My Russian best

Here are a list of my favorite works of Russian literature complete with comments.


19th century

Griboyedov, Aleksandr

Woe from Wit

A great play about generations and the conflict of ideas. Chatsky, the main character, returns to Moscow after studying abroad to find that his hometown considers him insane for the new attitude and ideas he brings back.


Pushkin, Aleksandr

Poetry

His greatest poems include the Bronze Horseman and his novel in verse Eugene Onegin.

Short Stories

Besides being a great poet, Pushkin also pioneered the Russian prose tradition. His short stories are very stylish and concise.



Gogol, Nicolai

Ukrainian Tales

Short stories set in Gogol's native Ukraine featuring stock characters like the lusty seminarian and the horrifying gnome creature Viy with eyelids that reach to the floor.

Petersburg Tales

The strangest part of Gogol, if that is possible. Contains such classics as the Nose, Nevsky Prospect, Diary of a Madman, and the Overcoat. Just think of a Kafka before Kafka.


The Government Inspector

Gogol's play about corrupt city officials and their scrambling attempts to cover up their crimes when they mistake a young stranger for the Government Inspector.


Dead Souls

The story of Pavel Chichikov who wanders rural Russia buying up the dead to serfs who have died in the last year before they are taken of the ledgers. A tour de force prose poem for the ages.


Lermontov, Mikhail

A Heroe for Our Time.

The main character, Pechorin, is everyone's favorite unfeeling prick who uses people for his own purposes before disposing of them. This collection of intertwined narratives is set in the majestic setting of the Caucuses.


Goncharov, Ivan

Oblomov

This novel is about an aristocrat that doesn't do anything. It's as if Alonso Quijano dreamt of being Don Quixote but never quite got around to it.


Dostoyevsky, Feodor

The House of the Dead

This is a fictionalized account of Dostoyevsky's time in a Siberian prison camp.


Diary from the Underground

This short story's main character is a unique creation in all literature.


Crime and Punishment

A maddening novel, like all of Dostoyevsky. A tale of intellectual pride and redemption. My favorite part of the novel is the ending.


The Brothers Karamazov

A challenging work. The character of Elder Zosima and Alyosha the monk in the world are classics. Also, one cannot forget the Grand Inquisitor as told by the atheist Ivan



Tolstoy, Leo

Anna Karenina

I have read most of this work but did not quite finish due to some unforeseen event. Yet I still remember many of the characters and descriptive language.


The Death of Ivan Ilyich

A novella about the decline and fall of an ambitious minor noble.


Vladimir, Soloviev

The Antichrist

An unforgettable fable of the end times.


Chekov, Anton

Short Stories

Chekov is one of the best short story writers in the history of literature.




20th century

Bely, Andrei

St. Petersburg

This experimental novel is akin to Joyce's Ulysses some 20 years later.

It portrays the conflict between the old guard and the rising generation that would head off the Revolution.




Bulgakov, Mikhail

Heart of a Dog

A novella about a Soviet scientist who takes a dog of the street and turns him into a man by altering his pituitary gland. A satire of Stalinist Russia.


Master and Margarita

A phantasmagorical romp through 1930's Moscow featuring the Devil and a cat named Behemoth.


Voinovich, Vladimir


The Ivankiad

A satire about collective housing in Soviet Russia.


21st century

(same author)

Monumental Propaganda

The history of a staunch Stalinist woman and the changing currents within the USSR political establishment from de-Stanlistization, Brezhnev and beyond.