another job in a distant town.
Shukshin, Vasily Lyubavins, The (Lyubavini, 1965). A multi-generational tale of a Siberian family and the difficulties they encounter during the establishment of Soviet power in their village.
Shukshin, Vasily Men of One Soil (xxx, 19xx). An old village man, cutting grass for his horse, is visited by an equally old man. They talk of childhood and of death. It turns out the visitor was the old man's brother, who had disppeared after the war.
Shukshin, Vasily Mille Pardons, Madame! (Mille Pardons, Madame!, 1968). A hunting guide always regales his hunting parties with the same story: how in 1943 he was given the assignment of assassinating Hitler and came within a hair's breathe of succeeding. The village soviet drags him in from time to time and tells him to stop this distortion of history, but he can't stop himself and continues telling the story.
Shukshin, Vasily Oddball (Chudik, 1967). A country oddball sets out on a journey to visit his brother in the Urals. Along the way, he loses 50 rubles, his air flight overshoots the runway and lands in a potato field, he finds someone's false teeth, and wins the eternal emnity of his sister-in-law.
Shukshin, Vasily Point of View (Tochka Zreniya, 1979, pub.). A matchmaking described from four different points of view.
Shukshin, Vasily Snowball Berry Red (Kalina Krasnaya, 1973). An ex-con moves to the countryside, hoping to start a new life with the love of a good woman. He gets side-tracked with a bit of debauchery, but eventually settles down as a tractor driver, well on his way to becoming a shock-worker. Unfortunately, his old gang, unhappy about being abandoned, catch up with him for a fatal confrontation. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Shukshin, Vasily Stepan in Love (xxx, 19xx). A shy truck driver falls in love with a young woman who's come to Siberia as part of the virgin lands scheme. He and his father set out on a matchmaking expedition, only to discover that they have competition.
Shukshin, Vasily Storie (Raskas, 1967). A husband writes a semi-illiterate story (with many misspellings) about how his wife ran off with another man. He takes the story to the editor of a local paper who, after a good laugh, tries to persuade the man that publishing the story isn't a good idea--or at least it should be edited. Instead, the man snatches back his story and walks home, crying.
Shukshin, Vasily Thoughts (Dumy, 1967). The nightly accordion playing of a young man keeps an old man awake. Unable to sleep, the old man recalls happy times and sad times from his youth; he has thoughts of love, life and death. He complains about the music, but when the young man gets married and stops playing, the old man is sad, no longer able to conjure up thoughs from his past.
Simonov, Konstantin M. Before the Attack (Pered atakoi, 1944). xxx
Simonov, Konstantin M. Boy (Malyshka, 1943). xxx
Simonov, Konstantin M. Comrades in Arms (Tovarishchi po oriuzhiiu, 1952). xxx.
Simonov, Konstantin M. Days and Nights (Dni i nochi, 1944). A batallion commander and his troops defend three apartment buildings (or rather the rubble of three buildings) for seventy days during the Battle of Stalingrad. With their backs to the Volga and the Germans only 60 meters away, they fight on in the rain, and snow, and icy cold; they endure daily bombarments, tank attacks and hand-to-hand combat--all to hold onto the three insigificant buildings which, to them, represent all of Russia. They suffer incredible casualties, demonstrate incredible bravery, and get lots of medals, including the Order of Lenin. And during it all, the hero even finds time to fall in love, get married, and have a bachelor party. One of the most famous of all the Stalingrad novels. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Simonov, Konstantin M. Fellow From Our Town, A (Paren Iz Nashevo Goroda, 1941). xxx
Simonov, Konstantin M. Fourth, The (Chetvyortii, 1961). xxx.
Simonov, Konstantin M. Immortal Name (Bessmertnaya familia, 1944). A regiment of sappers precedes the Soviet army on its westward march across Europe. Everywhere they go, their commander, Artemev, posts signs: "Bridge cleared. Artemev."; "Mines removed. Artemev"; etc., etc. The name Artemev becomes famous and reassuring among the entire army. Unfortunately, Artemev is killed during a river crossing. In a tribute to their fallen leader, the sappers keep signing his name to signs they post as they continue on to Berlin.
Simonov, Konstantin M. Instead of an Epilogue (Vmesto Epiloga, 1945). xxx
Simonov, Konstantin M. Last Summer, The (Poslednee Leto, 1971). xxx.
Simonov, Konstantin M. Living and the Dead, The (Zhiviye i Mertviye, 1959-1971). Set during the first year of the Great Patriotic War, this novel tells the story of Ivan Sintsov, a Red Army Politruk (political instructor) and army journalist who is vacationing when the Germans invade. Sintsov sends his wife and child back to Moscow, and takes part in the many reverses of 1941 before joining the defense of Moscow at the end of the year. Very similar to "Days and Nights." (Summary by Jake Christie)
Simonov, Konstantin M. Reluctant, The (Neokhotnitsy, 1943). xxx
Simonov, Konstantin M. Russian People (Russkiey Liudi, 1942). A play about ordinary Russians both on the Soviet side of the front and behind German lines during World War II. Unassuming bravery and patriotism prevail. A young girl driver is sent on a dangerous reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines.
