of 2005 Catalog (revised January 2006):
BELYJ, Andrej. THE CHRISTENED CHINAMAN $12.00
Translated from the Russian by Thomas R. Beyer. Jr. (A novel. 200 pp.)
Published in Moscow in 1927, Belyj's autobiographical novel describes
family life and Moscow academic society at the turn of the last century,
attempting to capture the memory and imagination of a child in the sustained
rhythmic prose of the adult Symbolist poet and theoretician. In The
Christened Chinaman Belyj ultimately reconciles himself with the figure of
"father" that had so haunted his earlier novels, The Silver Dove and
Petersburg. In Professor Beyer's translation accuracy and fidelity to the
original capture that complexity and make the special magic of Belyj's
ornamental prose accessible to a new audience of English readers.
BELYJ, Andrei. IN THE KINGDOM OF SHADOWS $9.00
Translated from the Russian by Catherine Spitzer.
(A memoir with notes and index, 81 pp.)
This is a first translation into English of Belyj’s reminiscences, observations and philosophical thoughts from his stay abroad from 1921 to 1923. Belyj went through Riga and Kaunas to Berlin where he spent the large part of his journey. Professor Spitzer’s attempt at an accurate translation of a complex original is aimed at Belyj specialists as well as a larger audience of cultural historians who can for the first time immerse themselves in the atmosphere of post-WWI Europe as seen through the eyes of this prominent Russian Symbolist writer.
BROUDE, Inna, SZULKIN, Robert (eds). THE TIMES OF TURMOIL $12.00
Translated by Arkady Yanishevsky
(Anthology, 200 pp.)
In the 1980s it became quite obvious how much perestroika and emigre literature had in common, at least in their original impulses and manifestations. Hypocrisy as the reason behind the collapse of the human soul became the primary theme of perestroika literature. Emigre authors portrayed hypocrisy as a stigma of the totalitarian system. This common feature has become the primary thematic axis of a new anthology. Included are the works by Yuri Druzhnikov, Venedikt Erofeev, Nina Katerli, Vladimir Matlin, V. Pyetsukh, Felix Roziner, and others.
BUNIN, Ivan. IN A FAR DISTANT LAND $8.50
Translated from the Russian by Robert Bowie. 170 pp.
The publication of this collection of stories by the great 20th century Russian writer marked the 30th anniversary of his death and the 50th anniversary of his Nobel Prize (1933). Most of the stories have not been previously published in English, or were published in translations from texts not revised by the author for final publication. The love-death theme was one of the criteria for the selection of titles.
DOMBROVSKY, V.V. “HER EYES EXTOLLED QUITE OFTEN…” $9.50
(Memoirs, 150 pp., illustr., index. Translated by Helen Reeve)
Genrietta Davydovna Levitina-Dombrovskaya had a joyful life. She was young, talented, and beautiful. Her husband held a high post in the Leningrad Military District. Her boys grew up healthy and happy. She had an interesting job in the editorial office of a children's magazine. She was a close friend with the most gifted people of the time: of Shostakovich, Kharms, Shvarts, Oleinikov, Zabolotsky. But all collapsed in that ominous year of 1937: her husband perished in the terror, and she entered upon an endless period of arrests, imprisonments, camps, exiles.
Vyacheslav Dombrovsky (Genrietta Davydovna's son) has been able to recreate in this memoir not merely the history of his family, but the whole atmosphere of Soviet Russia, from the 1930's to the 1950's, as well—a time when the great enthusiasm of the initial post-revolutionary years turned into the terrible disillusionment with communism's ideals and practice.
DUBNOVA-ERLIKH, Sophia. BREAD AND MATZOTH $24.50
(Memoirs, 400 pp., illustr., index. Translated by Alan Shaw)
Sofia Dubnov-Erlikh’s memoirs cover the most dramatic period in the history of European Jewry: years 1890-1939. Born in Minsk region, brought up in Odessa, in the family of a well known Jewish historian, she came to St.-Petersburg to study at the Besstuzhev Institute and became a poet, a literary critic, a scientist, a revolutionary. In Russia and in emigration she met Blok and Briusov, Gorky and Gumilev, Zhabotisnky and Merezhkovsky, Kamenev and Lenin. Her sharp eye for a psychological detail, her literary talent, and her deep moral interpretation of historical cataclysms make the reading of her life story both exciting and enriching.
FIVE TALENTS OR ONE? The Shocking Secret
of Inequality $14.00
(Political philosophical study, 150 pp., bibliography, index.
Translation of Stydnaia taina neravenstva by Scott D. Moss)
The author makes an
attempt to find an explanation for the following three
of the political history of the 20th century: a) why did all the democratic
come to be internally split into two stable political camps (namely, liberals
and conservatives)?; b) why has the democratic form of government introduced in
post-colonial era was overthrown in so many countries? c) what is the nature of
the forces which are unleashed in the waves of mass terror? This study is trying
to find inner connections of these phenomena with the innate inequality of human
GLAD, John. FUTURE HUMAN EVOLUTION: Eugenics in the 21st Century $12.00
(170 pages, bibliography, index) With Preface by Seymor Itzkoff.
A January 2006 Google search for the word “eugenics” produced 1,700,000 hits, convincingly disproving the claim that the eugenics movement died in the 1930s and is only a “historical” phenomenon. Paradoxically, it was driven underground only beginning in the late 1960s – a period of explosive growth in our knowledge of genetics. Future Human Evolution lays out the history of the eugenics movement and the politics that continues to rage around it. John Glad objectively articulates the fundamental questions of human population management and society’s genetic substratum within the context of the environmental movement (“human ecology”) and the movement for human rights – in this case of future generations. Professor Glad is the former Director of The Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies.
GLAD, John. RUSSIA ABROAD: WRITERS, HISTORY, POLITICS. $59.50
With forward by Victor Terras. (730 pp., cl., bibliography, annotated names list.)
