September 28, 2022

A Soldier Nation


A Soldier Nation
Russian troops parading on Red Square, 2017. Russian Presidential and Information Office

"We are a soldier country, a soldier nation. We will fight, it's not our first time, and so on... I feel that a rather gloomy period is ahead."

– Alexei Levinson, head of the Department of Social Cultural Investigations at Levada polling agency. In the absence of any polling post-mobilization (and any such polling, given current conditions, would be highly suspect), Levinson said he felt that while the number of protests is expected to rise, he does not foresee any kind of mass demonstration on the horizon. What has changed is that mobilization has changed the mood among the people. They can no longer ignore that the word is going on, and it could also turn on what Levinson called a "heroic modality," given the stress in recent years on the country's war history.

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Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.

Marooned in Moscow
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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.

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas
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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.

 
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