 |
Presents: |
| For detailed summaries of selected works, visit the SovLit.com main page |
| 1921 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Partisans
(
Partizany
)
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
|
| 1921 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Fifth Wanderer
(
Pyatii Strannik
)
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.
|
| 1921 | Lyashko, N.N.
| Thief's Mother
(
Vorova mat'
)
Story of a woman whose heart is too pure for the world around her.3
|
| 1921 | Malyshkin, Aleksandr G.
| Fall of Daira, The
(
Padeniye Daira
)
The Red Army breaks through at Perekop, bringing to an end organized
White resistance in the Crimea. The masses are the heroes.
|
| 1921 | Nizovoi, Pavel
| Replacement
(
Smena
)
Depiction of the decay of a patriarchal peasant way of life.3
|
| 1921 | Seifullina, Lidia N.
| Lawbreakers
(
Pravonarushiteli
)
Realistic treament of one of the army of homeless boys roming the
countryside in the wake of the Civil War and their moral regeneration.
|
| 1921 | Shimkevich, M.
| Wolf
(
Volk
)
Story showing bestiality as a human condition.
|
| 1921 | Tamarin, V.
| Desert
(
Pustynya
)
xxx
|
| 1921 | Vesely, Artem
| In the Village at Shrove-tide
(
V derevne na maslenitse
)
xxx
|
| 1921 | Vesely, Artem
| We
(
My
)
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.
|
| 1922 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Kyzymil, Golden River
(
Kyzymil' - zolotaya reka
)
xxx
|
| 1922 | Kataev, Valentin P.
| Beautiful Trousers
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1922 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Shields (and Candles)
(
Shchity (i Svechi)
)
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.
|
| 1922 | Libedinsky, Yuri N.
| Week
(
Nedelya
)
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.)
|
| 1922 | Neverov, Aleksandr
| A Bug, Winning His Freedom
(
Zhuk, Poluchivshii Svobody
)
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.
|
| 1922 | Neverov, Aleksandr
| Happiness
(
Schastye
)
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.
|
| 1922 | Neverov, Aleksandr
| Love
(
Liubov
)
A flower declares its love for a butterfly, but is rejected.
|
| 1922 | Neverov, Aleksandr
| Sparrow
(
Vorobei
)
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.
|
| 1922 | Nikitin, Nikolai
| Fort Vomit
(
Rvotnii Fort
)
xxx
|
| 1922 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Forest Dacha
(
Lesnaya dacha
)
Reworking of the earlier story "Spring Floods" (Polovod'e) with the nobleman recast as a forester.
|
| 1922 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Naked Year
(
Golii God
)
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).
|
| 1922 | Semyonov, Sergei A.
| Hunger
(
Golod
)
Workmen in revolutionary Petrograd are starving. Written in the form of a diary.
|
| 1922 | Semyonov, Sergei A.
| Typhus
(
Tif
)
xxx
|
| 1922 | Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| Change
(
Peremena
)
xxx
|
| 1922 | Tarasov-Rodionov, Aleksandr I.
| Chocolate
(
Shokolad
)
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.)
|
| 1922 | Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Aelita
(
Aelita
)
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.
|
| 1922 -1941 | Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Road To Calvary
(
Khozhdeniye Po Mukam
)
A trilogy telling the story of Russian intellectuals who convert to Bolshevism during the Civil War. Stalin Prize winner.
|
| 1923 | Babel, Isaak E.
| How It Was Done in Odessa
(
Kak Eto Delalos v Odesse
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Babel, Isaak E.
| King
(
Korol
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Babel, Isaak E.
| Letter
(
Pismo
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Babel, Isaak E.
| Salt
(
Sol
)
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
|
| 1923 | Budantsev, Sergei F.
| Army Commander
(
Komandarm
)
A vainglorious, spiritually empty left Social-Revolutionary, filled with
a hatred of Soviet power, leads a revolt in Astrakhan in 1918.
|
| 1923 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Life and Death of Nikolai Kurbov
(
Zhizn' i Smert Nikolaya Kurbova
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Love of Jeanne Ney
(
Liubov Zhanny Nei
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Trust D.E.
(
Trest D.E.
)
American millionaires finance a plan to destroy Europe. Viruses and poison gas are used to reduce the continent to a desert.
|
| 1923 | Furmanov, Dmitri
| Chapaev
(
Chapaev
)
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.)
|
| 1923 | Furmanov, Dmitri
| Red Landing
(
Krasnii Desant
)
A story about a Red Army operation against Wrangle's forces.
|
| 1923 | Grin, Aleksandr
| Scarlet Sails
(
Aliye Parusa
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Duty
(
Dolg
)
A Red officer saves the life of a White. Later, when the tables are turned, the White returns the favor.3
|
| 1923 | Kataev, Ivan Ivanovich
| Milk
(
Moloko
)
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
|
| 1923 | Leonov, Leonid M.
| End of a Petty Man
(
Konets melkovo cheloveka
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Libedinsky, Yuri N.
| Tomorrow
(
Zavtra
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Neverov, Aleksandr
| Marya the Bolshevik
(
xxx
)
Women's liberation comes to a post-revolutionary Russian village. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
| 1923 | Neverov, Aleksandr
| Tashkent, City of Bread
(
Tashkent, Khlebnii Gorod
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Nikandrov, N.
| Damned Cigarette Lighters!
(
Proklyatiye zaigalki!
)
"Physiology" of a self-employed, semi-skilled, artisan NEP type.3
|
| 1923 | Ognyov, Nikolai
| Eurasia
(
Evrasiya
)
Ornamentalism in the style of Pilnyak.
|
| 1923 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Materials for a Novel
(
Materialy k romanu
)
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
|
| 1923 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Old Cheese (aka Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
(
Starii syr
)
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
|
| 1923 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Speranza
(
Speranza
)
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
|
| 1923 | Seifullina, Lidia N.
| Mulch
(
Peregnoi
)
A good-for-nothing peasant is transformed by the Revolution, as is his village.
|
| 1923 | Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| One's Own Fate
(
Sovya sud'ba
)
Anti-Freudian novel.
|
| 1923 | Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya.
| Play in the Village of Ogryzovo
(
Spektakl' v Sele Ogryzove
)
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.
|
| 1923 | Shklovsky, Viktor B.
| Zoo, or Letters not about Love
(
Zoo, Pis'ma ne o liubvi, ili Tret'ya Eloiza
)
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
|
| 1923 - 1924 | Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| Mess-Mend, or a Yankee in Petrograd
(
Mess-Mend, ili yanki v Petrograde
)
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)
|
| 1923? | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Carpenters
(
Stolyari
)
A wooden boy becomes a master carpenter and sets off on a fruitless quest for a magic plane.
|
| 1923? | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Chronicle of the City of Leipzig for the Year 18..
(
Khronika Goroda Leiptsiga za 18.. God"
)
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.
|
| 1923? | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Engineer Shvartz
(
Inzhenir Shvartz
)
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.
|
| 1923? | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Purple Palimpsest
(
Purpurnii polimkpsest
)
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.
|
| 1924 | Babel, Isaak E.
| Death of Dolgushov
(
Smert Dolgushova
)
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.)
|
| 1924 | Babel, Isaak E.
| Lyubka the Cossack
(
Liubka Kazak
)
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.
|
| 1924 | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Fatal Eggs
(
Rokoviye Yaitsa
)
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.
|
| 1924 | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| White Guard
(
Belaya gvardiya
)
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.)
|
| 1924 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Grabber
(
Rvach
)
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.
|
| 1924 | Fedin, Konstantin
| Cities and Years
(
Goroda i Godi
)
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.)
|
| 1924 | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Cement
(
Tsement
)
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.)
|
| 1924 | Gorky, Maksim
| Sky-Blue Life
(
Golubaya zhizn'
)
xxx
|
| 1924 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| How Burial Mounds Are Made
(
Kak sozdaiutsya kurgany
)
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
|
| 1924 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Cask
(
Bochka
)
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.
|
| 1924 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Clockmakers of Kutum
(
Kutumskiye Chasovshchiki
)
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.
|
| 1924 | Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Forty-First
(
Sorok-Pervii
)
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.)
|
| 1924 | Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Story of a Simple Thing
(
Rasskaz o Prostoi Veshchi
)
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.
|
| 1924 | Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Wind
(
Veter
)
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.
|
| 1924 | Olesha, Yuri K.
| Three Fat Men
(
Tri Tolstyaka
)
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.)
|
| 1924 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Nenashin Side
(
Storona nenashinskaya
)
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
|
| 1924 | Seifullina, Lidia N.
| Virineya
(
Virineya
)
A peasant woman--a mindless rustic--develops into a Bolshevik activist and ends up dying as a martyr to the cause.3
|
| 1924 | Serafimovich, Aleksandr
| Iron Flood
(
Zheleznii potok
)
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.)
|
| 1924 | Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya.
| Gang, The
(
Vataga
)
Peasants in Siberia rise up against Kolchak.
|
| 1924 | Stonov, Dmitri
| Bolsheviks
(
Bolsheviki
)
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
|
| 1924 | Trenyov, K.