Simonov, Konstantin M. Russian Question (Russkii vopros, 1947). A play about an American reporter who disemminates disinformation about the Soviet Union. He later repents, but suffers serious consequences as a result.
Simonov, Konstantin M. So Shall It Be (Tak i Budet, 19xx). xxx
Simonov, Konstantin M. Soldiers Are Not Born (Soldatami Ne Rozhdaiutsya, 1964). xxx.
Simonov, Konstantin M. Story of One Love, The (Istoriya Odnoi Liubvi, 1940). xxx
Simonov, Konstantin M. Third Adjutant (Tretii adiutant, 1942). A war-time army commissar has a theory that it's harder to kill a brave man than a coward. The deaths of his first two adjutants seems to bear this out. But the theory is tested when the third adjutant suffers a grave wound under somewhat suspicious circumstances.
Simonov, Konstantin M. Wait For Me (Zhdi Menya, 19xx). xxx
Sirge, R. Seduction of He Who Looks in the Water (xxx, 1967). Story. (Estonian)
Sletov, P. Mastery (Masterstvo, 192x). A master violinist is blinded by a talentless pupil who wishes to learn rules for creating works of art.3
Sluckis, Mykolas Adam's Apple (Adomo obuolys, 196x). Novel consisting of a chain of events in a day of a young well educated couple, married for ten years, that almost leads to the destruction of their marriage. It also involves various relationships between generations, family members, ruling officials and their subordinates. (n)7
Smirnov, A. On the Shoal (Na perekate, 1925). Story of the vague yearings evoked in a fisher boy by passing ships and by the perfume of a beautiful lady who appears mysteriously out of the night.3
Smirnov, E. Wonderful Pioneer Gena Shchukin, The (Slavnii Pioner Gena Shchukin, 1938). A Pavlik Morozov-like story about a boy named Gena who lives in a remote Siberian village near gold mines. Trotskyite wreckers sabotage mining machinery and motor transport to stop shipment of food and equipment to the mines. Unknown to anyone, Gena's foster father is one of the wreckers. Gena overhears him plotting with other Trotskyites and informs on them. The wreckers are arrested, but not before they kill Gena in revenge.
Smuul, Juhan Face of the Ocean (xxx, 1967). Story. (Estonian)
Smuul, Juhan Song of Death (xxx, 1967). Story. (Estonian)
Snegov, Sergei Looking for the Way (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Sobolev, Leonid General Overhaul (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Soloukhin, Vladimir Midsummer Day's Game, A (xxx, 19xx). A grandfather teaches his granddaughter a game from his youth. The girl enjoys the game, then updates it to modern conditions and modern technology. (Click here for complete text in English.)
Stein, Aleksandr Ocean (Okean, 19xx). xxx.
Stelmakh, Mikhailo Let The Blood Of Man Not Flow (Krov' Liudskaya - Ne Voditsa, 19xx). In Ukraine of 1920, peasants struggle against brutal kulaks.
Stonov, Dmitri Bolsheviks (Bolsheviki, 1924). A local Party boss initiates a campaign to expropriate the property of the town bourgeoise, who have grown fat and sleek at the expense of the workers during the NEP. Unfortunately, his own wife and mother are bourgeoise, scorn his politics, and press him to exempt them from revolutionary justice.3
Strugatsky, Arakdy & Boris Spontaneous Reflex (xxx, 19xx). A spontaneous reflex develops in a robot programmed with a thirst for knowledge. Deciding to go on a walkabout, the robot crashes out of the laboratory, causing havoc everywhere. Bullets bounce off, and he is unaffected by exposure to massive doses of radiation. In the end, he is brought to bay by a bevy of bulldozers.
Surov, Anatoli The Unlucky Haberdasher (Nezadachlivi Galantereyshchik, 1948). A satirical play comparing U.S. President Truman to Hitler.
Sverchkov, D. Case No. 3576 (Delo No. 3576, 1927). Describes tensions that build up in a marriage from the pull of the new emancipated sex mores against the old.3
Sytin, Aleksandr Herds of Allah (xxx, 1926). xxx
Tamarin, V. Desert (Pustynya, 1921). xxx
Tarasov-Rodionov, Aleksandr I. Chocolate (Shokolad, 1922). The chairman of a local Cheka is falsely accused of bribery, corruption, and entnaglement with a counterrevolutionay ballerina. Although the investigating committee establishes his innocence, he is ordered to be shot anyway as an example to the masses. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Taurin, Franz Angara (xxx, 19xx). Siberian novelist.
Telgupov, Viktor Crystal Vase (xxx, 1972). Foreign capitalists offer to pay the young Soviet Republic five powerful new locomotives for a crystal vase of exquisite craftsmanship. The offer is tempting, but Lenin says the vase is so beautiful it can't be sold at any price.
Tendryakov, Vladimir Attack on Mirages (Pokusheniye na mirazhi, 1980, pub. 1987). A physicist, upset that his son is a materialistic lout, conducts experiments to determine whether human behavior develops solely because of the economic and social environment or whether an innate human moral sense is important. To this end, he uses computer modeling to see how some events from history would have developed in the absence of Jesus Christ and Christian teachings.1
Tendryakov, Vladimir Beyond The Current Day (xxx, 1959). A schoolteacher is concerned about the weaknesses in the Soviet educational system.
