Russian Literature

When a stray dog dying on the streets of Moscow is taken in by a wealthy professor, he is subjected to medical experiments in which he receives various transplants of human organs. As he begins to transform into a rowdy, unkempt human by the name of...
By: Mikhail Bulgakov

In this collection of short stories, drawing heavily from the author’s own experiences as a medical graduate on the eve of the Russian Revolution, Bulgakov describes a young doctor’s turbulent and often brutal introduction to his practice in the...
By: Mikhail Bulgakov

A tale of intrigue, deception, murder and retribution, Boris Godunov charts the rise and fall of an ambitious prince who cannot avoid facing the consequences of his dark past. Based on the historical figure of the nobleman Boris Godunov, who seized...
By: Alexander Pushkin

In The Death of a Civil Servant, an administrative clerk accidentally sneezes on a hierarchical superior at the opera, which results in great embarrassment and hilarious and futile attempts at atonement. The other short stories included in this...
By: Anton Chekhov

In a series of nine letters, the narrator tells his friend how he introduced Vera Nikolayevna, a married woman who had been forbidden as a child to read fiction and poetry, to the intellectual pleasures of Goethe’s masterpiece. Opening up in front...
By: Ivan Turgenev

Hadji Murat, one of the most feared and venerated mountain chiefs in the Chechen struggle against the Russians, defects from the Muslim rebels after feuding with his ruling Imam, Shamil. Hoping to protect his family, he joins the Russians, who...
By: Leo Tolstoy

The first story in this volume, How the Two Ivans Quarrelled , is an amusing portrayal of two exceptionally close friends, the mortal insult that drives them apart, and the ensuing chaos that occurs. This is Gogol’s humour at its best, where the...
By: Nikolai Gogol

Presented as a series of letters between the humble copying-clerk Devushkin and a distant relative of his, the young Varenka, Poor People brings to the fore the underclass of St Petersburg, who live at the margins of society in the most appalling...
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Dmitry Rudin, a high-minded gentleman of reduced means, arrives at the estate of Darya Mikhailovna, where his intelligence, eloquence and conviction immediately make a powerful impression. As he stays on longer than intended, Rudin exerts a strong...
By: Ivan Turgenev