| Pugachev Era: A Folk Tragedey
(
Pugachovshchina, Narodnaya tragediya
)
Historical fiction on the Pugachev Rebellion during the time of Catherine the Great.3
|
| 1924 | Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Bathhouse
(
Banya
)
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.
|
| 1925 | Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| At the Waystation
(
Na peregone
)
Short Story.
|
| 1925 | Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Daughter of the Land
(
Doch' zemli
)
Short story.
|
| 1925 | Nikiforov, Georgi
| Ivan Brynda
(
Ivan Brynda
)
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
|
| 1925 | Ognyov, Nikolai
| Visions
(
Videniya
)
Historical fiction on the poet A.I. Polezhaev [1804-1838].3
|
| 1925 | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Sea Sketches
(
Morskiye nabroski
)
Paustovsky's first collection of stories.
|
| 1925 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Swindlers
(
Zhuliki
)
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.
|
| 1925 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Zavoloche
(
Zavoloche
)
A scientific expedition to the Arctic suffers shipwreck, starvation,
scurvy, insanity, and murder. The magnitude of nature, love, and
scientific obsession are examined.
|
| 1925 | Savich, Ovady
| In the Mountains
(
V gorakh
)
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
|
| 1925 | Smirnov, A.
| On the Shoal
(
Na perekate
)
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
|
| 1925 | Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Azure Cities
(
Golubiye goroda
)
Utopian socialism clashes with everyday reality, leading to murder. A
passionate tale of a tormenting, impatient, and feverish imagination. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
| 1926 | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Snowstorm
(
Viuiga
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Starry Rash
(
Zvezdnaya Syp
)
A country doctor fights venereal disease, which is rampant in the area. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
|
| 1926 | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Towel With an Embroidered Rooster
(
Polotenste s petukhom
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Chapygin, Aleksei P.
| Stepan Razin
(
Razin Stepan
)
Grand epic concerning the 17th-century rebel leader. One thousand pages long.
|
| 1926 | Evdokimov, I.
| Bells
(
Kolokola
)
Historical fiction on the Bolshevik underground.3
|
| 1926 | Fedin, Konstantin
| Transvaal
(
Transvaal
)
A tough Estonian of Boer extraction comes to wield almost dictatorial ecomonic power over the peasants of his village.
|
| 1926 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Fecundity
(
Plodorodie
)
Short story.
|
| 1926 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Life of Timofei Smokotinin
(
Zhizn' Timofeiya Smokotinina
)
Short story.
|
| 1926 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Night
(
Noch
)
Short story.
|
| 1926 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Water Patch
(
Polyn'ya
)
Short story.
|
| 1926 | Kataev, Valentin P.
| Embezzlers
(
Rastratchiki
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Kataev, Valentin P.
| Rodion Zhukov
(
Rodion Zhukov
)
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
|
| 1926 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Inspector General
(
Revizor
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Kozakov, Mikhail E.
| Abram Nasatyr, the Innkeeper
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Kozakov, Mikhail E.
| Philistine Adameiko
(
Meshchanin Adameiko
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Count Puzyrkin
(
Graf Puzyrin
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Fall of the Republic of Itl
(
Krusheniye Respubliki Itl
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Sky-blue Cap
(
Nebesny Kartuz
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Thalassa
(
xxx
)
Ordinary, meek Soviet citizen gets involved in a smuggling expedition along the Black Sea coast.
|
| 1926 | Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Bronze Helmet
(
Mednaya kaska
)
Short Story.
|
| 1926 | Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Inheritance
(
Nasledstvo
)
Short Story
|
| 1926 | Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Only Shirt, The
(
Edinstvennaya rubashka
)
Short Story
|
| 1926 | Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Sun Under Hand
(
Solntse pod rukoi
)
Short Story.
|
| 1926 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Boy From Trally
(
Mal
)
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
|
| 1926 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Story of Springs and Clay
(
Rasskaz o kluchakh i gline
)
Story telling of the return of exiles to the Palestinian homeland.3
|
| 1926 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Tale of the Unextinguished Moon
(
Povest' nepogashennoi luny
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Without a Name
(
Beznazvaniya
)
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
|
| 1926 | Savich, Ovady
| Von Offenberg Pension
(
Pension fon-Offenberg
)
Menagerie of emigre types.3
|
| 1926 | Serafimovich, Aleksandr
| Two Deaths
(
Dve smerti
)
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.)
|
| 1926 | Sytin, Aleksandr
| Herds of Allah
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 1926 | Zhitkov, Boris
| Elchan-Kaiya
(
Elchan-Kaiya
)
Story of a stone ship, gold, Greeks and Turks.3
|
| 1926 | Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Galosh
(
Galosha
)
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.
|
| 1926 | Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Insulted Man
(
Cheloveka obideli
)
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.
|
| 1926 pub. 1927 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Big Heart
(
Bol'shoye serdtse
)
English capitalists try to subdue the "savage" Mongols. But a "primitive" chieftain terrifies them into fleeing.5
|
| 1926? | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Baby, The
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1926? | Lyashko, N.N.
| Song of the Chains
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Arosev, A.
| On the Earth Beneath the Sun
(
Na zemle nod solntsem
)
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
|
| 1927 | Budantsev, Sergei F.
| Locusts
(
Sarancha
)
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.)
|
| 1927 | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Flight
(
Beg
)
Play.
|
| 1927 | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Morphine
(
Morfiy
)
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).
|
| 1927 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| On Portochnoi Lane (aka "A Street In Moscow")
(
V Portochnoi Pereulke
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Fadeev, Aleksandr A.
| Rout, The
(
Razgrom
)
Red Army partisans flee from pursuing Cossacks and Japanese interventionist forces in Russia's Far East. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
| 1927 | Forsh, Olga D.
| Dressed in Stone
(
Odety Kamnem
)
A 19th-century revolutionary becomes a "secret prisoner", locked by the tsar in solitary confinement for 20 years.
|
| 1927 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| God Matvei
(
Bog Matvei
)
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
|
| 1927 | Kataev, Valentin P.
| Squaring The Circle
(
Kvadrature Kruga
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Friend of the Mikado
(
Drug Mikado
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Short Summer Night
(
Vorobinaya Noch
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Sky-Blue Sun
(
Goluboye Solntse
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| This Morning
(
Sevodnya Utrom
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Kharms, Daniil
| Elizaveta Bam
(
Elizaveta Bam
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Commendant Pushkin
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Seventh Satellite
(
Sedmoi Sputnik
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Leonov, Leonid M.
| Thief, The
(
Vor
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| In the Wilds
(
V glushi
)
Short Story.
|
| 1927 | Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Steppe Herds
(
Stepnye tabuni
)
Povest.
|
| 1927 | Malyshkin, Aleksandr G.
| February Snow
(
Fevral'slii sneg
)
Historical fiction on the Februrary Revolution.3
|
| 1927 | Muguev, Khadzhi-Murat
| Death of Nikola Bunchuk
(
Smert' Nikoly Bunchuka
)
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
|
| 1927 | Ognyov, Nikolai
| Diary of Kostya Ryabtsev
(
Dnevnik Kosti Ryabtseva
)
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.
|
| 1927 | Olesha, Yuri K.
| Envy
(
Zavist
)
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.)
|
| 1927 | Olesha, Yuri K.
| Liompa
(
Liompa
)
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".
|
| 1927 | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Minetoza
(
Minetoza
)
xxx.
|
| 1927 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Ivan Moscow
(
Ivan Moskva
)
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
|
| 1927 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Nizhegorod Slope
(
Nizhegorodskii otkos
)
Story portraying and subtly defending sexual love between a mother and her 16-year-old son.5
|
| 1927 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Roots of the Japanese Sun
(
Korni yaponskogo solntsa
)
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
|
| 1927 | Semyonov, Sergei A.
| Natalya Tarpova
(
Natalya Tarpova
)
A woman Party member deals with Party life, marriage, cultural work, ideology, and so on. Set in the period of NEP.
|
| 1927 | Sverchkov, D.
| Case No. 3576
(
Delo No. 3576
)
Describes tensions that build up in a marriage from the pull of the new emancipated sex mores against the old.3
|
| 1927 | Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Pushkin
(
Pushkin
)
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.
|
| 1928 | Beliayev, Aleksandr R.
| The Struggle in Space
(
Borba v Efire
)
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.)
|
| 1928 | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Crimson Island
(
Bagrovii ostrov
)
Satirical play.
|
| 1928 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Conspiracy of Equals
(
Zagavor Ravnikh
)
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."
|
| 1928 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Stormy Life of Lasik Roitschwantz
(
Burnaya Zhizn' Lazika Roitshvantsa
)
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.
|
| 1928 | Fedin, Konstantin
| Brothers
(
Bratya
)
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.
|
| 1928 | Gorbatov, Boris L.
| Cell, The
(
Yacheika
)
Story of life of the Komsomols in the 1920s.
|
| 1928 | Ilf, Ilya & Petrov, Evgeny
| Twelve Chairs
(
Dvenadtsat stulev
)
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.")