Tendryakov, Vladimir Bread for a Dog (Khleb dlya sobaki, 1988). In 1933, a 10-year-old boy is torn between love for his father--a hero of the Revolution and now a local Party worker--and the supposed kulaks his father is now repressing. Unable to help the vicitims, the boy comforts himself by feeding a stray dog.1
Tendryakov, Vladimir Clean Waters of Kitezh (Chistiye Vody Kitezha, 1980, pub. 1986). Riled up by a seemingly official article, townspeople rise up to protest a factory that is polluting its local river. However, when another seemingly official article disapproves of their activities, the townspeople just as quickly fade back into passivity
Tendryakov, Vladimir Day That Ousted Life (Den Vytesnivshii Zhizn, 1985). Account of a new soldier's first day of military action.1
Tendryakov, Vladimir Death (xxx, 1968). The despotic, imperial-like chairman of a wealthy kolkhoz is dying.
Tendryakov, Vladimir Donna Anna (Donna Anna, 1971, pub. 1988). A young army officer kills his superior who has been defying--with good reason--orders to advance. The young officer then leads the troops into a suicidal attack.1
Tendryakov, Vladimir Hunt (Okhota, 1971, pub. 1988). Memoir recalling the anti-cosmopolitan campaign of the late 1940s, recounting sufferings and perfidy of many individuals, including Aleksandr Fadeev.1
Tendryakov, Vladimir Mayfly - A Shoft Life (xxx, 196x). Story of a girl who gains celebrity as a champion pig raiser by falsifying records.8
Tendryakov, Vladimir On the Blessed Isle of Communism (Na Blazhennom Ostrove Kommunizma, 1961, pub. 1988). Caustic description of a lavish picnic-reception hosted by Khrushchev for the literary intelligentisa. Literary bureaucrats portrayed as sycophants, and Khrushchev as a drunken bully.1
Tendryakov, Vladimir Pair of Bays (Para Gnedykh, 1988). Set in 1929, story describing the reactions of some peasants to the coming collectivization as well as the conflicted attitudes of the local Party man.1
Tendryakov, Vladimir Potholes (Ukhaby, 1956). A truck carrying a load of passengers overturns, and one of the passengers is gravely injured. The driver and all the passengers--including the director of a machine tractor station--quickly mobilize to aid the injured man. He needs to be taken for medical attention immediately, but the director of the MTS refuses, on bureaucratic grounds, to allow a tractor to be used for this purpose. As a result, the name dies.8
Tendryakov, Vladimir Rendezous with Nefertiti (Svidanie c Nefertiti, 1964). xxx.
Tendryakov, Vladimir Short Circuit (Korotkoe zamykanie, 196x). A short circuit in a main power line disrupts numerous lives and forces rapid, far-reaching administrative decisions. At stake is the problem of lives interrelated by a centralized technology and bureaucracy as well as the necessity for initiative where a scapegoat mentality has taught workers to fear individual responsibililty.8
Tendryakov, Vladimir Three, Seven, Ace (Troika, semerka, tuz, 1961). A professional gambler poisons the morale of a logging camp and physically attacks the foreman, who is forced to kill him in self-defense. The one man who knows what happened--an innocent who nevertheless fears criminal implication--withholds the evidence that might have saved the foreman from prosecution.8
Tendryakov, Vladimir Tight Knot (Tugoi uzel, 195x). Inefficient management, authoritarianism, and corruption on a collective farm.8
Tendryakov, Vladimir Trial (Sud, 1960). The truth about a hunting accident is withheld by a witness who fears the personal complications his honest testimony would involve.8
Tendryakov, Vladimir Windfall (Nakhodka, 1965). A callous, vicious, misanthropic fisheries inspector discovers an abandone baby. He tries to save the infant's life, but fails. The incident, however, reawakens in him a thin sliver of humanity. He finds the mother who abandoned the baby, and he is touched by her story, so he doesn't turn her over to the authorities.8
Tkachenko, Antoli Hot-Spring Beach (xxx, 1975). An old man, a volcano and an earthquake watch over some hot springs, both changing and changeless.
Tkachenko, Antoli Night on a Mountain Top (xxx, 1975). On Sakhalin Island, a hitchhicker gets a ride with a truck driver over a road built by convicts and twice traveled by Chekhov. They stop for the night on a mountain top and recall legends about the origins of the stars.
Tkachenko, Antoli Red Sea-Lion (xxx, 1975?). On Sakhalin, a native Nivkh goes hunting for, and catches, a red sea-lion, despite the presumed incantations of the local shaman to the contrary. The successful hunter shares his catch with the others of the village, but forgets to save some meat for his own family and ends up eating kasha.
