Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its émigrés, and to Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Early Middle Ages when Old Church Slavonic was introduced as a liturgical language and became used as a literary language. By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in importance, and from the early 1830s, Russian literature underwent an astounding "Golden Age" in poetry, prose and drama. The Romantic movement contributed to a flowering of literary talent: poet Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Mikhail Lermontov was one of the most important poets and novelists. Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev wrote masterful short stories and novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy became internationally renowned. Other important figures were Ivan Goncharov, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin and Nikolai Leskov. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. The beginning of the 20th century is sometimes called the Silver Age of Russian poetry. The poets most often associated with the "Silver Age" are Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Nikolay Gumilyov, Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Marina Tsvetaeva. This era produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin and Nobel Prize winners Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Fyodor Sologub, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Alexander Belyaev, Andrei Bely and Maxim Gorky.
Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears is a 1980 Soviet romantic drama film made by Mosfilm. It was written by Valentin Chernykh and directed by Vladimir Menshov. The leading roles were played by Vera Alentova and Aleksey Batalov. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1981.
Vladimir Georgiyevich Sorokin is a contemporary postmodern Russian writer and dramatist. He has been described as one of the most popular writers in modern Russian literature.
Walking the Streets of Moscow is a 1964 Soviet film directed by Georgiy Daneliya and produced by Mosfilm studios. It stars Nikita Mihalkov, Aleksei Loktev, Yevgeny Steblov and Galina Polskikh. The film also features four People's Artists of the USSR: Rolan Bykov, Vladimir Basov, Lev Durov, and Inna Churikova. The famous movie theme, performed by Mikhalkov, was written by the composer Andrey Petrov. The film, regarded as one of the most characteristic of the Khrushchev Thaw, premiered at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival and won a prize for the work of cameraman Vadim Yusov, best known for his subsequent collaboration with Andrei Tarkovsky.
Life and Fate is a novel by Vasily Grossman. Written in the Soviet Union in 1959, it narrates the story of the family of a Soviet physicist, Viktor Shtrum, during the Great Patriotic War, which is depicted as the struggle between two comparable totalitarian states. A multi-faceted novel, one of its main themes is the tragedy of the common people, who have to fight both the invaders and the totalitarianism of their own state. In 2021, the critic and editor Robert Gottlieb, writing in The New York Times, referred to Life and Fate as "the most impressive novel written since World War II."
What Is to Be Done? is an 1863 novel written by Russian philosopher, journalist, and literary critic Nikolay Chernyshevsky, written in response to Fathers and Sons (1862) by Ivan Turgenev. The chief character is Vera Pavlovna, a woman who escapes the control of her family and an arranged marriage to seek economic independence.
Sally Ann Laird was a British editor and translator who specialised in Russian literature.
Bro is a science fiction novel by Vladimir Sorokin, the first part in the series The Ice Trilogy, a “tripartite extravaganza [that] pummels the reader with super-dense chunks of satire, fantasy, parody, history and paranoid pseudo-theory.“ The other volumes are, respectively, Ice and 23,000. Although it chronologically precedes Ice, it was written several years after Ice was published.
Lyudmila Ivanovna Kasatkina was a Soviet and Russian actress who starred in a string of war-related films directed by her husband Sergey Kolosov.
Day of the Oprichnik is a 2006 novel by the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin. The narrative is set in the near future, when the Tsardom of Russia has been restored, and follows a government henchman, an oprichnik, through a day of grotesque events. Sorokin in one of the later interviews confessed that he did not anticipate his novel be an accurate picture of the future, even in some subtle details, but rather wrote this book as a warning and "mystical precaution" against the state of events described in the storyline. The title is a reference to the Oprichnina, the black-clad secret police of Ivan the Terrible, whose symbol was a black dog's head and a broom.
The Golovlyov Family is a novel by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, written in the course of five years, first published in 1880, and generally regarded as the author's magnum opus.
Vadim Semyonovich Spiridonov was a Soviet film actor, film director. Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1984). Winner of the State Prize of the USSR (1979), Winner of the Lenin Komsomol Prize (1980).
Tamer of Tigers is a 1955 Soviet-era comedy film released by Lenfilm, directed by Nadezhda Kosheverova and Aleksandr Ivanovsky. It was billed as a "lyrical and eccentric comedy". This film was the debut of Soviet actress Lyudmila Kasatkina. The film premiered in the USSR on 11 March 1955. The film deals with the romantic intrigues and longings of a small Russian circus family and those around them.
July Rain is a 1967 Soviet drama film directed by Marlen Khutsiev.
Island of Lost Ships is a 1987 Soviet two-part musical television miniseries directed by Evgeniy Ginzburg and Rauf Mamedov and based on the eponymous novel by Alexander Belyaev.
Could One Imagine?, also released as Love and Lies, is a 1981 Soviet teen drama film directed by Ilya Frez based on the novella by Galina Shcherbakova.
Seven Old Men and a Girl is a 1968 Soviet musical comedy film directed by Yevgeny Karelov.
Anna Sorokin, also known as Anna Delvey, is a con artist and fraudster who posed as a wealthy heiress to access upper-class New York social and art scenes from 2013 to 2017.
The Queue is a 2013 satire novel by Basma Abdel Aziz. It was first published in English in 2016. The novel explores totalitarianism and bureaucracy through the lens of a fictional Middle Eastern state and the people under its control.