This is the most comprehensive history of Russian literary and political emigration covering centuries of Russian history. Special attention is given to the Soviet period (1817-1991). The book includes 125-page chronology, 28-page bibliography, 75-page annotated names list. Professor Glad has been collecting data for this study for about 25 years. He is the former Director of Kennan Institute. His books include Literature in Exile, Twentieth Century Russian Poetry, and others. His translation of Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales was published by Penguin Modern Classics.
Michael. TSAR ALEXANDER I. Portrait of an Autocrat
(Biographical study, 420 pp., bibliography, index.)
Tsar Alexander I of Russia (ruled 1801-1825) was and has remained one of the most mysterious and tragic rulers in history. His sudden death became as enigmatic as was his life. A factual account of his life presented by Professor Michael Klimenko in this book is written in illustrative setting, descriptively, graphically. It makes a fascinating reading about those crucial events of the times before and after French Revolution.
ISBN 1-55779-148-1 (pbk); 1-55779-149-x (cl)
LOEWALD, Elizabeth. SIGHTING ANTON PAVLOVICH $12.00 (pbk)
(Essay, 120 pp., bibl., index, illustrations.) $22.50 (cl)
Since Anton Chekhov’s death one hundred years ago, his works and his life story have remained compelling and “modern.” This book analyzes his life as doctor and writer: his pleasures and talents, childhood vicissitudes; and his chronic tuberculosis. All these affected his character, life choices, and literary works. The author, a psychiatrist, is also a writer, and has personal experience of tuberculosis. She presents here a picture of Russian medicine in Dr. Chekvov’s days. She traces the medical approaches to consumption during and after Chekhov’s life. Following Anton Pavlovich’s literary precepts, she writes clearly and tightly; but finds an imaginative synthesis for the many ways of “sighting” him.
MOSCOVIT, Andrei (pen name of Igor Efimov) OUR CHOICE AND HISTORY $12.50
Translated from the Russian by Isabel Heaman
(Historical Philosophical Essay, bibl., index, 280 pp.)
How do nations get the government they have, and do they deserve them? What are the advantages and disadvantages of totalitarian regimes and of democracies? What triggers war? Can historical events be determined by the will of the microcosm of society – namely, the individual human being? If so, what is the process of this determination? Author discusses these and other important philosophical questions in the book which first circulated in Samizdat (under the title “Metapolitika”) and was reprinted in Russia after the fall of communism.
ISBN 1-55779-144-9 (cl); 1-55779-138-4 (pbk)
MURATOV, M.V. L.N. TOLSTOY AND V.G. CHERTKOV $29.50 (pbk)
(Biographical essay, 340 pp., illustr., index. Translated $39.50 (cl)
from Russian by Scott D. Moss.)
In 1879 Lev Tolstoy, being at the height of literary recognition and personal prosperity, experienced an emotional crisis, which turned his life inside out. From that time on he tried to look for new paths and devoted the last 30 years of the life to this search. His main companion in this search was Vladimir Grigorievich Chertkov, acquaintance with whom had begun in 1883. Their emotional bond and mutual understanding developed into close long-term friendship.
It seems the value and importance of Muratov’s book, based on the correspondence and diaries of Tolstoy and Chertkov, lays in the fact that it provides us with an inside look into history of this spiritual search.
Valentina. ADVANCED RUSSIAN THROUGH FILM:
A Collection of Transcripts And Exercises $20.00
(178 pages, glossary, format 8.5” x 11”)
This book is intended as a supplement to any advanced Russian grammar textbook. It is especially useful for students who in addition to developing their communicative skills aim to achieve deeper awareness of Russian discourse grammar, syntax, and stylistics. Texts and assignments can be used in any sequence and therefore are presented in alphabetical order. Some assignments are accompanied by concise grammatical information necessary for their completion. Most questions are of an analytical nature (general or linguistic) and are intended to be used for individual work as well as for discussion in small groups. Various written assignments are included to aid in developing advanced writing skills (general and academic).
STILMAN, Leon. GOGOL $ 15.00
(Biographical study, 240 pp., index)
"Gogol's subjective disharmony, his inner contradictions, may have been to some extent conditioned by the objective contradictions, social, cultural or national, to which he was exposed," writes the author of this biographical study, a former professor of Columbia University Leon Stilman. "But it is likely that they were largely independent of such conditioning. His main conflict was a conflict within himself; it appears in the form of a demand for ever-increasing, and finally impossible, achievement, made by an imperious force within him - a powerful urge, at once creative and self-destructive." The book was edited by Galina Stilman and published in cooperation with Columbia University.
CONVERSATIONAL RUSSIAN. An Intermediate Course $10.00
(2nd edition, revised and updated. 210 pp., 40 photos, Rus.-Engl. Glos.)
This book is intended to help students of Russian develop ease in the conversational use of the language and at the same time gain an insight into traditional and contemporary Russian cultural values. Each of its 15 graded lessons deals with a particular aspect of everyday life, both here in the USA and in Russia. When the conversation takes place in Russia, the student is introduced to both the new vocabulary and the difference in way of life. Each lesson provides common idiomatic expressions and vocabulary essential to effective conversation on the lesson topic. The exercises are designed primarily for oral training.
ASHKENAZY, Vladimir, with Jasper Parrott. PREODOLEVAIA GRANITSY $12.50
(Beyond Frontiers. Memoirs. Transl. from the English by Igor and Marina Yefimov. Illustr., index, 250 pp.)
Thousands of the famous musician's fans send letters expressing their admiration, thanking him for his concerts and records, and showering him with questions about his life. The reader will find answers to many of these questions in this book of Ashkenazy's memoirs, although its main theme is the fate of the artist in the modern world. Twenty years in the West have put the author in a unique position to come to know the world of music on both sides of the iron curtain, a knowledge which he shares with the reader. The book is richly illustrated with photographs from the Ashkenazy family archives, kindly provided by the author.
BELOMLINSKY, Mikhail. VESELYE PRICK-LIUCHENIIA $9.00
(Merry Pre-Dick-Aments. An album of humorous sketches, 100 pp.)
