Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida (Penguin Classics)
Robert Chandler
Language: English
Pages: 656
ISBN: 0140448462
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
From the reign of the Tsars in the early nineteenth century to the collapse of the Soviet Union and beyond, the short story has long occupied a central place in Russian culture. Included here are pieces from many of the acknowledged masters of Russian literature—including Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn—alongside tales by long-suppressed figures such as the subversive Kryzhanowsky and the surrealist Shalamov. Whether written in reaction to the cruelty of the bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy of communism, or the torture of the prison camps, they offer a wonderfully wide-ranging and exciting representation of one of the most vital and enduring forms of Russian literature.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
‘In the Autumn’, would be depressing were it not for Shukshin's evident compassion towards his characters. IN THE AUTUMN Ferry operator Filipp Tyurin finished listening to the latest news on the radio, hung around at the table some more, and was sternly silent… ‘There's just no stoppin' 'em!’ he said angrily. ‘Who you railin' at this time?’ asked Filipp's wife, a tall old woman with manly hands and a man's deep booming voice. ‘They're bombin' again!’ Filipp nodded at the radio. ‘Who're
fucking. The girls, watching from afar, know what the rabbits are doing, but don't use the word fucking. The brazen boys, wanting the girls’ attention, make circles with thumb and forefinger, then insert the other forefinger, and slide it back and forth. The girls walk off. Thus I lead my girl through my childhood, but she neither sees nor cares; she walks beside me in silence, thinking only of how her spook may have had her shadowed. She walks with amazing calm. She is simply numb and blind
Primo Levi, The Search for Roots (London: Penguin, 2001), p. 140. SALT 1. Yids… Lenin: Many Cossacks imagined Lenin to be Jewish. MIKHAIL ZOSHCHENKO 1. Mikhail Zoshchenko, Scenes from the Bathhouse (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961), pp. viii–ix. 2. Quoted by Cathy Popkin, The Pragmatics of Insignificance (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 60. 3. Andrey Sinyavsky, Soviet Civilization (New York: Arcade, 1990), p. 199. PELAGEYA 1. Young Pioneers: The
instructed to hold the stiff for a moment while he quickly reached down into his boot for his snuffbox, since his nose had already suffered frostbite six times and he needed to revive it a little; but his snuff was evidently so strong that not even a stiff could bear it. No sooner had the policeman closed his right nostril with one finger and drawn a half-handful of snuff up into his left nostril than the stiff sneezed so violently as completely to bespatter the eyes of all three of them. While
is broken, until the banker has dealt out his whole pack. THE QUEEN OF SPADES The Queen of Spades signifies secret malice. The latest guide to fortune-telling. 1 In rainy weather They gathered together To play. To double – redouble – A stake was no trouble, They say. They did not find it hard To entrust to a card Their pay, So no day of rain Ever slipped by in vain, They say. That night their host was Narumov, an officer in the Horse Guards. The long winter night