Tokareva, Viktoriya Between Heaven and Earth (Mezhdu nebom i zemlei, 1985). A woman is attracted to a young basketball player, but makes a practical decision not to pursue an affair with him.1
Tokareva, Viktoriya Center of Gravity (xxx, 19xx). A woman amusingly recounts the various ways she's tried to commit suicide.1
Tokareva, Viktoriya First Try (Pervaya popytka, 1989). Story of a pushy, aggressive, unscrupulous woman who lives at top speed and destroys everything in her path.1
Tokareva, Viktoriya Five Figures on a Pedestal (Pyat' figure na postamente, 1989). A female journalist on assignment to the provinces has an affair with a local engineer. She terminates the affair, however, deciding that, for her, life in Moscow, even with a drunken husband, is preferable to life in a remote town.1
Tokareva, Viktoriya Happiest Day (Samii schastlivii den, 1980). A schoolgirl must write an essay about her happiest day. Unwilling to write the usual civic-minded nonsense, she searches for a topic that will please herself.1
Tokareva, Viktoriya Pasha and Pavlusha (Pasha i Pavlusha, 1987). A woman betrays her lover, a moral and admirable teacher of retarded children.1
Tolstaya, Tanya Dear Shura (Milaya Shura, 1985). An eccentric old woman, a vestige of pre-Revolutionary Russia, lives solely on the memory of past husbands and lovers.1
Tolstaya, Tanya Fakir, The (Fakir, 1986). An imaginative fraud poses as an affluent dilettant and art-collector and beguiles a scruffy and pathetic coterie with his phony culture and erudition.1
Tolstaya, Tanya Hunting the Wooly Mammoth (Okhota na mamonta, 1985). A pretty but vulgar young woman undertakes a cold-blooded campaign to induce a man to marry her. She sees herself as a sentimental heroine, but she is truly more like a caveman hunting for meat.1
Tolstaya, Tanya Limpopo (Limpopo, 1990). xxx
Tolstaya, Tanya Night (Noch', 1987). Portrait of a childlike, retarded middle-aged man who lives with his protective mother and exists largely and happily in a fairy-tale world of fantasy.1
Tolstaya, Tanya Peters (Peters, 1986). A loner librarian longs for love and friendship but is doomed to live as an outsider because his emotional growth was stunted by a domineering grandmother.1
Tolstaya, Tanya Sonya (Sonya, 1984). An affectionate and generous but gullible , ugly spinster is exploited by a callous circle of intellectuals who make cruel fun of her by secretly inventing for her a phantom lover.1
Tolstoy, Aleksei, N. Aelita (Aelita, 1922). A Soviet engineer-inventor and a Red Army soldier travel to Mars. The inventor attempts to win the love of a Martian princess, and the soldier works to export revolution to the Red planet.
Tolstoy, Aleksei, N. Azure Cities (Golubiye goroda, 1925). Utopian socialism clashes with everyday reality, leading to murder. A passionate tale of a tormenting, impatient, and feverish imagination. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Tolstoy, Aleksei, N. Bread (Khleb, 1938). Describes the defense of Taritsyn by Reds in 1918-1919. Glorifies the roles of Stalin and Voroshilov. Exposes the treachery of Trotsky.
Tolstoy, Aleksei, N. Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid (xxx, 1925). Story of a power-hungry engineer who, with the help of a concentrated heat ray, uncovers a vast deposit of gold in the earth's core. Threatening the world with ecological disaster, he becomes dictator. But he is eventually foiled by by a good Soviet Chekist.
Tolstoy, Aleksei, N. Golden Key, or The Adventures of Buratino (xxx, 1936). A reworking of the Pinnochio fairy tale.
Tolstoy, Aleksei, N. Peter I (xxx, 1929-1945). The life of the tsar Peter I from his childhood to the Battle of Narva in 1701. A grand epic with a multitude of charcters and settings. Stalin Prize winner.
Tolstoy, Aleksei, N. Road To Calvary (Khozhdeniye Po Mukam, 1922 -1941). A trilogy telling the story of Russian intellectuals who convert to Bolshevism during the Civil War. Stalin Prize winner.
Tolstoy, Aleksei, N. Snow House (Snezhnii dom, 19xx). A village boy and a domovoi's daugher play pretend in a snow house all winter long. In the spring, they get to out out and play for real. (s) (Click here for complete translated text.)
Toomaspoeg, Aino Keepers of the Keys (xxx, 1967). Story. (Estonian)
Totovents, V. Blue Flowers (xxx, 1979). Small Torik was a shy and a quiet child. Everything was all right, until he became an adult and married a girl from a local brothel. The town could not forgive him that. That turns the boy into a resolute and courageous defendant of his happiness. (Armenian)
Trenyov, K. Pugachev Era: A Folk Tragedey (Pugachovshchina, Narodnaya tragediya, 1924). Historical fiction on the Pugachev Rebellion during the time of Catherine the Great.3
Trifonov, Yuri Another Life (Drugaya Zhizn', 19xx). A woman in her early forties is suddenly widowed, and the death transforms her past. She doesn't know if her life has been good or not, happy or unhappy. But now that the past has turned to pain, there is an imperative to know the truth.
Trifonov, Yuri Disappearance (Ischeznovaniye, 1987 (pub)). Novel centering on events in 1937 at the height of the Stalin terror. Innocents arrested; the honest lose their sense of justice.