Mikhail Belomlinsky graduated from the Repin Institute of the Arts in Leningrad in 1960. During his 40-year career he illustrated so many books and magazines that gathered together they would create a solid home library. Many critics praised elegance of his sketches, his gift for kind humor, rich variety of his artistic methods. In this last album the artist doesn’t illustrate stories written by others but rather plays a role of an author himself: the same main character moves from page to page in different disguises. Belomlinsky’s imagination is as unpredictable as one of Bruegel, Dore, Beardsley.
BITOV, Andrei. NOVYI GULLIVER $15.00
(New Gulliver. Essays, 220 pp.)
This collection of essays by the well known writer covers a wide variety of topics connected with Russian cultural life in the 20th century. Shostakovich, Platonov, Nabokov, Solzhenitsyn are the subjects of discussion, but also many less known writers, poets, movie directors. The fine sense of style so characteristic of Bitov's prose is also present in this gallery of literary portraits. It gives the reader a new perspective on the spiritual aspirations of the 20th century's.
BLIZNETSOVA, Ina. SOLEA $10.00
(Poems, 120 pp.)
This is the fourth collection of poems by Ina Bliznetsova; and it has been exactly ten years since the publication (also by Hermitage) of her first collection in 1988. Her poetic voice is easily recognizable by those characteristic features, already noted by the reviewers: "By uncovering the signs of things heavenly in the things that are earthy and everyday... Bliznetsova reminds one of Tiutchev and Mandelstam..." (Olga Meerson); "Her poetry... is rhythmically diverse, unfettered, and flexibly responsive to all the fluc-tuations of the author's voice" (Gerald Janecek).
BROUDE, Inna. TAKOE VOT KINO. Russkie filmy 1990s. $14.00
(That’s the Movies. Russian films of the 1990s.
Articles, 128 pp., illus., index of names.)
This collection contains 12 reviews of 12 most successful Russian films of recent years, including: The Thief, The Brother, Burnt by the Sun, Khrustalev, my car! and others. The articles successfully combine the author’s emotional involvement with a fine professional analysis of the latest trends in Russian filmmaking. Inna Broude worked for many years for the journal Ikusstvo kino (Moscow). Since emigrating to the USA (1980), she has taught at Brandeis University, and published books and articles on Russian literature and film, as well as stories and translations.
GALICH, Aleksandr. U MIKROFONA ALEKSANDR GALICH $12.00
(Alexander Galich at the Microphone. With a foreword by A. Syniavsky and M.Rozanova. 172 pp., illus.)
While living in the West, Aleksandr Galich often broadcast on Radio Liberty. His friends have prepared a collection of these broadcasts. The subjects are many and varied: from the news of Samizdat and Tamizdat to impressions of Western life. The main part of this volume is taken up by stories of the genesis of Galich's famous songs. The texts of these songs are also included in this volume.
GENIS, Aleksandr. AMERIKANSKAIA AZBUKA $9.00
(U.S.A. from A to Z. Essays, 120 pp.)
The renowned literary critic and journalist creates in this book a unique, "stained-glass" picture of contemporary America. Dry names like "Automobile," "Bank," "Motel," "Restaurant," "Church," and "School" title fascinating essays on the semiotics of everyday life. At the same time they are not encyclopedic articles but short poems in prose. Inanimate objects are transformed into breathing, organic entities with which one may enter into a dramatic dialogue.
GORBANEVSKAIA, Natalia. TSVET VERESKA $9.00
(Heather Blossom. Poems, 120 pp.)
This is the seventh collection of poems by this well-known Russian poet living in France. They have the same motif of melancholy enchantment by the simple mystery of everyday life as her previous works. Natalia Gorbanevskaia worked for the underground press Samizdat, participated with a new born baby in the demonstration against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. She spent many months in a psychiatric prison, and then, after emigration to the West, had been working actively in the editorial staffs of such publications as Kontinent, Russkaia mysl' and others.
GORDIN, Jakov. LEV TOLSTOI I RUSSKAIA ISTORIIA $12.00
(Leo Tolstoy and Russian History. Essay, 140 pp., index)
Jakov Gordin started his literary career in the beginning of the 1960s, and was an active participant in major events: the Brodsky trial, Samizdat, collecting signatures in support of Syniavsky and Daniel. For all this the publication of his writings was banned. Only in the 1980s his books and articles on Russian history and culture were published and won wide acclaim among readers. In this work Gordin analyzes the development of Tolstoy's philosophy of history.
GRITSMAN, Andrei. DVOINIK $9.00
(Double. Poems, 82 pp.)
Andrei Gritsman was born in Moscow, lives in the USA since 1981. Poet, translator, essayist. Writes in Russian and in English, this is his third collection of poems. He was widely published in periodicals in Russia and in the West. Critic wrote about his poetry that “emigration, nostalgia and a clash of cultures obtain new importance when presented in lyrical precision.”
GUBERMAN, Igor. PROGULKI VOKRUG BARAKA $10.00
(Walks Around the Barracks. Autobiographical novella, 200 pp.)
Will the prison-convict theme ever be wholly covered within Russian literature? And is there another literature in the world in which this theme has taken up so much space? The novelty in Guberman's book consists in the fact that he describes a purely criminal (non-political) camp, in which characters as improbable as those of Zoshchenko or Platonov passed before him. The poet who is known to a wide reading audience because of his murderously funny quatrains, reveals in this book new facets of his literary talent, and shows himself as a master of the psychological portrait, a delicate lyricist, and a sad philosopher.
DIN-SAVVA, Lena. IZ MOSKVY DA V PEKIN $20.00
(Out of Moscow into Beijing. Memoirs, 350 pp., illust.)
