Russo-Soviet Literature Thread:

[Anonymous No.19794687]

Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Zamyatin, Gogol, Turgenev, Pushkin, Bulgakov and everyone else. What's your favorite novel and why?

[Anonymous No.19794715]

I like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turguenev, Gogol and all the classics, but for me the peak is Chekhov's short stories.

[Anonymous No.19794739]

>>19794687
Lenin

[Anonymous No.19794741]

>>19794715
dangerously based

[Anonymous No.19794749]

I like Bunin, Gumilev, Turgenev, Strugatsky Brothers, Yerofeyev, Lermontov. Never got into the ultra classic ones like Dosto and Pushkin

[Anonymous No.19794762]

Top 5:

1. Pushkin
2. Platonov
3. Bunin
4. Nabokov
5. Sholokhov

[Anonymous No.19794801]

My shelves look like a compulsory-reading list from high-school (i.e. they're mostly entry level), so my opinion is worth little, but here it goes:
>Dostoevsky
Brothers Karamazov and Notes from the underground are some of my favorite books period.
>Tolstoy
Loved Anna Karenina, disliked The death of Ivan Ilyich (too heavy-handed)
>Zamyatin
Read him at 16 because I heard We was an inspiration for Orwell, whose books I loved at the time. It certainly is, but the book itself wasn't anything special.
>Bulgakov
Currently reading Master and Margarita and loving it
>Gogol
Dead souls is great, but I wasn't in the mood to appreciate it when I first read it and lost interest halfway through. Same with his short story collections.
Pic-related is a chart I think might be useful.

[Anonymous No.19794842]

>>19794715
this

[Anonymous No.19795106]

I'm going to start reading The Brothers Karamazov tomorrow, never read Dostoevsky before.
How accessible is it?

[Anonymous No.19795138]

>>19794687
Why are the Russians such great writers? You'd think the English or the ancient Greeks would be better but nope, everyone gets mogged by a bunch of slavs it's unreal

[Anonymous No.19795168]

>>19795106
What have you read? Not from him, but in general? Any other russians, any other classics?

[Anonymous No.19795408]

>>19794762
>Platonov
Why?

[Anonymous No.19795455]

>>19795138
SOVL

[Anonymous No.19795512]

Pushkin, Lermontov, Chekhov, Yesenin, Bulgakov, Pasternak, English Nabokov are all great
Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky I have only read short stories and novellas, liked Tolstoy more
Turgenev is nice but clearly second-rate
Gogol and Griboyedov filtered me, did not get the appeal
want to check out: Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky novels, Gertzen, Bely

[Anonymous No.19795518]

>>19795512
Turgenev is S tier, better than Pushkin

[Anonymous No.19795534]

>>19795138
Suffering

[Anonymous No.19795622]

>>19794687
there are very few post-1950 writers i adore - Viktor Pelevin is one of them. Start with Clay Machine-Gun

[Anonymous No.19795767]

>>19794715
>19786645
What short stories should I read / which are essential?

[Anonymous No.19795822]

>>19795622
Pelevin is pseud shit
Sergey Minaev is chadcore simple as

[Anonymous No.19796258]

>>19794801
Man, I'm really grateful for the book recommendations /lit/ compiled on that wiki. There's so much out there to read, but for now I've started mostly with authors from the American South but also reading Russians too which seemed to inspire many Americans.
I'm not that well read, but Crime and Punishment is the only novel that's ever made me cry. A day after I finished reading, I started thinking about the scene in Siberia where Rodion hugs Sofya's knees and started sobbing. It's so real and touching how it took him a year to really sort through all his beliefs and become a changed man.

[Anonymous No.19796713]

>>19795106
You should start with something else. The Brothers Karamazov is one of the best books ever written in my opinion. I suggest you start with his shorter stories like White Nights and Notes from Underground. Then you can move to a "big" novel like The Idiot or Crime and Punishment. Trust me, if you read TBK first you'll not enjoy his other works as much.

[Anonymous No.19796735]

>>19794801
Why is 12 chairs on this list? both writers are born in Ukraine and one is Jewish.

[Anonymous No.19796749]

Thinking about picking up picrel. Thoughts?

[Anonymous No.19796766]

>>19794801
Roadside Picnic translates to English poorly, not only in a literal sense but a cultural sense. Fun short read still but the characters all have Russian and Soviet mannerisms despite it being set somewhere in North America. So it might be a bit strange at times if you don't have previous exposure to that sort of thing.

[Anonymous No.19796842]

>>19794687
The Brothers Karamazov is pretty good so far. Dmitri going around and spending the three thousand rubles and giving the money to random people along with the peasant carriage driver was kino for someone so selfish, the party at the end with the peasants was hilarious and the reunification with Grushinska felt less demeaning and out right exploltive; the relationship with Dmitri is a mixture of love and other, more self destructive motives.

we also ser Grushenka watching the peasant girls dance and then goes to each one and either kisses them or makes the sign of the cross over them and even forgiving the Polish officer thats wronged her portrays that organic relationship she had built with Alyosha which gave her some hope for her seemingly damaged, irredeemable soul, all that rush of emotion and desire to forgive everyone reflects the feelings of Alyosha. I suppose what made me so attached to this scene is my love for these damaged characters and my eagerness for them to be better people despite their upbringing and actions, and seeing the dynamic extreme self destructive acts, are still progressive in my eyes because of their attitude as people it’s either all or noting for these characters. You either make the jump or you never, ever do.