Trifonov, Yuri Exchange, The (Obmen, 1969). Centers on the bickering, loveless relationship of a mother-fixated man and his mean-spirited, social-climbing, boorish wife.8
Trifonov, Yuri House on the Embankment (Dom na naberezhnoi, 1976). Revolves around life in a famous Moscow apartment house which served as the home of many of the Soviet elite, and where the author himself lived as a boy. Spanning four decades, the novel spends much time describing the life of the children in the building. Contrast is made between the fantastic privilege of some familes and the fear other familes have of that privilege. Later, in the post-war years, a graduate student is faced with the choice of what to do when a trusted professor (who's also his future father-in-law) comes under unjust ideological attack and threat of purge. The student chooses lack of principle as his principle, thereby abandoning his future bride without so much as a good-bye and assuring a comfortable career for himself, including a dacha and a trip to Paris in the 1970s. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Trifonov, Yuri Impatience (Neterpeniye, 1973). The story of Andrei Zhelyabov, one of the leaders of the People's Will movement in the late 1800s.
Trifonov, Yuri Long Good-bye (Dolgoye Proshchaniye, 196x). Story about the private lives and emotional problems within Moscow literary and theatrical circles.8
Trifonov, Yuri Old Man (Starik, 1978). An old man receives a letter from a woman he knew in his youth, and in reliving his memories from the Revolution and Civil War, he feels perhaps he might have acted dishonorably in that long ago time. His family--cold and materialistic--is unsmypathetic.
Trifonov, Yuri Preliminary Conclusions (Predvaritelniey Itogi, 196x). A middle-aged man, upset with his dilettante wife and semi-delinquent son, leaves them in Moscow to spend the spring in Turkmenia because of a heart condition. He broods over his mediocre life, then returns and reconciles with his family.8
Trifonov, Yuri Slaking Thirst (Utolenie zhazhdy, 1963). Construction novel with an anti-Stalinist twist. Set on a hugh irrigation project in Turkmenia in the late 1950s, it deals with romantic enthusiasm and self-sacrifice in the effort to conquer nature as well as the problem of individual initiative clashing with pre-estblished plans. Also, a young journalist is obsessed with the injustice done to his father, a victim of the purges in 1973.8
Trifonov, Yuri Students (Studenty, 1956). Cautious, politically orthodox treatment of university life.8
Trifonov, Yuri Time and Place (Vremya i mesto, 1981). A novelist continually rewrites his novel about a novelist, but he never reaches an end.
Troyat, A. Snow in Black (Sgavor Dzyune, 1978?). A plane crashes in the mountains. Marselin, an adventurer, persuades his brother to go to the mountains and rob the dead passengers. Having appeared in the mountains, the heroes are faced with a difficult moral choice. (Armenian)
Truu, S. At Age Seventeen (xxx, 1967). Story. (Estonian)
Tvardovsky, Aleksandr T. Land of Muravia (Strana Muraviya, 1936). A peasant refuses to join a collective and goes wandering to find Muravia, a land of no collectives, where he can really be his own boss. He has adventures on the way, carouses with kulaks, has his horse stolen by a priest, sees poverty and misery where peasants farm alone, and visits a prosperous collective. In the end, he sees the wisdom of collectivization. Stalin Prize winner.
Tvardovsky, Aleksandr T. Vasily Tyorkin (Vasily Tyrokin, 1941-1945). A verse tale about a simple but resourceful Russian soldier. Full of wit, it chronicals Tyorkin's adventures, serious and light, at the front and follows him almost to the gates of Berlin. Full of memorable lines and incidents, it was immediately popular among soldiers and became a type of folk classic.
Tynyanov, Yuri N. The Death of The Vizier Mukhtara (Smert Vazira-Mukhtara, 1928). Historical novel about Russian playwrite A.S. Griboedov, who was killed in Tehran by an angry mob while on a diplomatic mission.
Vampilov, Aleksandr Elder Son (xxx, 197x). A comedy about the Soviet generation gap in the 1970s. Full of laughs and humorous situations, it offers a view of a wide variety of Soviet teenagers, positive and negative.
Veresaev, Vikenty V. Sisters (Syostry, 1933). Two sisters, both members of the Komsomol, take different paths on the road to Communism. One, Ninka, refuses to accept preordained ideas and doctrines. Instead, she feels the need to be a "great charlatan", to try out new ideas for herself, to find the truth by making mistakes. The other sister, Lelka, immerses herself in the life of a factory, trying to shed her intellectuallism and become truly proletarian. Later, when Party workers are sent to the countryside to push collectivization, Lelka and her group are ruthless in rooting out kulaks and forcing peasants into the kolkhozes. Ninka defies Party orders and works instead for "voluntary" collectivization. She is about to be purged but is saved when Stalin publishes his "Giddy From Success" article denouncing the excesses of forced collectivization. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Vesely, Artem In the Village at Shrove-tide (V derevne na maslenitse, 1921). xxx
Vesely, Artem Russia Washed in Blood (Rossiya Kroviu Omytaya, 19xx). At the beginning of the Revolution, soldiers desert en masse from the front.