|
| 1928 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Cotton
(
Khlopok
)
An English secret agent and a Red commissar discover that the common struggle for survival dissipates their class hatred.3
|
| 1928 | Karavaeva, Anna A.
| Sawmill
(
Lesozavod
)
Depiction of the industrialization of a Soviet village.
|
| 1928 | Kataev, Ivan Ivanovich
| Bus
(
Avtobus
)
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.
|
| 1928 | Kataev, Valentin P.
| Father
(
Otets
)
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.
|
| 1928 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Troublemaker
(
Skandalist
)
Damning portrayal of old-fashioned, inflexible attitudes among the older
academics in Leningrad. Formalism is parodied. One character possibly
modeled on Viktor Shklovsky.
|
| 1928 | Kharms, Daniil
| Ivan Ivanych Samovar
(
Ivan Ivanych Samovar
)
A friendly samovar dispenses tea. Late risers, however, are in for a surprise. A children's poem. (Click here for complete text.)
|
| 1928? | Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya.
| Cranes
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1929 | Budantsev, Sergei F.
| Tale of the Sufferings of Mind
(
Povest o stradaniyakh uma
)
A brilliant scientist of the 1860s, suffering from reactionary
individualism, tries to commit suicide twice, once with morphine, and
once by catching a cold.
|
| 1929 | Gaidar, Arkady
| Fourth Dug-Out
(
Chetvyortii Blindazh
)
Tale about some children being accidently exposed to artillery fire.
|
| 1929 | Kataev, Ivan Ivanovich
| Great Glacier
(
Velikii Gletcher
)
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.
|
| 1929 | Malyshkin, Aleksandr G.
| Sevastopol
(
Sevastopol
)
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.
|
| 1929 | Mayakovsky, Vladimir V.
| Bedbug, The
(
Klop
)
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.)
|
| 1929 | Olesha, Yuri K.
| Cherry Seed, The
(
Vishnyovaya Kostochka
)
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.)
|
| 1929 | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Shining Clouds
(
Blistaiushchieye oblaka
)
Romantic novel.
|
| 1929 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Devils on the Periphery
(
Cherti na pereferii
)
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.
|
| 1929 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Mahogany
(
Krasnoye derevo
)
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
|
| 1929 | Platonov, Andrei
| Devils on the Periphery
(
Cherti na pereferii
)
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.
|
| 1929 | Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| K. and K.
(
KIK
)
Story of a missing Soviet commissar told from four different points of view by four different (fictional) authors.
|
| 1929-1945 | Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Peter I
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 192x | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Adventures of Chichikov
(
Pokhozhdenie Chichikova
)
The hero of Gogol's "Dead Souls" arrives in the middle of the Soviet Union of the New Economic Plan (NEP) years.
|
| 192x | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Mystery of Mysteries
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 192x | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Severostal
(
Severostal'
)
xxx
|
| 192x | Kharms, Daniil
| Pushkin and Gogol
(
Pushkin i Gogol
)
Pushkin and Gogol are falling all over each other. A short play. (Click here for complete text.)
|
| 192x | Nikitin, Nikolai
| Barge
(
Barka
)
xxx
|
| 192x | Romanov, Panteleimon S.
| Without Cherry Blossoms
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 192x | Sletov, P.
| Mastery
(
Masterstvo
)
A master violinist is blinded by a talentless pupil who wishes to learn rules for creating works of art.3
|
| 1930 | Budantsev, Sergei F.
| House With an Exit into the World
(
Dom s Vykodom v Mir
)
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.
|
| 1930 | Libedinsky, Yuri N.
| Birth of a Hero
(
Rozhdeniye geroya
)
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.
|
| 1930 | Platonov, Andrei
| Foundation Pit
(
Kotlovan
)
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
|
| 1930 | Romanov, Panteleimon S.
| Comrade Kislyakov
(
Tovarishch Kislyakov
)
Deals with Soviet youth, love, and marriage in an era when old moralities and taboos were crumbling.
|
| 1930 pub. 1932 | Bubennov, Mikhail S.
| Year of Thunder
(
Gremyashchi god
)
Novel about the establishment of kolkhozes in Siberia.
|
| 1931 | Forsh, Olga D.
| Mad Ship
(
Sumashedshii Korabl
)
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.
|
| 1931 | Gorky, Maksim
| Somov and Others
(
Somov i Drugiye
)
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.
|
| 1931 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Artist Unknown
(
Khudozhnik Neizvesten
)
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.
|
| 1931 | Leonov, Leonid M.
| Sot
(
Sot
)
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.
|
| 1931 | Pilnyak, Boris
| The Volga Falls To The Caspian Sea
(
Volga Padaet V Kaspiskoye Morye
)
Sabotage and betrayal on the construction site as true communists struggle to alter nature and establish a new morality. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
| 1932 | Pavlenko, Pyotr A.
| Barricades
(
Barrikady
)
Short historical novel about the Paris Commune of 1870.
|
| 1932 | Pilnyak, Boris
| O.K.
(
O.K.
)
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.
|
| 1932 | Vesely, Artem
| Stroll About, Volga!
(
Gulyai, Volga!
)
Historical novel concerning the conquest of Siberia by the Cossack Ermak.
|
| 1932 - 1960 | Sholokhov, Mikhail A.
| Virgin Soil Upturned
(
Podnyataya tselina
)
Don Cossacks and White army officers struggle against collectivization.
|
| 1933 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Second Day (aka "Out of Chaos")
(
Den' Vtoroi
)
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.
|
| 1933 | Ilf, Ilya & Petrov, Evgeny
| Strong Feeling
(
Silnoye chustvo
)
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.
|
| 1933 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Twins
(
Dva dvoinika
)
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
|
| 1933 | Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya.
| Gloomy River
(
Ugrium-Reka
)
Greed, love, success, failure, and violence surrounding the search for gold in Siberia. Over 800 pages long.
|
| 1933 | Veresaev, Vikenty V.
| Sisters
(
Syostry
)
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.)
|
| 1934 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Without Taking Breath
(
Ne Perevodya Dikhaniya
)
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.
|
| 1934 | Fedin, Konstantin
| Rape of Europe
(
Pokhishcheniye Evropy
)
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.
|
| 1934 | Ilin, Yakov
| The Big Conveyor Belt
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1934 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Wish Fulfillment
(
Ispolneniye Zhelanii
)
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.
|
| 1934 | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Kolkhida
(
Kolkhida
)
Historical adventure novel on the theme of industrialization and the building of Communism.4
|
| 1934 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Gland Slam
(
Bol'shoi shlem
)
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
|
| 1934 | Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Story of One Reforging
(
Istoriya odnoi perekovki
)
The moral regeneration of a common criminal who--as part of a
forced-labor crew--works on construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal.
|
| 1934 - 1935 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Adventures of a Fakir
(
xxx
)
Autobiographical novel featuring the author's experiences as a circus performer.
|
| 1934 pub. 1935 | Pilnyak, Boris
| Birth of Man
(
Rozhdeniye cheloveka
)
A devoted communist female lawyer, pregnant, awakens to maternal instincts and develops into a more complete human being.5
|
| 1935 | Gaidar, Arkady
| Tale of the Military Secret
(
Skazka o Voennoi Taine
)
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.)
|
| 1935 | Leonov, Leonid M.
| Road to the Ocean
(
Doroga na okean
)
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.
|
| 1937 | Virta, Nikolai E.
| Lawfulness
(
Zakonomernost
)
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".
|
| 1937 | Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Talisman - the Sixth Tale of Belkin
(
Talisman - Shestaya Povest Belkina
)
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".
|
| 1938 | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Energy
(
Energiya
)
Deals with construction of the Dneproges hydroelectric plant on the Dnieper River.
|
| 1938 | Krymov, Yuri S.
| The Tanker "Derbent"
(
Tanker "Derbent"
)
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.)
|
| 1938 | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Tale of the North
(
Severnaya Povest
)
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.
|
| 1938 | Romashov, B.
| One's Own House
(
Rodnoi Dom
)
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."
|
| 1938 | Smirnov, E.
| Wonderful Pioneer Gena Shchukin, The
(
Slavnii Pioner Gena Shchukin
)
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.
|
| 1938 | Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Bread
(
Khleb
)
Describes the defense of Taritsyn by Reds in 1918-1919. Glorifies the
roles of Stalin and Voroshilov. Exposes the treachery of Trotsky.
|
| 1938 - 1944 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Two Captains
(
Dva Kapitana
)
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.
|
| 1938 - 1957 | Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| Ulyanov Family
(
Sem'ya Ulyanovykh
)
Historical novel on Lenin.
|
| 1939 | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Parkhomenko
(
Parkhomenko
)
Idealized biography of a Civil War general.4
|
| 1939 | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Merhchersakaya storona
(
Meshcherskaya storona
)
Story focusing on Russian nature.
|
| 1939 | Shpanov, Nikolai
| The First Blow
(
Pervii Udar
)
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.
|
| 193x | Budantsev, Sergei F.
| Youth
(
Iunosha
)
Unfinished novel about a young man who comes to Moscow to study.