[Anonymous No.19797101]

>>19796749
read it

[Anonymous No.19797141]

I want to build a little bit of a library of Russian literature, although I don't know why since I'll probably die too soon to enjoy it. I want to expand from Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. I am thinking Pushkin or Turgenev. Which one first?

[Anonymous No.19797191]

What are your thoughts on Crime and Punishment?

[Anonymous No.19797250]

>>19794687
recently got through evgeny shwarz's satirical plays, now reading some of mayakovskiy's
did shwarz's work even leave russian sphere? dragon, shadow, naked king?
being satirical, they are very cheery compared to the usual deep russian doom and gloom

[Anonymous No.19797262]

>>19797141
Pushkin

[Anonymous No.19797265]

>>19797191
Not that great. I personally liked The Idiot a lot more.

[Anonymous No.19797291]

>>19795138
The English and the Greeks are much better. Unless you lack personality of course

[Anonymous No.19797300]

>>19797291
>The English and the Greeks are much better. Unless you lack personality of course

[Anonymous No.19797303]

>>19797250
Dont bother with anything beyond the basics on here

[Anonymous No.19797306]

>>19797300
The English!=The American, fag

[Anonymous No.19797311]

Loved this one

[Anonymous No.19797327]

>>19797306
Lesser cultures are often absorbed or eclipsed by superior ones. England is America now, boy, bend over.

[Anonymous No.19797337]

>>19797191
There were a couple parts of it that made me freak out. Namely Rodion's reaction to his mother's letter because I expected he was envious enough that'd he be excited to have a breakthrough chance to get rich in the world of law. Instead he had that malicious smile, sweating and shaking and it shocked me. Most of the scenes where Rodion grew dark were fantastic. I eventually understood his suspicion of Luzhin and it was justified.
Svidrigailov's appearance at the end of Act V almost made me scream. I didn't notice until after I put the book down but I was clenching the pages. Even though he hadn't done anything in the story yet, the level of ambiguity and all the accusations against him made me fear he'd blackmail Rodion. It was fascinating to see the scenes after, and how Rodion subconsciously looked at him as a role-model for his theory, proving to him that even "great" men are destroyed by the guilt of their crimes.
I could go on, there's so many awesome scenes in it.

[Anonymous No.19797345]

>>19797303
i mean it's understandable you'd find anons who read only russian "basics" on an anglo board
unless you're under an assumption that the whole world reads the entirety of shakespeare and beowulf and whatever else you have

[Anonymous No.19797358]

>>19794687
“Death of Ivan ilych” made me feel like I was dying. Nice and short and said all it needed to say. I was very impressed with it

[Anonymous No.19797504]

>>19797262
ty anon
any recommendations?

[Anonymous No.19797511]

>>19795455
>>19795534
These

[Anonymous No.19797513]

>>19796766
All I can say is I read Hard to be a God and either the Strugatsky brothers suck or they filtered me completely, because I don't remember a single good thing about that book.

[Anonymous No.19797660]

>>19797504
not that anon, but the thing with Pushkin (pbuh) is that he's a poet first and foremost, so everything about translated poetry applies, that said the essential works from least to most important are:
>short stories, Tales of Belkin (5 stories) + Queen of Spades
>the verse fairy tales, in particular Tsar Saltan, The Fisherman and the Fish, The Golden Cockerel
>The Bronze Horseman
>Ruslan and Ludmila
>Boris Godunov
>Eugene Onegin (the magnum opus)
>some kind anthology of his short poems
can't recommend translations but would suggest you look into stuff in your native language if you aren't anglo

[Anonymous No.19797673]

>>19796749
It's one of Tolstoy's best short works

[Anonymous No.19797694]

>>19794687
I've only read the popular works of most of them. Apart from those, I can say that Turgenev's Nest of the Gentry is probably the best romance novels <200 pages that I've ever read.

[Anonymous No.19797835]

>>19795622
I've read Pelevin - Generation P (or however it's translated into English) and Hall of Singing Cariatids. Neither impressed me much.

>>19796735
Because they wrote in Russian and are considered a part of Russian literature by just about everyone.
>inb4 you start spouting ukrainian or kike nationalist bullshit

[Anonymous No.19797845]

>>19797660
I'm learning Russian, ty anon

[Anonymous No.19797959]

I read Grossman's Life and Fate for a WWII class a few months ago. Absolutely brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book. Probably one of the only modern "epics" to rival War and Peace.

[Anonymous No.19797992]

>>19797504
Ruslan and Ludmila
The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin
Evgeni Onegin

[Anonymous No.19798201]