Vesely, Artem Stroll About, Volga! (Gulyai, Volga!, 1932). Historical novel concerning the conquest of Siberia by the Cossack Ermak.
Vesely, Artem We (My, 1921). Whites march into a village and, with the connivance and approval of the kulaks and priests, execute all the Red sympathizers and plan ravishment of women. Whites also attack a nearby town, but the workers organize and are victorious.
Vigdorova, Frida A. Daring Twelve, The (Dvenadtsat Otvazhnikh, 1948). Story of young Komsomol members struggling against Nazi oppression.
Virta, Nikolai E. Lawfulness (Zakonomernost, 1937). An ambitious youth in the Tambov region hatches sabotage plots, corrupting some otherwise innocent citizens into joining in his schemes. The innocents eventually find their way back to the true path. The ring-leader escapes to Moscow but is tracked down by the vigilant political security operatives. A continuation of "Solitude".
Virta, Nikolai E. Solitude (Odinochestvo, 1936). A well-to-do peasant becomes involved in the Antonov peasant uprising in Tambov in 1920. The uprising is put down by Tukhachevsky. Stalin Prize winner.
Voinovich, Vladimir Distance of Half-a-Kilometer (Rasstoyanie v polkilometra, 1963). Bleak accoiunt of the death and funeral of a village no-good, in which the local peasants are portrayed as ignorant, narrow, and shiftless.8
Voinovich, Vladimir I Want To Be Honest (Khochu byt chestnym, 1963). A construction supervisor is dispirited by the knowledge that the work going on around him is shoddy, graft-ridded, and ill-conceived. The apartment house he is working on is unfinished and unsafe, but he superiors pressure him to certify it as complete so as to win honors for his organization. He refuses to comply, so is hounded off the project. Although bitter in its theme, the narrative tone is lightly satirical.8
Voinovich, Vladimir In The Sleeper (xxx, 1965). On an overnight train trip from Moscow to Leningrad, an aggressively prim young woman, terrified for her virture, insists that the harmless and bewildered young man with whom she is sharing a compartment keep the door open and the light on all night.8
Voinovich, Vladimir The Life and Amazing Adventures of the Soldier Ivan Chonkin (xxx, 1970). At the beginning of World War II, a not-too-bright Red Army soldier, abandoned and forgotten by his superiors, bravely defends a Soviet airplane, gets a girlfriend, arrests the entire local apparatus of the secret police, and beats back the attack of an entire regiment...all by accident. (Click here for detailed summary.)
Voinovich, Vladimir Two Comrades (Dva tovarishcha, 1967). Story of two friends before, during, and after their induction into the army. While Valeri is bright, sensitive and idealistic, albeit somewhat indecisive, Tolik develops into a selfish opportunist. In the central episode, Tolik beats up Valeri because some hoodlums forced him to.8
Voinovich, Vladimir We Live Here (My zdes' zhivem, 1961). On a remote collective farm in the virgin lands, young people struggle to cope with their culturally barren life and poor living conditions. Told in a fast-paced, humorous manner, with an abundance of comic details and incidents.8
Volodin, Aleksandr Factory Girl (Fabrichnaya devochka, 1956). The head of a factory Komsomol organization is told to write an article entitled "She Fills Us With Shame." So he arbitrarily picks on a straight-talking female Komsomoler and so attacks her in the press. She fights back. 9
Yampolsky, Boris Moscow Street (Moskovskaya ulitsa, 1960, pub. 1988). An innocent man is stalked by plain-clothes police detectives for some unspecified crime. Nasty, hostile, crowded communal apartment is contrasted to the ominously empty streets of Moscow.1
Yarovoi, Pavel Searchlight (xxx, 1925). Short story.
Yashin, Aleksandr Ya. Alyona Fomina (Alyona Fomina, 1949). Poem portraying post-War village life in idealized terms. Stalin Prize winner.
Yashin, Aleksandr Ya. Levers (Rychagi, 1956). The blockbuster story that shocked a nation, lambasting Party officials as duplicitous, bureaucratic, and pedantic, treating people as mere levers to be manipulated, not as human beings. (Click here for complete text in English).
Yashin, Aleksandr Ya. Orphan (Sirota, 1962). The story of two orphan brothers. One grows up to be a glib and smooth-talking opportunist, who goes to live in the city as a worthless parasite. The other brother stays in the village, working hard and diligently, even though his stubborn integrity earns him a reputation among officials as a troublemaker.8
Yashin, Aleksandr Ya. Vologda Wedding (Vologodskaya svad'ba, 1965). Set in a remote northern village during a wedding, this story shows the death of peasant culture and the misery and brutality in the countryside. The wives compete with one another in boasting of their husbands' swinishness and police records. Women and girls have forgotten or never learned the traditional songs, and the bride and groom travel in trucks, not troikas.8
Zadornov, Nikolai P. Distant Land (Dalekii krai, 1948). Novel about life in the mid-19th century among the peoples of the Pri-Amur region and the oppression they suffer at the hands of Manchurian and Chinese traders. The native peoples' hopes for a brighter future rest on the return of Russians to the Amur. USSR State Prize winner, 1952.