|
| 193x | Koptelov, Afanasi
| Great Nomad Camp
(
xxx
)
Siberian novel about the lives of the Altai people in the new conditions of a socialist economy.
|
| 193x | Zamyatin, Evgeny I.
| Lion, The
(
Lev
)
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.)
|
| 1940 | Bubennov, Mikhail S.
| At Flood Time
(
V polovod'e
)
Collection of stories and sketches.
|
| 1940 | Bubennov, Mikhail S.
| Immortality
(
Bessmertiye
)
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.)
|
| 1940 | Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Master and Margarita
(
Master i Margarita
)
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.
|
| 1940 | Fedin, Konstantin
| Arktur Sanitorium
(
xxx
)
Life among patients in a Swiss health sanitorium.
|
| 1944 | Simonov, Konstantin M.
| Before the Attack
(
Pered atakoi
)
xxx
|
| 1944 | Simonov, Konstantin M.
| Days and Nights
(
Dni i nochi
)
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.)
|
| 1944 | Simonov, Konstantin M.
| Immortal Name
(
Bessmertnaya familia
)
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.
|
| 1945 | Fadeev, Aleksandr A.
| Young Guard
(
Molodaya Gvardia
)
Account of the heroic exploits of young Communist underground workers in
the Donbass town of Krasnodon during the Nazi occupation. Stalin Prize winner.
|
| 1945 | Kataev, Valentin P.
| Son of the Regiment
(
Syn polka
)
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)
|
| 1945 | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| There Were Four Of Us
(
Nas Bylo Chetvero
)
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.
|
| 1945 | Simonov, Konstantin M.
| Instead of an Epilogue
(
Vmesto Epiloga
)
xxx
|
| 1945 - 1946 | Fedin, Konstantin
| First Joys
(
Perviye Radosti
)
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.
|
| 1945 - 1963 | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Story of a Life
(
Povest o Zhizni
)
Paustovsky's lyrical six-part autobiography covering over a half century of his life.
|
| 1945? | Kozakov, Mikhail E.
| When I'm Alone
(
xxx
)
A play about a Soviet intellectual who despairs over backbiting and
fighting among people around him. Labeled "harmful" and "pacifict" by
Stalin.
|
| 1947 | Pavlenko, Pyotr A.
| Happiness
(
Schastye
)
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.)
|
| 1947 | Simonov, Konstantin M.
| Russian Question
(
Russkii vopros
)
A play about an American reporter who disemminates disinformation about
the Soviet Union. He later repents, but suffers serious consequences as
a result.
|
| 1947 - 1948 | Semushkin, Tikhon Z.
| Alitet Flees to the Mountains
(
Alitet Ukhodit v Gory
)
Two-volume novel about a far-northern Siberian horseman of the Chukchi tribe.
|
| 1947 - 1952 | Bubennov, Mikhail S.
| White Birch, The
(
Belaya Beryozka
)
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.
|
| 1948 | Azhaev, Vasili
| Far From Moscow
(
Daleko ot Moskvy
)
A portrayal of heroic endeavors involved in the building of an oil pipe line in eastern Siberia. State Prize winner, 1949.
|
| 1948 | Dudintsev, Vladimir
| On the Night Shift
(
V nochnoi smene
)
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.
|
| 1948 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Lion on the Square
(
Lev Na Ploshchadi
)
A play that is a blistering, vicious attack on the behavior of Americans in post-war Europe.
|
| 1948 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Storm
(
Burya
)
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.
|
| 1948 | Fedin, Konstantin
| No Ordinary Summer
(
Neobyknovennoye leto
)
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.
|
| 1948 | Mikhalkov, Sergei
| I Want To Go Home
(
Ya Khochu Domoi
)
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.)
|
| 1953 | German, Yuri P.
| Young Russia
(
Rossiya molodaya
)
Historical novel set in the period of Peter the Great.
|
| 1953 | Libedinsky, Yuri N.
| Dawn
(
Zareva
)
Chronicle of the revolutionary movement of the early twentieth century, particularly in the Caucasus.
|
| 1953 | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Winter Oak
(
Zimnii Dub
)
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.
|
| 1953 | Pomerantsev, Vladimir
| On Sincerity in Literature
(
Ob iskrennosti v literature
)
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.)
|
| 1954 | Antonov, Sergei
| New Office Worker
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 1954 | Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| The Thaw
(
Ottepel
)
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.)
|
| 1954 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Quiet Morning
(
Tikhoye utro
)
xxx
|
| 1954 | Korneyuchuk, Aleksandr
| Wings
(
Krylya
)
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
|
| 1954 | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Get Out, We're Here
(
Slezai, Priekhali
)
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.
|
| 1954 | Nekrasov, Viktor
| In His Home Town
(
V rodnom gorode
)
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
|
| 1956 | Bek, Aleksandr
| Life of Berzhkov
(
Zhizn' Berezhkova
)
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
|
| 1956 | Bondarev, Yuri V.
| Commanders' Youth
(
Iunost' komandirov
)
xxx
|
| 1956 | Dudintsev, Vladimir
| Not By Bread Alone
(
Ne khlebom edinim
)
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.)
|
| 1956 | Gorbunov, Nikolai
| Mistake (Monologue of a Professor)
(
Oshibka (Monolog professora)
)
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
|
| 1956 | Granin, Daniil
| Personal Opinion
(
Sobstvennoe mneniey
)
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
|
| 1956 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Open Book
(
Otkrytaya Kniga
)
A young biologist offers a new biological theory. The entrenched old
guard resists, but the biologist bravely defends her theory, at great
personal cost.
|
| 1956 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Blue and Green
(
Goluboye i zelyonoye
)
xxx
|
| 1956 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Hunting
(
Na okhote
)
xxx
|
| 1956 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Teddy
(
Teddi
)
A trained bear escaped from a circus and returns to life in the wilds.8
|
| 1956 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Unattractive
(
Nekrasivaya
)
A plain young woman's first timid attempt at a liaison meets with callous indifference.8
|
| 1956 | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Khazar Ornament
(
xxx
)
Story criticizing the backwardness and neglect of rural areas and the spoliation of their natural resources.8
|
| 1956 | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Light In The Window
(
Svet v okne
)
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.
|
| 1956 | Paperniy, Zinoviy
| Genya and Senya
(
Genya i Senya
)
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
|
| 1956 | Pogodin, Nikolai
| Petrarch's Sonnet
(
Sonet Petrarki
)
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
|
| 1956 | Tendryakov, Vladimir
| Potholes
(
Ukhaby
)
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 |
| 1956 | Trifonov, Yuri
| Students
(
Studenty
)
Cautious, politically orthodox treatment of university life.8
|
| 1956 | Volodin, Aleksandr
| Factory Girl
(
Fabrichnaya devochka
)
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
|
| 1956 | Yashin, Aleksandr Ya.
| Levers
(
Rychagi
)
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).
|
| 1956 | Zhdanov, Nikolai
| Journey Home
(
Poezdka na rodinu
)
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
|
| 1957 | Bondarev, Yuri V.
| Batallions Request Cover
(
Batal'ony prosyat ognya
)
Great Patriotic War novel.
|
| 1957 | Dudintsev, Vladimir
| New Year's Tale
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1957 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Arktur - Hunting Dog
(
Arktur - gonchii pec
)
Story of a dog whose indomitable instinct triumphs over his blindness.8
|
| 1957 | Nikolaeva, Galina
| Battle on the Way (aka Running Battle)
(
Bitva v puti
)
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
|
| 1957 | Rimkevicius, Vytautas
| Students
(
Studentai
)
Lithuanian Thaw-era novel.
|
| 1957 | Sholokhov, Mikhail A.
| Fate of a Man
(
Sudba cheloveka
)
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
|
| 1957 | Zorin, Leonid
| Foreign Passport
(
Chuzhoi passport
)
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.
|
| 1958 | Abramov, Fyodor
| Brothers and Sisters
(
Bratya i sestry
)
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
|
| 1958 | Aitmatov, Chingiz
| Jamila
(
Dzhamila
)
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
|
| 1958 | Dudintsev, Vladimir
| Mad Boy
(
Beshenii malchishka
)
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.)
|
| 1958 | Nekrasov, Viktor
| Pike
(
Sudak
)
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
|
| 1961 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Autumn in Oak Woods
(
Osen V Dubovikh Lesakh
)
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.
|
| 1961 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Nestor and Kir
(
Nestor i Kir
)
Story about the life of fishermen in a northern fishing village.
|
| 1961 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| There Goes a Dog
(
Von bezhit sobaka
)
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
|
| 1961 | Marcinkevicius, Justinas
| Pinetree that Laughed
(
Pusis, kuri juokesi
)
Lithuanian novel.
|
| 1961 | Nekrasov, Viktor
| Kira Georgievna
(
Kira Georgievna
)
Novella dealing with the return of an ex-prisoner from a Stalinist
prison camp. Also addresses the subject of art and creativitiy.4
|
| 1961 | Nekrasov, Viktor
| Vasya Konakov
(
Vasya Konakov
)
Story.
|
| 1961 | Simonov, Konstantin M.