The fate of the author of these memoirs was extraordinary. The parents of little Lena, young Chinese communists, studied in Moscow in the 1930s, and were caught up there in the wave of Stalinist terror. The girl was raised in internment in Russia, along with the children of other Chinese political leaders, whose names later became known to the whole world: Mao Tse-tung, Chou Enlai, Lin Biao. Only many years later did she meet up with her parents in communist China. Lena Din-Savva’s book is the talented and honest testimony of a person who endured the most terrible political cataclysms of the 20th century, and who still managed to keep her faith in humanistic ideals and the undying force of good.
DOVLATOV, Sergei. CHEMODAN $7.50
(The Suitcase. Short stories, 112 pp.)
Every story in the collection by this well-known writer is a reminiscence of an object - a hat, a coat, a lighter - of all the goods and chattels which one could stuff into a pitiful йmigrй trunk before leaving Russia. All these carry a great many memories. Some sad, some bitter, some funny.
DOLGOPOLOVA, Zhanna (ed.). RUSSKIE RAZGOVORY $10.00
(Russian Talks. A literary anthology. 220 pp, gloss., bibl., ill.)
This reader can be used for the second and third years of Russian language studies. Includes stories by the contemporary Russian writers V. Aksenov, A. Bitov, B. Vakhtin, S. Volf, V. Goliavkin, S. Dovlatov, R. Zernova, V. Popov, and others. The lines are numbered, the words marked with accent marks; footnotes, glossary, short bio-bibliographical data on the authors. Also the photos by Mikhail Lemkhin taken in contemporary Russia are included.
DOMBROVSKY, Vyacheslav. ISKRENNIE MOI $10.00
(My Sincere Ones. Memoirs, 120 pp.)
V. Dombrovsky was thrown into Stalin’s GULag after WWII fresh from the college auditorium. Being a son of “the enemy of people” shot in 1937 he already knew something about labor camps and exile from the stories told by his relatives. And now he had to follow the path of millions of Soviet regime victims. The only bright spots in this tragic odyssey were the encounters with people who managed to keep their dignity, kindness, decency under such inhuman conditions. Dombrovsky’s book is a homage to the memory of these fellow prisoners.
DOMBROVSKY, Vyacheslav. “EE GLAZA, VOSPETYE NE RAZ…” $10.00
(“Her Eyes Extolled Quite Often …” Memoirs, 150 pp., illus., index.)
The life of Henrietta Levitina-Dombrovsky was a happy one in the beginning. Her husband had a high rank position in Leningrad military district, he loved her and their two sons. She had an exciting job as an editor in a magazine for children. She had among her friends such brilliant people as Shostakovich, Kharms, Shvarts, Oleinikov, Zabolotsky. But all this was destroyed by Stalin terror of 1937. Her husband perished in the purges, and she was sent to a prison camp for many years. Her son, Vyacheslav Dombrovsky recreates in his memoirs not only the history of his family but the whole atmosphere of Soviet Russia in 1930-1950.
DRAITSER, Emil. RUSSKIE POETY XIX VEKA $12.00
(Russian Poets of the 19th Century. An anthology. 160 pp., bibl., glossary)
The book is a text for a course in 19th century poetry for non-Russian students. It includes the best verse of Russian poets from Zhukovsky to Nekrasov. The text opens with a brief survey of the development of Russian poetry during this period. Each poet is introduced with a brief biographical note. Difficult and rare words are glossed in the margins of the poems, accentuation is marked, and lines are numbered. The editor and compiler, Emil Draitser, teaches Russian language and literature at Hunter College (CUNY).
DRAITSER, Emil. RUSSKIE POETY XX VEKA $12.00
(Russian Poets of the 20th Century. An anthology. 190 pp., bibl., glossary)
The book is a text for a course in 20th century poetry for non-Russian students. It includes the best verse of Russian poets such as Blok, Mayakovsky, Esenin, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, and Brodsky. The text opens with a brief survey of the development of Russian poetry during this period. Each poet is introduced with a brief biographical note. Difficult and rare words are glossed in the margins of the poems, accentuation is marked, and lines are numbered. The editor and compiler, Emil Draitser, teaches Russian language and literature at Hunter College (CUNY).
DRUZHNIKOV, Yuri. IA RODILSIA V OCHEREDI $14.00
(I Was Born in Line. Essays, 300 pp.)
"A line is a substance and an only way of existence for a Russian from the day of his birth till death," says the author of this book. "All Russia is waiting in line for a better life, and there is no escape from it." A prose writer, a literary historian, a professor of University of California (Davis), Yuri Druzhnikov collected under one cover his articles, radiobroadcast and memoirs which combine sadness and laughter. He discusses with wit and sincerity the problems faced by a man in Soviet Russia.
EFIMOV, Igor. ARKHIVY STRASHNOGO SUDA $8.50
(The Judgment Day Archives. A novel, 320 pp.)
The time is the 1970s, the place: Tallin, Leningrad, Vienna, Pskov, Paris, Rome, Kem’, New York. This novel combines the features of a psychological drama, a detective spy story, a sci-fi Utopia and a historical chronicle. The main characters are linked together not only by love, hate, suspicion, hope and jealousy, but above all by the fact that all of them are torn from their homeland and carried by the winds of the times to various places on our crowded planet. English translation was published in 1988, reprinted in Russia in 1992 and 2003.
EFIMOV, Igor. BREMIA DOBRA $14.00
(The Burden of Good. Coll. of articles. Bibliography, notes, index. 208 pp.)
This collection is united by one topic which could be described as: "Ethical and historical-philosophical views of some Russian writers as presented in their works." Selection of the names: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Vladimir Soloviev, Chekhov, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, Nabokov, Trifonov, Brodsky. Twelve articles included in this collection have been previously published in Russian periodicals.
EFIMOV, Igor. DVOINYE PORTRETY $14.00
(Dual Portraits. Articles on Russian Writers. 190 pp., index.)
This collection includes articles published in Russian and Western Press from 1993 to 2002. As a rule, the author sets himself the task of bringing to light certain new aspects of various Russian writers by putting them together in sometime quite unexpected combinations: Derzhavin and Dashkova, Griboedov and Bulgakov, Platonov and Khlebnikov, Solzhenitsyn and Brodsky.