Zadornov, Nikolai P. Father Amur (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Zagrebelny, Pavlo A. From the Point of View of Eternity (Z Poglyadu Vichnosti, 1971). Ukrainian novel set in a pipe factory in the era of the Scientific-Technical Revolution (1970s). Follows the transition of a young worker from a slothful Oblomov-imitator into an energetic Lenin Prize winner. Given the task of creating special pipes for a secret project, the hero and his team work unstintingly, battle a stagnation-bent careerist, and defy official orders to develop a fundamentally new pipe-rolling technique. The breakthrough comes following a literal and figurative marriage of brains and brawn. Well written with a good sense of humor. (Ukrainian) (Click here for detailed summary.)
Zalygin, Sergei P. After the Storm (Posle buri, 1985). Panoramic novel spanning 1921 - 1928, the period of the New Economic Policy. Former Whites are put to work in the Soviet system, and they learn to adapt to the new reality.
Zalygin, Sergei P. Commission (Komissiya, 1975). Sequel to "Salt Valley".
Zalygin, Sergei P. On The Irtysh (Na Irtyshe, 1964). Cruelty and injustice are shown as part of the forced collectivization of a Siberian village in 1931.
Zalygin, Sergei P. Salt Valley (Solyonnaya pad, 1968). Set in the Civil War, novel that explores the issue of revolutionary means mainly through the character of a punitive, dogmatic, and dictatorial commissar.1
Zalygin, Sergei P. South American Variant (Iuzhno-Amerikansky Variant, 1973). A successful woman scientist, trapped in an unsatisfying marriage, has an extra-marital affair.
Zamyatin, Evgeny I. Cave (Peshchera, 1920). Life in an unheated room in Petrograd is compared to living in a prehistoric cave. A story of the degredation and poverty of people, clinging to a single idea -- to get food and fuel. Neorealism at its best.
Zamyatin, Evgeny I. Fisher of Men (Lovets cheloveka, 1918). A hypocritical English bourgeois makes money by blackmailing couples who make love in London parks.
Zamyatin, Evgeny I. Islanders (Ostrovityane, 1917). A satire of the monotonous, unimaginitive, repressed life of "respectable" English folk. One young man dares to break the mold by falling in love with a showgirl and killing her lover. When this rebel is hanged for his crime, life can return to normal.
Zamyatin, Evgeny I. Lion, The (Lev, 193x). To win the love of Leningrad's first female police officer, a fireman offers to play the part of a murdered lion in a ballet production. (Click here for complete translated text.)
Zamyatin, Evgeny I. We (My, 1920). An anti-Utopian novel. In the mathematically perfect One State, a loyal scientist, D-503, is infected with an irrational number (love). This infection leads to D-503 getting involved with a band of renegades intent on sabotaging the Integral, a spaceship with the mission of forcing happiness on the rest of the universe. The rebels cause some chaos, but are defeated. All citizens are rewarded with an imagination-removing operation, which brings things back to normal. Contains one of the earliest references to electric toothbrushes in all of world literature.
Zavadovsky, Leonid On the White Lake (Na belom ozere, 1925). xxx
Zhdanov, Nikolai Journey Home (Poezdka na rodinu, 1956). Short story dealing with the contract between a Communist leader's view of life from his office and the conditions he actually finds on a collective farm.9
Zhigulin, Anatoli Black Stones (Cherniye kamni, 1988). A student is falsely convicted of anti-Soviet conspiracy and sent off to the Siberian camps.1
Zhitkov, Boris Elchan-Kaiya (Elchan-Kaiya, 1926). Story of a stone ship, gold, Greeks and Turks.3
Zorian, S. Head of the RevCom (Heghkomi Nakhagahe, 1977?). Story about the first years of Soviet rule in Armenia. The hero is the head of the RevCom (Revolutionary Committee) in a town where not everyone is inclined to accept the new regime. (Armenian)
Zorin, Leonid Bronze Grandmother (Mednaya babushka, 1970). Dramatic treatment of Pushkin in terms of an independent artist in opposition to the state.
Zorin, Leonid Carnival (Kanaval, 1981). Play.
Zorin, Leonid Coronation (Koronatsiya, 1968). Play.
Zorin, Leonid Decembrists (Dekabristy, 1966). Play.
Zorin, Leonid Deck (Paluba, 1963). Play
Zorin, Leonid Encyclopeiaists (Entsiklopedisti, 1966). Play.
Zorin, Leonid Foreign Passport (Chuzhoi passport, 1957). Play raising the question of honesty and justice as an integral quality of a real communist, and the responsibility of the leaders to the people.
Zorin, Leonid Good Guys (Dobryaki, 1958). Comedy exposing unprincipled behavior in the scientific community.
Zorin, Leonid Guests (Gosti, 1954). Play centering on the conflict of an honest Old Bolshevik and his son, who, having known the smell of power since the day he was born, has turned into a rank-conscious aristocrat, greedy and conceited, remote from the people.9
Zorin, Leonid Main Topic (Glavnaya tema, 1981). Povest.
