Historical fiction books set in Russia (22)


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1.

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy EN

Rating: 4 (17 votes)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
From Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the best-selling, award-winning translators of Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov, comes a brilliant, engaging, and eminently readable translation of Leo Tolstoy’s master epic. • Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read War and Peace centers broadly on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the best-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who le... continue

2.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy EN

Rating: 4 (43 votes)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Presents the classic nineteenth-century Russian novel in which a young woman is destroyed when she attempts to live outside the moral law of her society.

3.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy EN

Rating: 5 (13 votes)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Hailed as one of the world's supreme masterpieces on the subject of death and dying, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face to face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth? This short novel was the artistic culmination of a profound spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life, a nine-year period following the publication of ... continue

4.

Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina EN

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
WINNER OF THE BIG BOOK AWARD, THE LEO TOLSTOY YASNAYA POLYANA AWARD AND THE BEST PROSE WORK OF THE YEAR AWARD A sweeping, multi-award winning novel set in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, as gangs of marauding soldiers terrorise and plunder the countryside. Zuleikha, the 'pitiful hen', is living in the home of her brutal husband and despotic mother-in-law in a small Tatar village. When her husband is executed by communist soldiers for hiding grain, she is arrested and sent into exile in Siberia. In the first gruelling winter, hundreds die of hunger, cold and exhaustion. Yet forced to s... continue

5.

Idiotul by F.M. Dostoievski RO

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Intors la Sankt Petersburg dupa un lung tratament la un sanatoriu din Elvetia, printul Lev Nikolaevici Miskin este luat in ris de inalta societatea a orasului, care il socoteste sarac cu duhul. Miskin se poarta mereu cu o sinceritate stingace, luata de majoritatea oamenilor drept prostie sau perfidie. In puritatea lui, Miskin se simte atras, din motive diferite, de doua femei de situatii opuse: Aglaia Ivanovna, femeia „cinstita”, de familie buna, de care e indragostit, si Nastasia Filippovna, femeia „compromisa”, de care printul se simte legat poate chiar mai profund, prin compasiunea pe care ... continue

6.

Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov EN

Rating: 4 (4 votes)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the highly acclaimed translators of War and Peace, Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Karenina, which was an Oprah Book Club pick and million-copy bestseller, bring their unmatched talents to The Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov, a collection of thirty of Chekhov’s best tales from the major periods of his creative life. Considered the greatest short story writer, Anton Chekhov changed the genre itself with his spare, impressionistic depictions of Russian life and the human condition. From characteristically brief, evocative early pieces such as “The Huntsman” and... continue

7.

The Orchard : A Novel by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry EN

Rating: 4 (2 votes)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Four teenagers grow inseparable in the last days of the Soviet Union—but not all of them will live to see the new world arrive in this powerful debut novel, loosely based on Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. “Spectacular . . . intensely evocative and gorgeously written . . . will fill readers’ eyes with tears and wonder.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: New York Post Coming of age in the USSR in the 1980s, best friends Anya and Milka try to envision a free and joyful future for themselves. They spend their summers at Anya’s dacha just outside of Moscow, lazing in ... continue

8.

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky EN

Rating: 4 (5 votes)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Returning to Russia from a sanitarium in Switzerland, the Christ-like epileptic Prince Myshkin finds himself enmeshed in a tangle of love, torn between two women—the notorious kept woman Nastasya and the pure Aglaia—both involved, in turn, with the corrupt, money-hungry Ganya. In the end, Myshkin’s honesty, goodness, and integrity are shown to be unequal to the moral emptiness of those around him. In her revision of the Garnett translation, Anna Brailovsky has corrected inaccuracies wrought by Garnett’s drastic anglicization of the novel, restoring as much as possible the syntactical structure... continue

9.

White Shanghai: A Novel of the Roaring Twenties in China by Elvira Baryakina EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Some call the city the 'Splendor of the East'; others the 'Whore of Asia'. A melting pot of different nations, fused by war and commerce, this is the Shanghai of the 1920s. The Great Powers are greedily exploiting China for its cheap labor and reaping the cruel rewards of the booming opium trade. When a flotilla of ships carries the remnants of the defeated White Army on entry to Shanghai, the fragile balance of this international marketplace comes under threat. Among the refugees is Klim Rogov, an emigre journalist whose life and marriage have been claimed by the Russian Revolution. All he ha... continue

10.

Zuleijá abre los ojos by Guzel Yakhina ES

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Corre la década de 1930 en la pequeña aldea de Tartaria donde viven Zuleijá, su rústico marido, treinta años mayor, y su anciana suegra, empeñada en castigarla por no darle nietos. La educación recibida impide a la joven resentir siquiera el grado de servidumbre al que está sometida o desear una vida distinta. Pero cuando una serie de acontecimientos la arranquen de su pequeña familia y la arrojen a un mundo no menos brutal, pero sí más ancho y diverso, lleno de personas de distintas procedencias, oficios y credos, ve... continue



13.

Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy EN

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Tolstoy’s final work—a gripping novella about the struggle between the Muslim Chechens and their inept occupiers—is a powerful moral fable for our time. Inspired by a historical figure Tolstoy heard about while serving in the Caucasus, this story brings to life the famed warrior Hadji Murat, a Chechen rebel who has fought fiercely and courageously against the Russian empire. After a feud with his commander he defects to the Russians, only to find that he is now trusted by neither side. He is first welcomed but then imprisoned by the Russians under suspicion of being a spy, and when he hears ne... continue

14.

August 1914 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
In his monumental narrative of the outbreak of the First World War and the ill-fated Russian offensive into East Prussia, Solzhenitsyn has written what Nina Krushcheva, in The Nation , calls "a dramatically new interpretation of Russian history." The assassination of tsarist prime minister Pyotr Stolypin, a crucial event in the years leading up to the Revolution of 1917, is reconstructed from the alienating viewpoints of historical witnesses. The sole voice of reason among the advisers to Tsar Nikolai II, Stolypin died at the hands of the anarchist Mordko Bogrov, and with him perishe... continue

15.

The Witch and the Tsar by Olesya Salnikova Gilmore EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
‘A delicate weaving of myth and history, The Witch and the Tsar breathes new life into stories you think you know’ Hannah Whitten, New York Times bestselling author of For the Wolf

16.

Little Foxes Took Up Matches by Katya Kazbek EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother’s sewing needle. For his family, it marks the beginning of the end, the promise of certain death. For Mitya, it is a small, metal treasure that guides him from within. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union, torn between its past and the promise of modern freedom. Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite a boy, as he often feels? After suffering horrific... continue

17.

Childhood, Boyhood, Youth by Leo Tolstoy EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
The artistic work of Leo Tolstoy has been described as 'nothing less than one tremendous diary kept for over fifty years'. This particular 'diary' begins with Tolstoy's first published work, Childhood, which was written when he was only twenty-three. A semi-autobiographical work, it recounts two days in the childhood of ten-year-old Nikolai Irtenev, recreating vivid impressions of people, place and events with the exuberant perspective of a child enriched by the ironic retrospective understanding of an adult. Boyhood and Youth soon followed, and Tolstoy was launched on the literary career that... continue

18.

Never Remember : Searching for Stalin's Gulags in Putin's Russia by Masha Gessen EN

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
,"A book that belongs on the shelf alongside The Gulag Archipelago. -- Kirkus Reviews A haunting literary and visual journey deep into Russia's past -- and present. The Gulag was a monstrous network of labor camps that held and killed millions of prisoners from the 1930s to the 1950s. More than half a century after the end of Stalinist terror, the geography of the Gulag has been barely sketched and the number of its victims remains unknown. Has the Gulag been forgotten?Writer Masha Gessen and photographer Misha Friedman set out across Russia in search of the memory of the Gulag. They journey f... continue

19.

The First Circle by Aleksandr Solzhenit︠s︡yn EN

Rating: 4.5 (4 votes)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Gleb Nerzhin, a brilliant mathematician, lives out his life in post-war Russia in a series of prisons and labor camps where he and his fellow inmates work to meet the demands of Stalin.

20.

Zuleiha deschide ochii by Guzel Yakhina RO

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Marea revelație a literaturii ruse din 2015, romanul Zuleiha deschide ochii, salutat cu entuziasm la apariție de Ludmila Ulițkaia și Evgheni Vodolazkin, a fost recompensat cu cele mai importante premii: Bolșaia Kniga (dublu câștigãtor, Premiul întâi și Premiul cititorilor – Locul întâi), Iasnaia Poliana (Lev Tolstoi) și Kniga Goda. Este în curs de traducere în peste treizeci de limbi. Zuleiha, o tânără gravidă dintr-un sat de tătari, e deportată în Siberia după uciderea soțului ei de către un ofițer din Armata Roșie. Face o ... continue

21.

Copiii de pe Volga by Guzel Yakhina RO

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Iakob Ivanovici Bach, profesor în satul german Gnadental de pe Volga, duce o viață simplă, anonimă. Într-o zi, este chemat pe celălalt mal al fluviului ce „împarte lumea în două“ să-i dea lecții unei tinere fragile și timide, Klara, fiica unui straniu personaj Udo Grimm. Nu e deloc surprinzător că între cei doi se înfiripă o poveste de iubire. Este însă singurul fapt previzibil din acest roman amețitor, căci în clipa următoare istoria dă năvală, răsturnând reguli și destine, realitatea capătă accente supranaturale, adevărul nu mai este același și totul se topește într-o grandioasă epopee din r... continue

22.

Trenul spre Samarkand by Guzel Yakhina RO

Rating: 3 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Russia flag Russia
Description:
Anul 1923. Noua Uniune Sovietică e un tărâm haotic, bântuit de o foamete cruntă și încă zguduit de ultimele zvâcniri ale Războiului Civil. Neîndurătoarea politică a rechiziționărilor a ucis milioane de oameni, a pustiit sate, a destrămat familii și a lăsat fără adăpost cohorte întregi de copii, care acum rătăcesc flămânzi peste tot. Combatantul forțelor civile de tineret Deev primește misiunea de a forma un tren care să transporte 500 de copii de la Kazan până în Samarkandul mai îndestulat. Astfel începe o călătorie aventuroasă,... continue