March 01, 2006 The Battle on the Ice Alexander Nevsky's victory over the Livonians on Lake Chudskoye (Peipus) has taken on the status of legend in Russian history. But Nevsky may not be the best of Russian heroes.
November 01, 2016 Russia After Rasputin In which we check back in on Russian history every decade since Rasputin's death and look at links and other anniversaries.
July 01, 2012 Catherine Ascends; Peter Falls We read history through the eyes of the victors, and in June 1762, the victor was a German-born princess newly ascended to the throne with her husband, Peter III. To history she became known as Catherine the Great.
May 01, 2001 Paul I: Russian Hamlet Tsar Paul I, son of Catherine the Great, may hold the title to Russia's least understood tsar. On the 200th anniversary of Paul's murder, we probe the peculiarities of his life and work.
February 01, 1998 The First Master of Russsian Film Maxim Gorky once called film "the Kingdom of Shadows." Sergei Eisenstein was one of the earliest kings of this realm.
July 30, 2014 Tsarevich Alexei and the Worst 10th Birthday Ever Late July and early August were busy times in 1914: not only was Russia's own heir apparent celebrating his 10th birthday, the world was devolving into the military chaos of World War I.
April 18, 2016 Alexander Nevsky: Russia's Hero Who is Russia's greatest hero? According to Russians, it's Alexander Nevsky, a military commander and ruler from the thirteenth century. And what did Alexander do that made him worthy of that honor? He took part in Russians' favorite historical activity: repelling German invaders.
December 16, 2016 Ra-ra-Rasputin Who was Rasputin? Why has his name become synonymous with the idea that the Russian monarchy was doomed? That is a mystery worth exploring today, on the 100th anniversary of his murder.
June 28, 2017 Catherine Seizes Power On June 28, 1762, Catherine (born Sofia Frederika Augusta), the German wife of a weakened tsar, seized Russian throne. She soon earned the appellation "the Great."
Russian Rules From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.
Red Star Tales: A Century of Russian and Soviet Science Fiction For over 100 years, most of the science fiction produced by the world’s largest country has been beyond the reach of Western readers. This new collection changes that, bringing a large body of influential works into the English orbit.
Okudzhava Bilingual Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual) The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
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.
Survival Russian Survival Russian is an intensely practical guide to conversational, colloquial and culture-rich Russian. It uses humor, current events and thematically-driven essays to deepen readers’ understanding of Russian language and culture. This enlarged Second Edition of Survival Russian includes over 90 essays and illuminates over 2000 invaluable Russian phrases and words.
A Taste of Russia The definitive modern cookbook on Russian cuisine has been totally updated and redesigned in a 30th Anniversary Edition. Layering superbly researched recipes with informative essays on the dishes' rich historical and cultural context, A Taste of Russia includes over 200 recipes on everything from borshch to blini, from Salmon Coulibiac to Beef Stew with Rum, from Marinated Mushrooms to Walnut-honey Filled Pies. A Taste of Russia shows off the best that Russian cooking has to offer. Full of great quotes from Russian literature about Russian food and designed in a convenient wide format that stays open during use.
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.
The Samovar Murders The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
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.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided.