July 01, 2020

Books to Read During the Great Pause


Books to Read During the Great Pause
Menshikov in Berezovo Vasily Surikov (1888)

For this issue, rather than review recent publications (of which there have been few), we asked our editors, advisors, and frequent contributors to share a Russian literary work they felt was particularly apt to read during The Great Pause. Is there a work from the Russian canon you have re-read in this time and want to share? Visit this post online and then share your reading via Facebook.

For Akhmatova, everything mattered. Her rival in a nightclub. To emigrate or stay. A city with a history, a landscape, and a rejected poet. Another poet, his body alive in his writing. And “Requiem,” the poems of witness – a mother’s witness – to a government turning on its people. Akhmatova’s urgency, in her spirited everyday vocabulary, are just what we need right now.

– Joan Neuberger


Digital Subscription Required

Get unlimited digital access for just $2 a month.

Don't have an account? signup

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955