| Fourth, The
(
Chetvyortii
)
xxx.
|
| 1961 | Tendryakov, Vladimir
| Three, Seven, Ace
(
Troika, semerka, tuz
)
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
|
| 1961 | Voinovich, Vladimir
| We Live Here
(
My zdes' zhivem
)
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
|
| 1961 | Zorin, Leonid
| Moscow Time
(
Po moskovskomu vremeni
)
Play.
|
| 1961, pub. 1988 | Tendryakov, Vladimir
| On the Blessed Isle of Communism
(
Na Blazhennom Ostrove Kommunizma
)
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
|
| 1962 | Bondarev, Yuri V.
| Silence
(
Tishina
)
Novel addressing themes of morality and Stalin's postwar repression.4
|
| 1962 | Bykov, Vasili V.
| Third Rocket
(
Tret'ya raketa
)
xxx
|
| 1962 | Grekova, I.
| Beyond the Entryway
(
Za prokhodnoi
)
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
|
| 1962 | Grekova, I.
| Summer in the City
(
Letom v. gorode
)
Story of a gossipy petty philistine.8
|
| 1962 | Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Seven Pairs of Dirty Ones
(
Sem Par Nechistykh
)
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.
|
| 1962 | Kazakevich, Emmanuil
| Father Visits His Son
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 1962 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Two in December
(
Dvoe v Dekabre
)
xxx
|
| 1962 | Nekrasov, Viktor
| Both Sides of the Ocean
(
Po obe storony okeana
)
Notes on his trip abroad, portraying the United States in a positive manner.4
|
| 1962 | Rekemchuk, Aleksandr E.
| Callow Youth
(
Molodo-Zeleno
)
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.)
|
| 1966 | Belov, Vasili I.
| Ordinary Affair (aka That's How It Is)
(
Privychnoye delo
)
Study of an ordinary, industrious but poor peasant and his large family.
|
| 1966 | Mozhaev, Boris
| From the Life of Fyodor Kuzkin
(
Iz zhizni Fedora Kuzkina
)
Story describing the battles of one stubbornly courageous and
resourceful peasant against stupid and often vicious political
authorities in the mid-1950s.1
|
| 1966 | Shukshin, Vasily
| I Want To Live
(
Okhota Zhit
)
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.)
|
| 1966 | Zorin, Leonid
| Decembrists
(
Dekabristy
)
Play.
|
| 1966 | Zorin, Leonid
| Encyclopeiaists
(
Entsiklopedisti
)
Play.
|
| 1966 | Zorin, Leonid
| Warsaw Melody
(
Varshavskaya melodiya
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Aitmatov, Chingiz
| First Teacher
(
Perviy uchitel'
)
xxx
|
| 1967 | Argunova, Nora
| Day of Departure
(
Den' ot'ezda
)
Povest.
|
| 1967 | Argunova, Nora
| Hunter
(
Lovets
)
Short story.
|
| 1967 | Argunova, Nora
| Incident on the Line
(
Sluchai na linii
)
A dry, callous formalist--a railroad safety inspector--demonstrates surprising qualities when faced with a dramatic situation.
|
| 1967 | Argunova, Nora
| Nighttime Accident
(
Nochnoye proizshestviye
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Argunova, Nora
| Splendid Beast
(
Slavnii zver'
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Fedoseev, Grigori
| Last Campfire
(
Poslednii koster
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Ilus, Vyaino
| Golden Fund
(
xxx
)
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)
|
| 1967 | Kataev, Valentin P.
| Holy Well
(
Syatoi kolodets
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Kuusberg, P.
| How Do You Know that Robert Viyrpuu is Dead?
(
xxx
)
Story. (Estonian
|
| 1967 | Merilaas, K.
| Several Sunny Days on the Paths of Childhood
(
xxx
)
Story. (Estonian)
|
| 1967 | Nikitin, B.
| Solemn Vow
(
Tverdoye slovo
)
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)
|
| 1967 | Nurpeisov, Abdizhamil
| Twilight
(
xxx
)
Historical novel set in Kazakh lands on the eve of the first world war. Translated into Russian by Yuri Kazakov. (Kazakh)
|
| 1967 | Podlyashuk, Pavel
| Tale of the Red Doctor
(
Povest' o krasnom doktore
)
Historical novel about Ivan Rusakov, a Bolshevik-doctor, participant in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917.
|
| 1967 | Promet, Lilli
| File with Reproductions
(
xxx
)
Story. (Estonian)
|
| 1967 | Rasputin, Valentin G.
| Money for Maria
(
Dengi dlya Marii
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Shukshin, Vasily
| How The Old Man Died
(
Kak Pomiral Starik
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Shukshin, Vasily
| In Profile and Full-Face
(
V profil' i anfac
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Shukshin, Vasily
| Oddball
(
Chudik
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Shukshin, Vasily
| Storie
(
Raskas
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Shukshin, Vasily
| Thoughts
(
Dumy
)
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.
|
| 1967 | Sirge, R.
| Seduction of He Who Looks in the Water
(
xxx
)
Story. (Estonian)
|
| 1967 | Smuul, Juhan
| Face of the Ocean
(
xxx
)
Story. (Estonian)
|
| 1967 | Smuul, Juhan
| Song of Death
(
xxx
)
Story. (Estonian)
|
| 1967 | Toomaspoeg, Aino
| Keepers of the Keys
(
xxx
)
Story. (Estonian)
|
| 1967 | Truu, S.
| At Age Seventeen
(
xxx
)
Story. (Estonian)
|
| 1967 | Voinovich, Vladimir
| Two Comrades
(
Dva tovarishcha
)
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
|
| 1967 | Zorin, Leonid
| Seraphim, or Three Chapters from the Life of Kramolnikov
(
Serafim, ili tri glavy iz zhizni Kramol'nikova
)
Play.
|
| 1967 - 1969 | Abramov, Fyodor
| Pelageya
(
Pelageya
)
A woman labors in a village bakery for twenty years to support an ailing husband and ungrateful daughter.1
|
| 1968 | Abramov, Fyodor
| Two Winters and Three Summers
(
Dve zimy i tri leta
)
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
|
| 1968 | Aksenov, Vasili
| Overstuffed Barrels
(
Zatovarennaya bochkotara
)
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
|
| 1968 | Kireev, Ruslan
| Staircase
(
Lestnitsa
)
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
|
| 1968 | Semyonov, Julian
| Seventeen Moments of Spring
(
Semnadtsat Mgnovenii Vesny
)
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.)
|
| 1968 | Shukshin, Vasily
| Mille Pardons, Madame!
(
Mille Pardons, Madame!
)
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.
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Adam and Eve
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| At the Station
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| But We Are Not Strangers
(
xxx
)
Set in northern fishing village.
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Easy Life
(
xxx
)
A rootless, wandering worker avoids responsibility and is vaguely troubled over his own spiritual emptiness.8
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Manka
(
Manka
)
A 17-year-old girl is bewildered and ambivalent in her first encounter with a sexually aroused man.8
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Nikishkin's Secrets
(
xxx
)
Set in northern fishing village.
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Old Men
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| On the Island
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Outsider
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Pomorka
(
Pomorka
)
Portrait of a 90-year-old peasant woman.8
|
| 196x | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Smell of Bread
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 196x | Nekrasov, Viktor
| Dugout
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 196x | Nekrasov, Viktor
| Story Strange to the Highest Degree
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 196x | Panova, Vera F.
| Valya
(
Valya
)
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
|
| 196x | Panova, Vera F.
| Volodya
(
Volodya
)
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
|
| 196x | Sluckis, Mykolas
| Adam's Apple
(
Adomo obuolys
)
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
|
| 196x | Tendryakov, Vladimir
| Mayfly - A Shoft Life
(
xxx
)
Story of a girl who gains celebrity as a champion pig raiser by falsifying records.8
|
| 196x | Tendryakov, Vladimir
| Short Circuit
(
Korotkoe zamykanie
)
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
|
| 196x | Trifonov, Yuri
| Long Good-bye
(
Dolgoye Proshchaniye
)
Story about the private lives and emotional problems within Moscow literary and theatrical circles.8
|
| 196x | Trifonov, Yuri
| Preliminary Conclusions
(
Predvaritelniey Itogi
)
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
|
| 1970 | Voinovich, Vladimir
| The Life and Amazing Adventures of the Soldier Ivan Chonkin
(
xxx
)
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.)
|
| 1970 | Zorin, Leonid
| Bronze Grandmother
(
Mednaya babushka
)
Dramatic treatment of Pushkin in terms of an independent artist in opposition to the state.
|
| 1970 ? | Sartakov, Sergei
| Barbin Cycle
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1971 | Aksenov, Vasili
| Rendezvous
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 1971 | Okudzhava, Bulat
| Escapades of Shipov, or an Old-Time Vaudeville
(
Pokhozhdeniya Shipova, ili Starinii Vopdevil
)
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
|
| 1971 | Rasputin, Valentin G.
| Final Term (aka Borrowed Time)
(
Poslednii srok
)
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.
|
| 1971 | Rekemchuk, Aleksandr E.