Zorin, Leonid Moscow Time (Po moskovskomu vremeni, 1961). Play.
Zorin, Leonid Old Manuscript (Staraya rukopis', 1980). Novel.
Zorin, Leonid Pokrovsky Gates (Pokrovskie vorota, 1974). Play.
Zorin, Leonid Roman Comedy (Rimskaya komediya, 1964). Play addressing, among other things, the relationship of the artist to the state.
Zorin, Leonid Seraphim, or Three Chapters from the Life of Kramolnikov (Serafim, ili tri glavy iz zhizni Kramol'nikova, 1967). Play.
Zorin, Leonid Stranger (Neznakomets, 1976). Play.
Zorin, Leonid Stress (Stress, 1969). Play
Zorin, Leonid Theatrical Fantasy (Teatral'naya fantaziya, 1971). Play.
Zorin, Leonid To See in Time (Uvidet' vovremya, 1960). Drama about the establishment of the character of the young contemporary.
Zorin, Leonid Transit (Tranzit, 1972). Play.
Zorin, Leonid Wanderer (Strannik, 1984). Novel.
Zorin, Leonid Warsaw Melody (Varshavskaya melodiya, 1966). A young Russian man and a Polish girl are in love, but they are unable to live in conjugal bliss because of the Soviet law which forbids marriage to foreigners.
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Bathhouse (Banya, 1924). The travails arising from a trip to the bathhouse, such as what does a naked man do with receipts for his clothing, battles over wash basins, losing your soap, and getting or not getting your proper clothing back. Just remember, you're not in a theatre.
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Canvas Briefcase (xxx, 19xx). xxx.
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Galosh (Galosha, 1926). One man's struggle to retrieve a galosh lost on the tram. It takes a week getting the proper forms filled out, etc., but the galosh is recovered. In the meantime, however, the other galosh is lost. But no matter, the recovery of the first one proves that the system works. Let that galosh stand as an inspiration to future generations.
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Insulted Man (Cheloveka obideli, 1926). On a crowded train, a man is insulting and being bossy to an old woman, who is overburdened with packages and bags. Thinking that the woman is a servant, the train passengers berate the man for violating labor laws. But the woman is really the man's mother. So the passengers, loathe to intervene in family matters, apologize.
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Let Losers Cry (xxx, 19xx). xxx
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Pushkin (Pushkin, 1927). A demobilized soldier has a hard time finding a place to live. When he finally does find one, he is kicked out because it turns out that Pushkin once slept there and they can't have messy ordinary people tarnishing the great poet's reputation by living there.
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Quality of Production (Kachestvo produktsii, 1928). A man mistakes a German anti-bedbug powder for a face powder, and he eagerly applies it to himself every morning after shaving. He is quite please with the invigorating aroma and with the fact that while his wife gets bitten by bedbugs, he doesn't.
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Story of One Reforging (Istoriya odnoi perekovki, 1934). The moral regeneration of a common criminal who--as part of a forced-labor crew--works on construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal.
Zoshchenko, Mikhail Talisman - the Sixth Tale of Belkin (Talisman - Shestaya Povest Belkina, 1937). During the Napoleonic Wars, a rakish army officer seduces his commander's wife, gets demoted to common soldier, and is mistakenly given a medal he doesn't deserve. To redeem himself, he seeks out and finds a chance to do something dangerous and heroic. Written in the style of and as a tribute to Pushkin's "Tales of Belkin".
Zoshchenko, Mikhail You Will Never Forget. (xxx, 19xx). A documentary narrative about the Leningrad partisans of World War II, compiled from stories told by the partisans themselves. Each one of them tells of the fate of one man, one family; but together they give a broad picture of the partisan movement.
References:
1. Brown, Deming. The Last Years of Soviet Russian Literature. Cambridge University Press. 1993.
2. Russian PEN Centre. http://www.penrussia.org/
3. Maguire, Robert A. Red Virgin Soil: Soviet Literature in the 1920s. Cornell University Press. 1968.
4. Terras, Victor (ed.) Handbook of Russian Literature. Yale University Press. 1985.
5. Browning, Gary. Boris Pilniak: Sythian at a Typewriter. Ardis Publishers. 1985.
6. Oulanoff, Hongor, The Prose Fiction of Veniamin A. Kaverin. Slavica Publishers. 1976.
7. Antanaitis, Algirdas, New Trends in the Soviet Lithuanian Novel. Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 16, No.2, 1970.
8. Brown, Deming. Soviet Russian Literature Since Stalin. Cambridge University Press. 1978.
9. Gibian, George. Soviet Literature During the Thaw, 1954-1957. University of Minnesota Press. 1960.
mainbut2
Mini-Summaries Encyclopedia of Soviet Writers Soviet Literature Links the "Thin Journal"
Address all correspondence to Comrade Chairman at: ComradeChairman@sovlit.com

Subscribe to the
SovLit.com Mailing List.
Send e-mail with the word
SUBSCRIBE
in subject field to:
sovlit-subscribe@egroups.com
� 2000 - 2004 SovLit.com All rights reserved.