EFIMOV, Igor. KAK ODNA PLOT’ $6.00
(As One Flesh. A novel, 120 pp.)
The love story in this novel is combined with reminiscences of main protagonist about his childhood and adolescence in post-WWII Russia where poverty, street violence and ideological brainwashing couldn’t completely eradicate the beauty of palaces, museums and poetry left to this generation by pre-revolutionary Russian culture. Reprinted in Russia in 1991.
EFIMOV, Igor (pen name Andrei
(Historical philosophical essay, bibl., 250 pp.)
How do nations get the government they have, and do they deserve them? What are the advantages and disadvantages of totalitarian regimes and of democracies? What triggers war? Can historical events be determined by the will of the microcosm of society – namely, the individual human being? If so, what is the process of this determination? Author discusses these and other important philosophical questions in the book which first circulated in Samizdat and was reprinted in Russia after the fall of communism.
EFIMOV, Igor. STYDNAIA TAINA NERAVENSTVA $10.00
(The Shocking Secret of Inequality. Political philosoph. study. 150 pp., bibl., index)
The author makes an attempt to find an explanation for the following three phenomena of the political history of the 20th century: a) why did all the democratic countries come to be internally split into two stable political camps (namely, liberals and conservatives)?; b) why has the democratic form of government introduced in post-colonial era was overthrown in so many countries? c) what is the nature of the forces which are unleashed in the waves of mass terror? This study is trying to find inner connections of these phenomena with the inborn inequality of human beings.
EFIMOV, Igor. CHETYRE GORY $9.00
(Four Mountains. A new collection of “Yefimisms.” 120 pp.)
The aphorisms collected in this book are divided into four sections: Sinai, Olympus, Parnassus, and Golgotha. There is also an appendix "We, the writers." The irony and paradox characteristic of many of Efimov's novels and philosophical works appear in concentrated, purified form in the aphoristic genre. Excerpts have appeared in the journals Zvezda and Sintaxis and in the Boston Times, Panorama, etc.
Gessen, Elena (editor) ZA TRIDEVIAT' ZEMEL'. $12.00
(A Far Distant Land. Anthology of prose of recent Russian emigres; 220 pp.)
Despite all of the changes in Russia, many active Russian writers are staying in the West and have no intention of returning to their homeland. The goal of this anthology was to introduce the most interesting prose writers of the 1980s who are as yet unknown to a wide audience in Russia and beyond. Among them are Mark Girshin, Mark Zaichik, Zinovii Zinik, Yurii Miloslavsky, Igor Pomerantsev, Ilya Suslov, Mikhail Fedotov, Boris Khazanov, Ludmila Shtern. Brief biographical sketches are included.
Krasnoshchekova, Elena (editor) IZBRANNAIA PROZA 70-KH. $14.00
(Selected Prose of the 70s. Anthology; 270 pp., glossary.)
This particular anthology is predominantly meant for students studying Russian and the Russian culture of the late 20th century. It includes the works of such authors as Abramov, Aksenof, Bitov, Vladimov, Voinovich, Grossman, Iskander, Rasputin, Trifonov, Shukshin, among others. Furthermore, it includes biographical data and a glossary of difficult words and rarely used terms.
KATISHONOK, Elena. BLOKNOT $8.00
(Poems, 84 pp.)
Elena Katishonok was born in Riga (USSR). In 1991, she emigrated to the USA, lives in Boston. Teaches Russian language, writes poetry and prose, translates, edits. Her poetry is intelligent without showing off, profound without pomposity, witty without punning. A reader will like to open this verse again and again. And every time he will catch something new, previously overlooked: double rhyme inside the line, original oxymoron, elegantly hidden quotation.
Greenhill, Rima (editor). KRUG CHTENIIA $12.00
(The Circle of Reading. Edited and compiled by professor Rima Greenhill of Stanford Univ. Anthology-reader of Russian literature for 2nd to 3rd year students. 200 pp., illus.)
The first section of this reader consists not of stories by classic Russian writers, but of humorous stories about them. The Russian literary anecdote is characterized by a style of simplicity and clarity, making it accessible even to first-year students. In the second section are stories by Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Bunin, Zoshchenko, Trifonov, Bitov, etc. Lines are numbered, accents are indicated, there are detailed notes and brief bibliographic information on the authors.
LEVINA, Anna. EKH, IABLOCHKO!.. $12.00
(Ah, Little Apple!.. Novel, 384 pp., illus.)
The drama of Moscow family broken in two by emigration unfolds in this novel. The narrative is made up of monologues and letters written by members of the family to each other across the ocean. Those who have left make all efforts to start a new life in the abundance, strangeness, and coldness of New York; those who have stayed fight hopeless poverty in post-communist Russia. And gradually, from this polyphony, from the flow of vivid scenes and sketches of daily life, the dominant note emerges -the theme of mutual human warmth and sharing, the slender thread that is not broken by distance or time, and enriches and justifies every human life.
LEGEZA V. SKAZKI KOSHKINA $14.00
(Koshkin’s Tales. Stories, 340 pp., illustr.)
In this new collection LeGeza continues his main topic: Russian immigrants who came into USA in 1990s. The author penetrate the emotional world of his characters with such acute attention that it captivates a reader, helps him to shed off the routine indifference to the fate of others. The stories are written in the style of traditional Russian prose but the language is cleared of imitations, pre-packed metaphors, colored with bitter humor and kind irony. Many were first published in the magazines and newspapers of USA, Russia, Germany, Israel, Canada, Ukraine.
LOSSKAYA, Veronika. TSVETAEVA V ZHIZNI $15.00
(Tsveataeva Alive. Unpublished Recollections by Contemporaries. 320 pp., illus., index)
The noted literary scholar Veronika Losskaya (Sorbona, Paris) writes in her preface: "People complained to me that the result of gathering biographical details is that 'Tsvetaeva is now pilloried and anyone who feels like it can analyze her life . . . even if it's only out of sordid curiosity'." Enormous tact was demanded of the author, in order, on the one hand, to recreate Marina Tsvetaeva as her contemporaries, both friends and enemies, saw her, and on the other hand, not to let the flood of details from daily life hide the face of the great poet. V. Losskaya appears to have coped with her task brilliantly.
LIUBVI BEZUMNOE TOMLEN'E $12.00
(Love's Burning Languor. An anthology of stories by Russian classics of 19th century. Compiled by Igor Efimov. )
This collection of love stories by Russian writers includes works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Leskov, Chekhov, Bunin. Short biographical data is also included. Can be used as a reader by students of Russian language and literature.
MASHINSKAYA, Irina. PROSTYE VREMENA $8.00
(Simple Times. Verse, 80 pp.)
Poets and critics writing about Irina Mashinskaya’s verse invariably remark on their musicality. Vladimir Gandelsman compares reading her collection “After an Epigraph” (1996) to attending a concert of chamber music. “The tormenting weariness of a big city is overcome… by the music of verse” (Natalya Gorbanevskaya). “From the very first text, you hear: this is music” (Alexander Sumerkin). In the poems of this collection, Mashinskaya’s poetic talent seeks out new possibilities for her chosen method: fusing music and word, she attempts to touch on those secrets of the human spiritual world that remain inaccessible to a purely rational approach.
MILNE, A.A. MNE KAZHETSIA, CHTO IA TRAMVAI /
I THINK I AM A TRAM $9.00
(I Think I Am a Tram. A collection of poems compiled, edited and prefaced by Dr. Rima Greenhill; 150 pp., dictionary, illus.)
This bilingual collection of poems by A.A. Milne, of Winnie-the-Pooh fame, is the most comprehensive compilation of Milne's poems in Russian. The Russian versions were translated by the patriarch of Soviet children's literature S.Ia. Marshak as well as N. Voronel, N. Slepakova and E. Yudin. The collection is presented in the form of a bilingual reader suitable for all levels of students of Russian language. Explanations of difficult Russian words and constructions are included.
MURAVYEVA, Irina. DOKUMENTAL’NYE S”EMKI $9.00
(Filming a Documentary. Novella, 80 pp.)
Russians in America, Americans in Russia, the Babel’s Tower of mixed cultures in the 1990s, confusion, attraction, love - such is the emotional and historical background of the new novella by this distinguished writer. At the center is the rich American Debby, who undertakes to invest money in a documentary on Russia. Disorderly, unpredictable, touching, amorous, drinking as much as Russian men, compassionate, capricious, she gives herself heart and soul to whatever feeling overtakes her and lets it draw her down to her next failure in life.
MURATOV, Mikhail V. L.N. TOLSTOY I V.G. CHERTKOV $18.00
(Biographical essay, 340 pp., bibl. notes,
illustrations, index. Edited by Scott D. Moss.)
In 1879 Lev Tolstoy, being at the height of literary recognition and personal prosperity, experienced an emotional crisis, which turned his life inside out. From that time on he tried to look for new paths and devoted the last 30 years of the life to this search. His main companion in this search was Vladimir Grigorievich Chertkov, acquaintance with whom had begun in 1883. Their emotional bond and mutual understanding developed into close long-term friendship. It seems the value and importance of Muratov’s book, based on the correspondence and diaries of Tolstoy and Chertkov, lays in the fact that it provides us with an inside look into history of this spiritual search.
K.A. (editor). S.A. MUROMTSEV I PERVAIA DUMA
(S.A. Muromtsev and First Duma. Coll. of articles, 172 pp., illus., index. Introduction by Professor Abraham Ascher.)
The name of Sergei Andreevich Muromtsev is known today, even in Russia, only to specialists. But on the day of his funeral, October 7, 1910, hundreds of thousands of people passed through the streets of Moscow to his grave. His name was then a symbol for the battle for a constitution, for liberty, for the triumph o law over arbitrary rule. This book has the aim of reviving the memory of this remarkable man, a talented jurist, professor of law, author of the first Russian Constitution, an outstanding political figure, who was not afraid to go to prison for his convictions.
NAIMAN, Anatoly. OBLAKA V KONTSE VEKA $9.00
(The Clouds in the End of the Century. Poems, 100 pp.)
The reviewer of World Literature Today magazine wrote about the first collection of Naiman's poems (published by Hermitage in 1989): "Thus does Brodsky capsulize [in his postscript] the two most striking aspects of the collection's appeal, an appeal to the intellect and to the ear." In the beginning of the 1990s, Naiman also attracted readers' attention as a prose writer and as the author of brilliant memoirs about Anna Akhmatova, which were published in English by Henry Holt & Co.
NOVIKOV, Denis. OKNO V IANVARE 8.50
(Window in January. Poems 1984-1994. Postscript by Joseph Brodsky.)
"These poems are essentially a conversation with oneself," writes Joseph Brodsky in his postscript to this collection. "And when one speaks with oneself it goes without shouting or pretending. One has to speak truthfully." Denis Novikov lives in Russia. Okno v ianvare is his first collection of poetry. His works now are being published in Russia by many publishers and periodicals.
OKUNEV, Yuri. OS’ VSEMIRNOI ISTORII $18.00
(The Axis of World History. The study of anti-Semitism. 560 pp., notes, index.)
Prominent Russian philosopher Vladimir Soloviev wrote at the end of the nineteenth century that passing “through the entire history of the human race from its very beginning and to the present time, it is as though Jewry represents an axis of world history.” It is no accident that the terrorism and neofascism that rise everywhere in the world today – in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran, or in America, Russia, or Europe – proclaim that Jews and Zionism are their chief enemies. In this book, which is concerned mostly with the history and origins of anti-Semitism, the author gives his answers to the questions of how and why it is all happening, as well as to the question of how the evil that threatens the people of Judeo-Christian civilization is to be resisted. The poignant historical and sociopolitical essays collected in this book are most timely and will undoubtedly attract the attention of a wide circle of readers.
PETROV, Viktor. ROSSIIA NA DAL'NEM VOSTOKE $12.00
(Russia in the Far East. Historical sketch. 190 pp. Bibliography, index)
This book by the well known writer, scholar and traveler Viktor Porfirievich Petrov gathers together some very interesting materials relating to the history of Russia’s advance into the Far East. Territorial conflicts with China along the banks of the Amur River began in the 17th century. The defense of the city of Albazin, the annexation of Priamurye (19th century), the Boxer Rebellion, the war with Japan - these and other dramatic episodes in the centuries-long struggle are described with the lucidity and fascination that distinguish all of Petrov's books.
PLATOVA, Victoria. ROALD I FLORA $12.00
(Roald and Flora. Stories, 220 pp.)
"Platova's depictions of her characters' growing pains and sufferings are extraordinarily sensitive and subtle," writes the reviewer in World Literature Today magazine. The Jewish family, the aftermath of WWII, Leningrad, the school, the communal apartment, a first love, a first despair. Brother and sister, Roald and Flora, are growing from story to story, and gradually the whole collection is turning into a family chronicle, into a novel, where the intensity and sincerity of feeling bursts through the shabbiness of everyday Soviet life.
POLTORATSKY, N. P. IVAN ALEXANDROVICH ILYIN $17.00
(Coll. of articles; 320 pp., index.)
The late Pittsburgh University professor's collection of articles paints a comprehensive picture of the personal and creative lives of the wonderful Russian thinker, orator, political figure, ardent opponent of Bolshevism – I. A. Il'in. The book covers, most accurately detailed, Il'in's philosophical, religious and political views, as well as his ideas on literature and art and the future of Russia. In essence, this is the first monograph about significant Russian cultural figure of the twentieth century.
POPOVSKY, Mark. ZHIZN' I ZHITIE VOINO-IASENTSKOGO,
ARKHIEPISKOPA I KHIRURGA $25.00
(The Life and Religious Journey of Voino-Iasentsky, Archbishop and Surgeon. Biography, 2nd edition, 544 pp, index, illus.)
"This is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary man," writes Father Alexander Men in his preface. "He was a doctor, who wrote his scientific books in the prison cell. He lived to see them published and even received a Stalin's prize during Stalin's rule. He was a surgeon, and at the same time an archbishop in the Russian Orthodox Church." This second edition of a monumental biographical study by Mark Popovsky has his postscript analyzing Voino-Iasenetsky's influence in our days and a name index.
RACHKO, Marina. CHEREZ NE MOGU $7.00
(Overcome 'I Can't'. Novella, 100 pp.)
At the nucleus of the story written by Marina Rachko (journalist, poetess, translator) is a hundred years in the life of a Russian woman, born in S.-Petersburg during the reign of Alexander III, living through the eras of twelve rulers and brought, finally in her 90th year of life, to the United States of America. She is presented sometimes through the eyes of the child (her granddaughter), sometimes through the eyes of the author, and this device helps produce a colorful, memorable image.
ROSENSTOCK-HUESSY, Eugen. VELIKIE REVOLIUTSII:
AVTOBIOGRAPHIIA ZAPADNOGO CHELOVEKA $25.00
(Great Revolutions: Autobiography of Western Man. Translated from English. Historical-philosophical study. 650 pp., index, illus.)
Rosenstock-Huessy (1888-1973) was among those German cultural figures who left Germany in 1933, when Hitler came to power. He knew and was close to many outstanding religious thinkers: N. Berdyaev, M. Buber, Harvey Cox, Paul Tillich. He spent the second half of his life in USA, and taught at Harvard and Dartmouth College. In this work the author develops an original scheme of European history over the last 1000 years and studies the effect on it of revolutionary upheavals as principal constitutive forces. The originality of Rosenstock-Huessy’s thought is that he tries to discover the connections between fateful events and the individual human will, between the passions of history and the passions of the soul.
ROYTMAN, Grigory. BORIS SLUTSKY $18.00
(Literary study, notes, index, 210 pp.)
Boris Slutsky, one of the most important representatives of the war generation of poets, has become known to the Russian public in all his poetic spectrum only recently, just during Perestroika, when hundreds of his poems written “for the drawer” were published for the first time. The author of this study, professor of Appalachian State University, is analyzing the different aspects and stages of Slutsky’s poetry. The prefaces by Professor Jerald Janechek and by Evgeny Rein.
Ledkovsky, Marina (editor). ROSSIIA GLAZAMI ZHENSHCHIN $10.00
(Russia through the Eyes of Women. Edited and prefaced by Columbia Univ. professor Marina Ledkovsky. 140 pp., ill.)
This anthology covers the Soviet period of Russian literature. It includes excerpts from the works of such famous authors as Tsvetaeva, Nadezhda Mandelshtam, Aksenova-Ginzburg, Lidia Chukovskaia, Bella Akhmadulina and others. The book was compiled with the purpose of illustrating different aspects of Soviet social life: city, country, literary world, hospital, factory and so on. The anthology may be used as a textbook for students of Russian. It includes a glossary with English translations of difficult words. But the collection will also be of interest to Russian readers both abroad and in Russia.
SANNIKOV, V.Z. RUSSKII KALAMBUR $12.00
(A Pun in Russian Literature. Anthology, 212 pp.)
The collection includes puns of almost all well-known Russian authors: from Pushkin and Krylov to Il'f and Zhvanetskii. Examples: "I've grown used to the feeling of rubbed elbows being jammed into my ribs" (Vysotskii); "Take, dear host, a bath,/ But take in visitors as well" (Mandel'shtam). The book's compiler, a head researcher at Moscow's Institute of Problems in the Conveying of Information, admits in a brief prologue that the nature of the humorous remains as inexplicable as it was in Aristotle's day; nonetheless, he attempts to provide some answer to the question "What is a pun?"
SOLNTSEV, Yuri. INOSTRANTSY $9.00
(The Foreigners. Short stories, 128 pp.)