| Boys (aka "Boys Who Did A-Singing Go")
(
Malchiki
)
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
|
| 1971 | Simonov, Konstantin M.
| Last Summer, The
(
Poslednee Leto
)
xxx.
|
| 1971 | Zagrebelny, Pavlo A.
| From the Point of View of Eternity
(
Z Poglyadu Vichnosti
)
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.)
|
| 1971 | Zorin, Leonid
| Theatrical Fantasy
(
Teatral'naya fantaziya
)
Play.
|
| 1972 - 1979 | Kireev, Ruslan
| Victor, The
(
Pobeditel'
)
xxx
|
| 1972 - 1987 | Belov, Vasili I.
| Eves
(
Kanuny
)
Story of middle peasants during a time of relative stability in the 1920s prior to the collectivization campaigns.
|
| 1972? | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Green Bird with a Red Head
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1973 | Abramov, Fyodor
| At the Crossroads
(
Puti-pereput'ya
)
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
|
| 1973 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| Little Candle
(
Svechehka
)
xxx
|
| 1973 | Krasnobryzhy, Ivan
| Rare Find
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1973 | Markov, Georgi M.
| Siberia
(
Sibir
)
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.)
|
| 1973 | Shestalov, Yuvan
| Wonderland of the North
(
xxx
)
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)
|
| 1973 | Shukshin, Vasily
| Snowball Berry Red
(
Kalina Krasnaya
)
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.)
|
| 1973 | Trifonov, Yuri
| Impatience
(
Neterpeniye
)
The story of Andrei Zhelyabov, one of the leaders of the People's Will movement in the late 1800s.
|
| 1973 | Zalygin, Sergei P.
| South American Variant
(
Iuzhno-Amerikansky Variant
)
A successful woman scientist, trapped in an unsatisfying marriage, has an extra-marital affair.
|
| 1973? | Mustafin, Yamil
| Savage
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1973? | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Downpour
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1973? | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Friend of the Family
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 1973? | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| House No. 7
(
xxx
)
The author takes a stroll down memory lane, visiting a house that made him happy in his childhood.
|
| 1973? | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| My First and Most Beloved Friend
(
xxx
)
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.)
|
| 1974 | Astafev, Viktor
| Shepherd and Shepherdess
(
Pastukh i pastushka
)
Story of a brief love affair between and army lieutenant and a Ukrainian peasant girl in a lull between fierce battles.1
|
| 1974 | Rasputin, Valentin G.
| Live and Remember
(
Zhivi i pomni
)
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.
|
| 1974 | Shukshin, Vasily
| I Have Come To Give You Freedom
(
Ya Prishel Dat Vam Voliu
)
Treatment of the peasant and Cossack revolt led by Stenka Razin in the 17th century.
|
| 1974 | Zorin, Leonid
| Pokrovsky Gates
(
Pokrovskie vorota
)
Play.
|
| 1976 | Kim, Anatolii
| Link of Tenderness
(
Zveno nezhnosti
)
A personal meditation involving a supernatural family legend, boyhood memories, the nature and folklore of the Far East.1
|
| 1976 | Kim, Anatolii
| Smile of the Vixen
(
Ulibka lisitsy
)
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
|
| 1976 | Rasputin, Valentin G.
| Farewell to Matyora
(
Proshchenie S Materoi
)
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.
|
| 1976 | Trifonov, Yuri
| House on the Embankment
(
Dom na naberezhnoi
)
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.)
|
| 1976 | Zorin, Leonid
| Stranger
(
Neznakomets
)
Play.
|
| 1976 - 1987 | Mozhaev, Boris
| Peasant Men and Women
(
Muzhiki i baby
)
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
|
| 1976, pub | Shukshin, Vasily
| Before the Cock Calls Thrice
(
Do Tretikh Petukhov
)
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.
|
| 1977 | Aitmatov, Chingiz
| Spotted Dog, Running by the Seashore
(
Pegii pes, begushchii kraem morya
)
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.
|
| 1977 | Katerli, Nina
| Barsukov Triangle
(
Treugol'nilk Barsukova
)
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
|
| 1977 | Kazakov, Yuri P.
| You Were Crying Bitterly in Your Dream
(
Vo sne ty gor'ko plaka
)
xxx
|
| 1978? | Khansadian, S.
| Mkhitar Sparapet
(
xxx
)
Historical novel about David Bek and Mkhitar Sparapet, leaders of an 18th century Armenian liberation movement. (Armenian)
|
| 1978? | Samadoglu, Yusif
| Children's Game of 1946
(
xxx
)
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)
|
| 1978? | Troyat, A.
| Snow in Black
(
Sgavor Dzyune
)
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)
|
| 1979 | Chernyonok, Mikhail Ya.
| Losing Bet
(
Stavka na proigrysh
)
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.)
|
| 1979 | Esin, Sergei
| Present Day
(
Tekushchii den'
)
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
|
| 1979 | Granin, Daniil
| Picture
(
Kartina
)
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.
|
| 1979 | Keshishian, G.
| World in the Mirror
(
Ashkharhe Hayelu Mej
)
Story about one day in the life of a taxi driver who is ready to share the troubles of his passengers. (Armenian)
|
| 1979 | Khalafian, Z.
| Mulberry
(
Tteni
)
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)
|
| 1979 | Kondratev, Vyacheslav
| Sashka
(
Sashka
)
Story of a selfless, steadfast and kind infantryman involved in the battle around Rzhev during the Great Patriotic War.1
|
| 1979 | Rekemchuk, Aleksandr E.
| Tender Age
(
Nezhnii vozrast
)
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.
|
| 1980 pub. 1988 | Golovin, Genadii
| Millions with Big Zeros
(
Milliony s bol'shimi nulyami
)
Detective story set in the Civil War
|
| 1980, pub. 1986 | Tendryakov, Vladimir
| Clean Waters of Kitezh
(
Chistiye Vody Kitezha
)
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
|
| 1980, pub. 1987 | Tendryakov, Vladimir
| Attack on Mirages
(
Pokusheniye na mirazhi
)
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
|
| 1981 | Aitmatov, Chingiz
| Day Last More Than 100 Years
(
I dolshe veka dlitsya den
)
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.
|
| 1981 | Bulychev, Kir
| Abduction of the Sorcerer
(
Pokhisheniye charodeya
)
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.)
|
| 1981 | Grekova, I.
| Ship of Widows
(
Vdovii Parakhod
)
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
|
| 1981 | Katerli, Nina
| Farewell Light
(
Proshchal'nyi svet
)
A selfless, idealistic girl is criticized by her parents for her devotion to a crippled friend.1
|
| 1981 | Kireev, Ruslan
| Prepatory Notebook
(
Podgotoitel'naya tetrad'
)
xxx
|
| 1981 | Kireev, Ruslan
| Ulya Maksimovna, My Love and Hope
(
Ulya Maksimovna, lyubov' moya i nadezhda
)
A busy factory manager is jealous of a strange mechanical genius who becomes attached to the manager's wife.1
|
| 1984 | Granin, Daniil
| Track is Still Noticeable
(
Eshche Zameten Sled
)
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
|
| 1984 | Grekova, I.
| Thresholds
(
Porogi
)
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.
|
| 1984 | Katerli, Nina
| Polina
(
Polina
)
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
|
| 1984 | Kim, Anatolii
| Squirrel
(
Belka
)
Supernatural part-animal, part-human creatures engage in a conspiracy to
destroy all of mankind's loftier impulses--artistic creativity,
morality, idealism, etc.1
|
| 1984 | Kireev, Ruslan
| Sandy Acacia
(
Peschanaya akatsiya
)
An actor fears that his hometown will be obliterated by approaching sands.1
|
| 1984 | Makanin, Vladimir
| Citizen Runaway
(
Grazhdanin ubegayushchii
)
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
|
| 1984 | Makanin, Vladimir
| Where the Sky Met the Hills
(
Gde skhodilos' nebo c kholmami
)
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
|
| 1984 | Rudnev, Oleg A.
| Long Road in the Dunes
(
Dolgaya Doroga v Diunakh
)
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.
|
| 1984 | Semyonov, Georgi
| Smell of Burnt Powder
(
Zapakh Sgorevshovo Porokha
)
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
|
| 1984 | Tolstaya, Tanya
| Sonya
(
Sonya
)
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
|
| 1984 | Zorin, Leonid
| Wanderer
(
Strannik
)
Novel.
|
| 1984? | Dumbadze, Nodar
| Blood Knot
(
xxx
)
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.)
|
| 1985 | Astafev, Viktor
| To Live Life
(
Zhizn prozhit
)
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
|
| 1985 | Esin, Sergei
| Imitator
(
Imitator
)
Frank and boastful confession of a corrupt portrait painter and museum
director whose cynical intrigues have made him famous and wealthy.1
|
| 1985 | Grekova, I.
| Pheasant
(
Fazan
)
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.
|
| 1985 | Kireev, Ruslan
| Glow-worm
(
Svetlyachok
)
A mousy librarian lives vicariously through books, and, like one of his favorite fictional characters, he loses his shadow.1
|
| 1985 | Prozorovsky, Lev V.
