Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short-story writer. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov was a physician by profession. "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress."
The cinema of the Soviet Union includes films produced by the constituent republics of the Soviet Union reflecting elements of their pre-Soviet culture, language and history, albeit they were all regulated by the central government in Moscow. Most prolific in their republican films, after the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, and, to a lesser degree, Lithuania, Belarus and Moldavia. At the same time, the nation's film industry, which was fully nationalized throughout most of the country's history, was guided by philosophies and laws propounded by the monopoly Soviet Communist Party which introduced a new view on the cinema, socialist realism, which was different from the one before or after the existence of the Soviet Union.
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its émigrés, and to Russian-language literature. Major contributors to Russian literature, as well as English for instance, are authors of different ethnic origins, including bilingual writers, such as Kyrgyz novelist Chinghiz Aitmatov. At the same time, Russian-language literature does not include works by authors from the Russian Federation who write exclusively or primarily in the native languages of the indigenous non-Russian ethnic groups in Russia, thus the famous Dagestani poet Rasul Gamzatov is omitted.
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, translator and popularizer of Russian literature in the West.
Three Sisters is a play by the Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov. It was written in 1900 and first performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theatre. The play is often included on the shortlist of Chekhov's outstanding plays, along with The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull and Uncle Vanya.
Nikolai Semyonovich Leskov was a Russian novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and journalist, who also wrote under the pseudonym M. Stebnitsky. Praised for his unique writing style and innovative experiments in form, and held in high esteem by Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky among others, Leskov is credited with creating a comprehensive picture of contemporary Russian society using mostly short literary forms. His major works include Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1865), The Cathedral Folk (1872), The Enchanted Wanderer (1873), and "The Tale of Cross-eyed Lefty from Tula and the Steel Flea" (1881).
The Cherry Orchard is the last play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Written in 1903, it was first published by Znaniye, and came out as a separate edition later that year in Saint Petersburg, via A.F. Marks Publishers. On 17 January 1904, it opened at the Moscow Art Theatre in a production directed by Konstantin Stanislavski. Chekhov described the play as a comedy, with some elements of farce, though Stanislavski treated it as a tragedy. Since its first production, directors have contended with its dual nature. It is often identified as one of the three or four outstanding plays by Chekhov, along with The Seagull, Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya.
The House of Golitsyn was a Russian princely family. Among them were boyars, warlords, diplomats, generals, admirals, stewards, chamberlains, and provincial landlords. It is the second largest and noblest Princely house in Russia.
Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko was a writer, journalist, human rights activist and humanitarian of a Ukrainian origin in the Russian Empire. His best-known work includes the short novel The Blind Musician (1886), as well as numerous short stories based upon his experience of exile in Siberia. Korolenko was a strong critic of the Tsarist regime and in his final years of the Bolsheviks.
The Shadow over Innsmouth is a horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in November–December 1931. It forms part of the Cthulhu Mythos, using its motif of a malign undersea civilization, and references several shared elements of the Mythos, including place-names, mythical creatures, and invocations. The Shadow over Innsmouth is the only Lovecraft story that was published in book form during his lifetime.
Yury Vasilyevich Yakovlev was a Soviet and Russian actor. He was awarded the honorary title of People's Artist of the USSR in 1976.
Konstantin Yurievich Khabensky, PAR is a Russian actor of stage and film, director and philanthropist.
Ekaterina Sergeyevna Maximova was a Soviet and Russian ballerina of the second part of the 20th century who was internationally recognised. She was a prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theatre for 30 years, a ballet pedagogue, winner of international ballet competitions, Laureate of many prestigious International and Russian awards, a professor in GITIS, Honorary professor at the Moscow State University, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, and an Executive Committee member of the Russian Center of Counseil International De La Danse, UNESCO.
"The Black Monk" is a short story by Anton Chekhov, written in 1893 while Chekhov was living in the village of Melikhovo. It was first published in 1894 in The Artist, one of the leading Russian magazines on theater and music in the last quarter of the 19th century. The story tells of the last two tragic years in the life of a fictitious scholar, Andrey Vasilyevich Kovrin.
Elements of fantastical or supernatural fiction have been part of mainstream Russian literature since the 18th century. Russian fantasy developed from the centuries-old traditions of Slavic mythology and folklore. Russian science fiction emerged in the mid-19th century and rose to its golden age during the Soviet era, both in cinema and literature, with writers like the Strugatsky brothers, Kir Bulychov, and Mikhail Bulgakov, among others. Soviet filmmakers, such as Andrei Tarkovsky, also produced many science fiction and fantasy films. With the fall of the Iron Curtain, modern Russia experienced a renaissance of fantasy. Outside modern Russian borders, there are a significant number of Russophone writers and filmmakers from Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, who have made a notable contribution to the genres.
Man from the Restaurant is a 1927 Soviet drama film directed by Yakov Protazanov based on the story by Ivan Shmelyov. The main role was written for Ivan Moskvin, but he was changed for Chekhov because of illness.
Beno (Băno) Axionov is a Russian-Moldovan actor, director, drama teacher, screenwriter. Meritorious Artist of Moldova (1991). Laureate of national and international theater festivals.
The fine art of Leningrad is an important component of Russian Soviet art—in the opinion of the art historians Vladimir Gusev and Vladimir Leniashin, "one of its most powerful currents". This widely used term embraces the creative lives and the achievements of several generations of Leningrad painters, sculptors, graphic artists and creators of decorative and applied art from 1917 to the early 1990s.
"A Misfortune", sometimes translated "Misfortune", is an 1886 story by Anton Chekhov. First published in Novoye Vremya, the story concerns Sofya Petrovna, the young wife of a country notary, whose attempts to turn away a suitor only expose her own desire for him and drive her toward an affair. The main theme is sexual enthrallment, a frequent concern in Chekhov's work during this period.
"Anna on the Neck" is an 1895 short story by Anton Chekhov