The characters of Solntsev's short stories are our contemporaries; the background – Russia, America, the world. The quality of his prose is immediately recognized by a discerning reader as that of a writer with a well-developed style, with an excellent ear for the subtleties of language, with an astute eye for colorful and bizarre personalities, for the bitter and piercing disorder of living. And all that is created with a few words, with spare means, without pathos. Yuri Solntsev lives and works in California. His works are now being published in Russia as well.
Aizlewood, Robin, and Myers, Diana (comp. and ed.)
STOLETIE MANDELSHTAMA. Materialy simpoziuma. $25.00
(Mandelstam Centenary Conference. Articles, 300 pp., index)
One of the major events of the Mandelstam centenary was the international conference dedicated to Osip Mandelstam held at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, in July 1991. This collection presents some thirty articles (some of them are in English) and materials from the conference, concerning Mandelstam's poetics and his literary and historical context. Among the authors: S. Averintsev, J. Brodsky, M. Gasparov, C. Isenberg, A. Kushner, I. Serman, and others.
TORIN, Aleksandr. DURNAIA KOMPANIIA $15.00
(Bad Company. Novel, 290 pp.)
The "brain drain" from Russia is one of the acute problems of our time. What awaits the "brains" in America? Many young scientists and engineers from the former USSR have ended up in sunny California, the center of the world computer and electronics industry. And their experiences by no means always accord with the rosy ideal of the "American dream." The hero of Aleksandr Torin's fascinating novel, who lands in a not entirely ordinary American firm, must exert all his energy to uphold his human dignity and his dream of real scientific work.
SHIKHEEVA-GAISTER, Inna. DETI “VRAGOV NARODA” $20.00
(Children of the Enemies of the People. Memoirs, 220 pp., illus., index.)
The father of the author of these memoirs, Aron Israelevich Gaister, at the time of his arrest and execution in 1937 occupied the post of deputy to the Chairman of People’s Committee of Agriculture of the USSR. As was common in Stalin’s time, all the members of his family were declared “relatives of an enemy of the people,” and their passage through the torments of prison and camp began. The memoirs of Inna Aronovna Shikheev-Gaister are characterized by the vividness and brilliance of the narrative, the abundance of factual material, the exactness of the details and characterizations, turned her story into a true tragic tale capable of touching the hearts of hundreds of readers.
SHTERN, Ludmila. OKHOTA K PEREMENE MEST $12.00
(Wanderlust. Travel stories, 208 pp., illus.)
This book by the well-known writer and journalist will take the reader to Paris and Cairo, Israel and Spain; to the Bedouins of Negev desert, and to the Italian artists on Iskia Island. "Ludmila Shtern is an accomplished stylist in the short fiction mode and a talented humorist," wrote Joseph Brodsky. "Her work is an amalgam of bittersweet understatement and modern wit... The light touch of her satire is impressive and a pleasure to read."
ELIANOV, David. KAVERZNYE UDARENIIA / TRICKY ACCENTS.
A Russian-English Dictionary of Homographs. 120 pp.) $10.00
One of the main difficulties in mastering the Russian language lies in stressing the appropriate syllable in a word; misplaced accents can sometimes completely change a word's meaning ("korma\--ko\rma"). In this particular dictionary of homographs (the first reference book of its kind), most of the entries contain illustrative examples from Russian poetry and folklore. The appendix includes words common to both Russian and English (so-called internationalisms), which are close in form and meaning, but differ in stress.
EPSHTEIN, Leopold. FRAGMENT $9.00
(Verse, 144 pp.)
Leopold Epshtein is a mathematician and graduate of Moscow State University. Before emigrating to USA (Boston, 1988), he lived in Novocherkassk. His first collection Zemlia (Ground, 1993), sold out quickly. Most of the poems in his new book, Fragment, were written in late 1990s and are being published in this collection for the first time. Epshtein’s verses are characterized by an equilibrium of thought and feeling, they are full of merit, and connected by many threads with the world of music, painting, philosophy and religious faith.
EPSHTEIN, Mikhail. OTTSOVSTVO $12.00
(“Fatherhood.” Essay, 190 pp.)
The wonder and mystery of a relationship with a child, before and after its birth, make for the dramatic through line of this piece. On the surface, however, it is the unfolding of the life of an average, not-too-well-to-do Moscow family in the 1970s. In their personal relationship they discover the spiritual fulfillment that is lacking in the outside world. In recent years the well-known literary scholar and critic Mikhail Epshtein (Emory University, Atlanta, USA) has attracted attention with his masterful essays developing the tradition of Montaigne, Kierkegaard, and Rozanov.
ETKIND, Efim. STIKHI I LIUDI $9.00
(Verse and People. Stories about poetry, 180 pp.)
This book by the well-known literary critic, professor Efim Grigorevich Etkind, consists of eight stories, each being a history of the writing or publication of a single poem. Although the authors' names are familiar to all – Pushkin, Ryleev, Griboedov, Polezhaev, Nekrasov, Blok – Etkind succeeds, through individual episodes, in showing their literary destiny in a new light. These dramatic histories are written with a documentary accuracy that reveals the serious scholar, and with a fascination that only a talented storyteller can achieve.
JACKOBSON, Leonid. PIS’MA NOVERRU $49.50 (cl)
(Letters to Noverre. 508 pp., 90 illus., index.)
This book by the famous 20th century choreographer Leonid Jackobson, who mounted about thirty ballet productions (among them such acclaimed works as Spartacus, Shurale, Wonderland) encompasses a wide variety of themes and experiences connected with the esthetic foundations of the art of dance. It is constructed in the form of letters to the famous French ballet master Jean Georges Noverre, a contemporary of the Enlightenment who made ballet an independent form of theatrical art. The thoughts of the great master whose work is connected with the names of Galina Ulanova, Vakhtang Chabukiani, Natalya Dudinskaya, Konstantin Sergeev, Maya Plisetskaya, Maries Liepa, Valery Panov, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, will be of interest not only to professionals, but to all lovers of the art of dance.