| Hunting For The Past
(
Okhotniki Za Proshlim
)
Chasing a CIA spy with links to the Nazi past through Latvia and Estonia. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
| 1985 | Rasputin, Valentin G.
| Fire
(
Pozhar
)
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.
|
| 1985 | Semyonov, Georgi
| Collection
(
Kollektsiya
)
A bombast with intellectual pretensions keeps his apartment filled with a large collection of stuffed birds.
|
| 1985 | Tendryakov, Vladimir
| Day That Ousted Life
(
Den Vytesnivshii Zhizn
)
Account of a new soldier's first day of military action.1
|
| 1987 | Bitov, Andrei
| Pushkin's Photograph (1799-2099)
(
Fotografiya Pushkina (1799-2099)
)
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
|
| 1987 | Bitov, Andrei
| Taste
(
Vkus
)
xxx
|
| 1987 | Bykov, Vasili V.
| In the Mist
(
V tumane
)
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
|
| 1987 | Dudintsev, Vladimir
| White Robes
(
Beliye odezhdi
)
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.
|
| 1987 | Genatulin, Anatoli
| Tunnel
(
Tunnel
)
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
|
| 1987 | Granin, Daniil
| Bison
(
Zubr
)
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.
|
| 1987 | Iskander, Fazil
| Old House Under the Cypress
(
Starii dom pod kiparisom
)
xxx
|
| 1987 | Katerli, Nina
| Colored Postcards
(
Tsvetnye otkrytki
)
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
|
| 1987 | Kuraev, Mikhail
| Captain Dikshtein
(
Kapitan Dikshtein
)
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
|
| 1987 | Makanin, Vladimir
| Left Behind
(
Otstavshii
)
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
|
| 1988 | Golovin, Genadii
| Birthday of the Deceased
(
Den' rozhdeniya pokoinika
)
Satire of the Brezhnev period.
|
| 1988 | Golovin, Genadii
| Jack, Little Brother, and Others
(
Dzhek, Bratishka i drugiye
)
Story of the relationship of people and dogs.1
|
| 1988 | Kuraev, Mikhail
| Night Watch
(
Nochnoi dozor
)
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
|
| 1988 | Popov, Valerii
| Superfluous Virtuosity
(
Izlishnaya virtuoznost'
)
A poet of modest talent scrapes by as a writer of pop-song lyrics.1
|
| 1988 | Popov, Valerii
| Thirds Shall Be Firsts
(
Tret'i budut pervymi
)
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
|
| 1988 | Shmelyov, Nikolai
| Affair of the Fur Coat
(
Delo o shube
)
Story of a long, dismal marriage between a middle-level engineer, who
career is permanently stalled, and his dissatisfied and unfaithful wife.1
|
| 1988 | Shmelyov, Nikolai
| Night Voices
(
Nochnye golosa
)
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
|
| 1988 | Shmelyov, Nikolai
| Performance in Honor of Herr Prime Minister
(
Spektakl' v chest' gospodina pervogo ministra
)
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
|
| 1988 | Shmelyov, Nikolai
| Visit
(
Vizit
)
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
|
| 1988 | Tendryakov, Vladimir
| Bread for a Dog
(
Khleb dlya sobaki
)
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
|
| 1990 | Bykov, Vasili V.
| Cordon
(
Oblava
)
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
|
| 1990 | Kurchatkin, Anatolii
| Notes of an Extremist: The Construction of a Subway in our City
(
Zapiski ekstremista: stroitel'stvo metro v mashem gorode
)
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
|
| 1990 | Tolstaya, Tanya
| Limpopo
(
Limpopo
)
xxx
|
| 1991 | Latynin, Leonid
| Sleeper at Harvest Time
(
Spyashchii vo vremya zhatvy
)
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
|
| 1991 | Shmelyov, Nikolai
| Silvester
(
Sil'vestr
)
The moral and spiritual struggles of Archpriest Silvester, the confessor and advisor of Ivan the Terrible.1
|
| 19xx | Avaliani, Lado
| New Horizon
(
xxx
)
Novel depicting the life and work of Georgian coalminers. (Georgian)
|
| 19xx | Azhaev, Vasili
| Prologue to Life
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Baklanov, Grigori
| Cost of War
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Bednii, Boris
| Lovers' Seat
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Beliayev, Aleksandr R.
| Flying Carpet
(
Kover-Samolet
)
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)
|
| 19xx | Beliayev, Aleksandr R.
| Hoity-Toity
(
Hoity-Toity
)
A very sane--not at all mad--Soviet scientist transplants the brain of a man into the body of an elephant.
|
| 19xx | Beliayev, Aleksandr R.
| Man Who Does Not Sleep
(
Chelovek Kotorii Ne Spit
)
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!
|
| 19xx | Berestov, Valentin
| Word of a Caterpillar
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Boldyrev, S.
| Deciding Years
(
Reshaiushchiye gody
)
Socialist superhero among the blast furnaces.
|
| 19xx | Bryl, Yanka
| The Birches White with Hoar-Frost
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Bubennov, Mikhail S.
| Fire in the Taiga
(
Ogon' v taige
)
Short story.
|
| 19xx | Bubennov, Mikhail S.
| Son of the Detachment
(
Syn otryada
)
Short story.
|
| 19xx | Bykov, Vasili V.
| Pack of Wolves
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Davydov, Yuri
| Adkhalib
(
Adkhalib
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Davydov, Yuri
| Blue Tulips
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Davydov, Yuri
| Sailor and Voyages
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Davydov, Yuri
| Scent of Almond
(
xxx
)
Novel recalling certain episodes in the story of the Russian revolution of 1905. 2
|
| 19xx | Davydov, Yuri
| Two Sheaves of Letters
(
Dve Svyazki Pisem
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Davydov, Yuri
| Watershed
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Davydov, Yuri
| White Rider
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Drabkina, Elizaveta
| Golden Autumn
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Dumbadze, Nodar
| Granny, Iliko, Illarion and I
(
xxx
)
The story of the wartime childhood of an orphaned Georgian boy and his youth and studies at Tbilisi University. (Georgian)
|
| 19xx | Dumbadze, Nodar
| Kukaracha.
(
xxx
)
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)
|
| 19xx | Fadeev, Aleksandr A.
| Last of the Udeghe
(
Poslednii iz Udege
)
Unfinished novel about the Udeghe people of far eastern Siberia.
|
| 19xx | Fadeev, Aleksandr A.
| Tale of Our Youth.
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Fedin, Konstantin
| Bonfire
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Fedin, Konstantin
| Muzhiki
(
Muzhiki
)
Cruelty and brutality abound in several episodes from the life of a village shepherd and his daughter.
|
| 19xx | Fedoseev, Grigori
| Along the Eastern Sayan
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Fedoseev, Grigori
| Forest Mysteries
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Fedoseev, Grigori
| Meeting in the Taiga
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Fedoseev, Grigori
| Not This Time, Death
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Fedoseev, Grigori
| Trial of Endurance
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Fomenko, Vladimir
| The Earth Remembers
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Ganina, Maya
| Matvei and Shurka.
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | German, Yuri P.
| Aleksei Zhmakin
(
Aleksei Zhmakin
)
An escaped criminal is tracked down by a virtuous OGPU agent more inclined to "reform" his quarry than punish him.
|
| 19xx | German, Yuri P.
| Eternal Battle
(
xxx
)
A young doctor deals with his disappointment and volunteers for experiments studying the effects of x-rays.
|
| 19xx | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Conversations with Pasternak
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Deadwood
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Freemen
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Gulf
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Hard Times
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Hoard
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Restless Youth
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Story of My Childhood
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Wolves
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Glebov, Anatoly
| Pravdokha
(
Pravdokha
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Gorbatov, Boris L.
| Ordinary Arctic
(
xxx
)
An account of the heroic lives of polar explorers in the far north.
|
| 19xx | Gorky, Maksim
| Dostigayev and Others
(
Dostigayev i drugiye
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Grossman, Vasilii
| People Are Immortal, The
(
Narod bessmerten
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Guk, Gennady
| The Throbbing Heart of the Ship
(
xxx
)
Short novel about sailors.
|
| 19xx | Gurevich, Georgi
| Infra Draconis
(
Infra Draconis
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Gussein, Mekhti
| The Deer
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Ilf, Ilya & Petrov, Evgeny
| Columbus Comes Ashore
(
Kolumb Prichalivaet k Beregu
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Ilf, Ilya & Petrov, Evgeny
| Nervous People
(
Nervniye liudi
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Off To Meet the Southbound Birds
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Kataev, Valentin P.
| Flag
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Kazantsev, Aleksandr
| Visitor From Outer Space
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Kekketyn, Ketsai
| Khoyalkhot
(
Khoyalkhot
)
xxx. (In the Koryak language.)
|
| 19xx | Ketlinskaya, Vera
| Courage
(
xxx
)
Dramatic novel about the pioneers who built the town of Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
|
| 19xx | Khalov, Pavel
| Bearing 307
(
xxx
)
About the life of Far-Eastern fishermen.
