November 03, 2021 Make Not War Art "In connection with the incident, the State Hermitage was forced to apply to the prosecutor's office of St. Petersburg with a statement to conduct a prosecutor's check and assess the actions of a citizen for possible violations of the legislation of the Russian Federation, including in terms of public insult to the memory of the Defenders of the Fatherland.” – Press Service of the St. Petersburg Hermitage, announcing it would be reviewing an artist’s behavior for potentially insulting the veterans of the Patriotic War of 1812. Art History Law St. Petersburg Quote
November 01, 2021 Russian Terrorists with Febrile Dreams of Flight An excerpt from To Break Russia’s Chains: Boris Savinkov and his Wars Against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks, recently published by Pegasus Books. Espionage History
November 01, 2021 The Timid Path On December 12, 1801, 23-year-old Tsar Alexander I issued an ukaz. This particular decree was not something historians have considered extremely significant in the scheme of Alexander’s reign, but it merits attention for a few reasons. Agriculture History Law
November 01, 2021 Death of an Empress Empress Elizabeth Petrovna breathed her last in December of 1761, in her St. Petersburg palace. By any standard, Peter the Great’s second daughter had lived an unusual life. History St. Petersburg Women
November 01, 2021 The Road Ahead People often ask me what lies ahead for Russia. This question always surprises me. It suggests that people think historians are part prophet, as if knowing a lot about the past means you can predict the future. Government History
November 01, 2021 All Good Things In which we say goodbye to a longtime editor and look toward the future by looking back. History
November 01, 2021 Is Dostoyevsky Still Alive? On the occasion of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky’s 200th anniversary, we visit his adopted city to consider the imprint he left behind. History Literature St. Petersburg
November 01, 2021 Dreadful Terror Dostoyevsky’s chance visit to a museum led to a chilling, life-changing encounter with an artist long dead, but whose work was very much alive. It would make an appearance in the writer’s next novel. History Literature Religion
November 01, 2021 Debunking a Myth The salacious and derogatory myth surrounding the death of Catherine the Great has its roots in her detractors and successors, both at home and abroad. Biographies History St. Petersburg
October 30, 2021 At Home with Dostoyevsky If, for some reason, you ever find yourself in the small town of Staraya Russa, be sure to check out Dostoyevsky's summer house. History Literature Rural Life Russia File
October 30, 2021 The Best Dostoyevsky Artwork at the Russian Museum For one month only, the Russian Museum is celebrating the life of Fyodor Dostoyevsky with a 200th birthday exhibit. Art Biographies History Holidays St. Petersburg Russia File
October 30, 2021 Happy 200th, Dostoyevsky! On this, the occasion of the great writer's 200th birthday, we offer some links to stories we have published about him over the years, as well as some cool videos. Happy reading and viewing! History Literature Russia File
September 22, 2023 to January 21, 2024 Spirituality in Eastern Christianity Museum of Russian Icons | Clinton, MA An exhibition of photographs by Alain de Lotbinière. The 26 images were taken during the course of several trips to Northern Macedonia, Serbia, and Russia, as well as during visits to sites in Turkey and Egypt. Art Exhibit
February 22, 2022 to February 22, 2032 Russian-Language Gallery Tour Brooklyn Museum | Brooklyn, NY Russian-language tour exploring our collection in depth, second Sunday of each month at 1 pm. Free, reservations required Art Exhibit
February 28, 2022 to February 23, 2032 Free Russian Language Guided Tours Metropolitan Museum of Art | New York, NY Russian-speaking guides conduct tours of the museum's highlights every Monday at 11 am. Art Exhibit
October 21, 2023 to October 22, 2023 50th Annual Heritage Food Fair Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church | Baltimore, MD A weekend of music and delicious authentic foods prepared by the parishioners of the Holy Trinity parish in Baltimore. Select from traditional beef stroganoff, shashlik, pelmeni, blinchiki, kielbasa, a variety of traditional breads, desserts, and more! All homemade! Festival
Jews in Service to the Tsar Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
White Magic The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
A Taste of Chekhov This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
Moscow and Muscovites Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin.
Steppe / Степь This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Fearful Majesty This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
Marooned in Moscow This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia The very word Siberia evokes a history and reputation as awesome as it is enthralling. In this acclaimed book on Russia’s conquest of its eastern realms, Benson Bobrick offers a story that is both rich and subtle, broad and deep.
Murder at the Dacha Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.
May 26, 2016 Two Miracles of Russian Love Poetry On the occasion of Pushkin's birthday, we offer a post on the challenge of translating his most famous love lyrics, "Я вас любил," with a bonus look at Innokenty Annensky's "Среди миров." Literature Russia File
March 07, 2022 Russian Life Takes a Pause As the world reels from the horrific, criminal events being perpetrated in Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, the Russian state, and the Russian military, all of us who nurture a love for Russian people, their culture and history, have been heartbroken. It is not easy to remain a Russophile when suddenly, all across the globe, the adjective “Russian” has become toxic. News Russia File
January 28, 2020 Meet Russia's favorite sable Siberian sable fur was once Russia's biggest luxury export, but now we can't get enough of Instagram star Umora, the sable inspiring Russians to never look at fur coats again. Animals Internet Interview Russia File
October 30, 2021 Happy 200th, Dostoyevsky! On this, the occasion of the great writer's 200th birthday, we offer some links to stories we have published about him over the years, as well as some cool videos. Happy reading and viewing! History Literature Russia File
March 17, 2019 When Russian Cuisine Turns Georgian Why is Georgian food so popular in Russia? Turns out there's more to it than deliciousness. Culture Food & Drink History Russia File
June 22, 2020 Why Invading Russia was Hitler's Downfall June 22, 2020, marks the 79th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Russia that changed the course of WWII and, perhaps, history itself. History Social Issues War Russia File