|
| 19xx | Khalov, Pavel
| Calling All Ships
(
xxx
)
About the life of Far-Eastern fishermen.
|
| 19xx | Khodzher, Grigori
| Lake Emoron
(
xxx
)
In the Nanai language.
|
| 19xx | Khodzher, Grigori
| Seagulls Gather Over the Sea
(
xxx
)
In the Nanai language.
|
| 19xx | Kholopov, Georgi
| Stories of the War
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Kimonko, Djansi
| Where the Sukpai Flows
(
xxx
)
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)
|
| 19xx | Knorre, Fyodor
| The Good Ship Cormorant
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Kochetov, Vsevolod
| The Zhurbins
(
Zhurbiny
)
Chronicle of working-class shipbuilders, who before the revolution
endure the horrors of capitalist exploitation, and then fight for Soviet
power.
|
| 19xx | Kononov, Aleksandr
| Visit to Koshino
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Koptelov, Afanasi
| Come Forth the Flames
(
xxx
)
Siberian novel.
|
| 19xx | Koptelov, Afanasi
| Great Beginning
(
xxx
)
Siberian novel.
|
| 19xx | Kurchatkin, Anatolii
| Guillotine
(
xxx
)
A depressed man, after several attempts at suicide, stubles upon an
Institute of Quick and Easy Death, where they mercifully decapitate him.1
|
| 19xx | Kurchatkin, Anatolii
| Maze, The
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 19xx | Makayonok, Andrei
| His Wife in Orbit
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Markov, Georgi M.
| Salt of the Earth
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Markov, Georgi M.
| Strogovs, The
(
Strogovi
)
Chronicles the adjustments of Siberian peasants to the new Soviet power.
|
| 19xx | Melezh, Ivan
| People of the Swamps
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Nagibin, Yuri M
| Chetunov, Son of Chetunov
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 19xx | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Butterflies
(
Babochki
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Chase
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 19xx | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Darkness at the End of the Tunnel
(
T'ma v kontse tunnelya
)
Povest.
|
| 19xx | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Echo
(
Ekho
)
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
|
| 19xx | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Into Those Young Years
(
V te iunye gody
)
Povest.
|
| 19xx | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| Man and a Road
(
xxx
)
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
|
| 19xx | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| My Golden Mother-in-law
(
Moya zolotaya tyoshcha
)
Povest.
|
| 19xx | Nagibin, Yuri M.
| School Album
(
Shkol'nii al'bom
)
Povest.
|
| 19xx | Nagishkin, Dmitri
| Heart of Bonivur
(
xxx
)
Novel about a romantic young revolutionary who took part in the Civil War and the partisan movement in the Far East.
|
| 19xx | Nagishkin, Dmitri
| Tales of the Amur
(
xxx
)
Stories of the lives of people of the far north.
|
| 19xx | Nikitin, Nikolai
| Daisy
(
xxx
)
Story of a young tigress and her escape from captivity.
|
| 19xx | Nikitin, Nikolai
| Night
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Labels for Colonial Goods
(
xxx
)
Romantic short story.
|
| 19xx | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Snow
(
Snyeg
)
New acquaintances, snow, and memories--real and imagined. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
| 19xx | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Steel Ring
(
xxx
)
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.)
|
| 19xx | Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Telegram
(
xxx
)
The aged daugher of a famous artist recalls a journey with her father to Paris and Victor Hugo's funeral, which they attended.
|
| 19xx | Permitin, Efim
| Mountain Eagles
(
xxx
)
Siberian novel.
|
| 19xx | Pikul, Valentin S.
| Hard Labor
(
Katorga
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Pikul, Valentin S.
| Paris At Three O'Clock
(
Parizh na Tri Chasa
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Pikul, Valentin S.
| To Each His Own
(
Kazhdomu Svoe
)
The fate of the French Republican general Moro and his attempt to disrupt the ambitions dictatorial schemes of Napoleon.
|
| 19xx | Pilnyak, Boris
| His Majesty Kneeb Piter Komandor
(
Evo velichestvo Kneeb Piter Komandor
)
Short story.
|
| 19xx | Pilnyak, Boris
| Old House
(
Starii dom
)
Short story.
|
| 19xx | Platonov, Andrei
| Blue Depth
(
Golubaya Glubina
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Platonov, Andrei
| Chevengur
(
Chevengur
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Platonov, Andrei
| Happy Moscow
(
Schastlivaya Moskva
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Platonov, Andrei
| Hidden Man
(
Sokrovenii Chelovek
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Platonov, Andrei
| Homeland of Electricity, The
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Platonov, Andrei
| Inhabitant of the State
(
Gosudarstvenni Zhitel
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Platonov, Andrei
| Jewel Sea
(
Iuvelirnoye Morye
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Platonov, Andrei
| Lenin's Lamp
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Platonov, Andrei
| Moscow Violin
(
Moskovskaya skripka
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Prishvin, Mikhail
| Golden Horn
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Prishvin, Mikhail
| Root of Life
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Proskurin, Pyotr
| The Storm Reveals the Roots
(
xxx
)
Novel about the lumberjacks of the taiga.
|
| 19xx | Rogal, Nikolai
| At Sunrise
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Rogal, Nikolai
| Meeting
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Rogal, Nikolai
| On the Border
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Roshchin, Mikhail
| Evacuation Train
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Sartakov, Sergei
| First Meeting
(
xxx
)
Collections of stories portraying Lenin.
|
| 19xx | Savchenko, Vladimir
| Professor Bern's Awakening
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Seifullina, Lidia N.
| Old Woman
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Selvinsky, Ilya
| Pao-Pao
(
Pao-Pao
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Semyonov, Georgi
| Cuckoo Called
(
Kukovala Kukushka
)
A man can't figure out why he's come to the countryside to rest.
|
| 19xx | Semyonov, Julian
| TASS Is Authorized To Announce
(
xxx
)
KGB foils an attempt by the evil CIA to foster a right-wing coup in a fictional pro-Soviet African nation.
|
| 19xx | Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| Adventures of a Society Lady
(
Prikliucheniya damy is obshchestva
)
Povest.
|
| 19xx | Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| Agitation Train
(
Agitvagon
)
Short story.
|
| 19xx | Shestalov, Yuvan
| Blue Wind of Kaslania
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Shestalov, Yuvan
| Eyes of the White Night
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Shestalov, Yuvan
| Fire Upon Fire
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Shestalov, Yuvan
| Heathen Poem
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Shestalov, Yuvan
| Misne
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Shestalov, Yuvan
| Song of the Last Swan
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Shudnik, Nikolai
| Fleet-Footed Deer
(
xxx
)
Concerning life among the Chukchi and in the Far North.
|
| 19xx | Shudnik, Nikolai
| In the Far North
(
xxx
)
Concerning life among the Chukchi and in the Far North.
|
| 19xx | Shudnik, Nikolai
| On the Soil of Chukotka
(
xxx
)
Concerning life among the Chukchi and in the Far North.
|
| 19xx | Shudnik, Nikolai
| Well by the Birch
(
xxx
)
Concerning life among the Chukchi and in the Far North.
|
| 19xx | Shukshin, Vasily
| Men of One Soil
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Shukshin, Vasily
| Stepan in Love
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Simonov, Konstantin M.
| So Shall It Be
(
Tak i Budet
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Simonov, Konstantin M.
| Wait For Me
(
Zhdi Menya
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Snegov, Sergei
| Looking for the Way
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Sobolev, Leonid
| General Overhaul
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Soloukhin, Vladimir
| Midsummer Day's Game, A
(
xxx
)
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.)
|
| 19xx | Stein, Aleksandr
| Ocean
(
Okean
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Stelmakh, Mikhailo
| Let The Blood Of Man Not Flow
(
Krov' Liudskaya - Ne Voditsa
)
In Ukraine of 1920, peasants struggle against brutal kulaks.
|
| 19xx | Strugatsky, Arakdy & Boris
| Spontaneous Reflex
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Taurin, Franz
| Angara
(
xxx
)
Siberian novelist.
|
| 19xx | Tokareva, Viktoriya
| Center of Gravity
(
xxx
)
A woman amusingly recounts the various ways she's tried to commit suicide.1
|
| 19xx | Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Snow House
(
Snezhnii dom
)
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.)
|
| 19xx | Trifonov, Yuri
| Another Life
(
Drugaya Zhizn'
)
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.
|
| 19xx | Vesely, Artem
| Russia Washed in Blood
(
Rossiya Kroviu Omytaya
)
At the beginning of the Revolution, soldiers desert en masse from the front.
|
| 19xx | Zadornov, Nikolai P.
| Father Amur
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Canvas Briefcase
(
xxx
)
xxx.
|
| 19xx | Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Let Losers Cry
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
| 19xx | Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| You Will Never Forget.
(
xxx
)
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.
|
| Mini-Summaries | Encyclopedia of Soviet Writers | Soviet Literature Links | the "Thin Journal" |
|
Subscribe to the SovLit.com Mailing List. Send e-mail with the word SUBSCRIBE in subject field to: sovlit-subscribe@egroups.com |