The Decembrist Revolt was a failed coup d'état led by liberal military and political dissidents against the Russian Empire. It took place in Saint Petersburg on 26 December [O.S. 14 December] 1825, following the sudden death of Emperor Alexander I.
Alexander Nikolayevich Radishchev was a Russian author and social critic who was arrested and exiled under Catherine the Great. He brought the tradition of radicalism in Russian literature to prominence with his 1790 novel Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow. His depiction of socio-economic conditions in Russia resulted in his exile to Siberia until 1797. He was the grandfather of painter Alexey Bogolyubov.
Katorga was a system of penal labor in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
The Joy Luck Club is a 1989 novel written by Amy Tan. It focuses on four Chinese immigrant families in San Francisco who start a mahjong club known as The Joy Luck Club. The book is structured similarly to a mahjong game, with four parts divided into four sections to create sixteen chapters. The three mothers and four daughters share stories about their lives in the form of short vignettes. Each part is preceded by a parable relating to the themes within that section.
Yekaterina Konstantinovna Breshko-Breshkovskaya(née Verigo; born 25 January [O.S. 13 January] 1844 – 12 September 1934), also known in English sources as Catherine Breshkovsky, was a major figure in the Russian socialist movement, a Narodnik, and later one of the founders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. She has been described as Russia's first female political prisoner.
Housekeeping is a 1980 novel by Marilynne Robinson. The novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and awarded the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel.
Zinaida Lvovna Volkova was a Russian Marxist. She was Leon Trotsky's first daughter by his first wife, Aleksandra Sokolovskaya, a Marxist from Nikolaev (Ukraine). She was raised by her aunt Yelizaveta, sister of Trotsky, after their parents divorced. Her younger sister, Nina, stayed with her mother.
The Rats (1974) is a horror novel by British writer James Herbert. This was Herbert's first novel and included graphic depictions of death and mutilation.
Dreaming in Cuban is the first novel written by author Cristina García, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. This novel moves between Cuba and the United States featuring three generations of a single family. The novel focuses particularly on the women—Celia del Pino, her daughters Lourdes and Felicia, and her granddaughter Pilar. While most of the novel is written in the third person, some sections are written in the first person and other sections are epistolary. The novel is not told in linear fashion; it moves between characters, places and times.
The Endless Steppe (1968) is a memoir of survival by Esther Hautzig, describing her exile with her immediate family to Siberia during World War II. Kirkus Reviews granted it a Kirkus Star, which "marks books of exceptional merit".
Elizabeth Boyle, Countess of Guildford, was an English peeress. She was created 1st Countess of Guildford for life at the Restoration on 14 July 1660, which became extinct upon her death c. 3 September 1667. She held the office of Groom of the Stole and Lady of the Bedchamber to the queen dowager, Henrietta Maria.
Roman Sergeevich Madyanov was a Soviet and Russian actor. Madyanov's career in cinema began as a child actor when he starred as Huckleberry Finn in Hopelessly Lost (1973). He was best known in the West for portraying the corrupt mayor Vadim in the 2014 film Leviathan.
Princess Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya was a Decembrist wife of Prince Sergey Volkonsky who followed her husband into Siberian exile after his trial.
Dreams of My Russian Summers is a French novel by Andrei Makine, originally published in 1995. It won two top French awards, the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Médicis. The novel is told from the first-person perspective and tells the fictional story of a boy's memories and experiences with his French grandmother in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and '70s.
Laishevsky District – is a territorial administrative unit and municipal district of the Republic of Tatarstan within the Russian Federation. It is located in the western part of the republic at the confluence of the Volga and Kama rivers. The administrative center of the district is the city of Laishevo.
Uncle's Dream is an 1859 novella by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. The first work of Dostoevsky after a long pause, the novella was written during the author's stay in Semipalatinsk. It was first published in the Russian magazine Russkoye Slovo.
Ivy Teresa Low Litvinov was an English-Russian writer and translator, and wife of Soviet diplomat and foreign minister Maxim Litvinov. She was also known as Ivy Low, Ivy Litvinova or Ivy Litvinoff.
Guzel Shamilyevna Yakhina is a Russian author and screenwriter. She is a winner of the Big Book literary prize and the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award.
Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes is a Russian television historical fiction drama series based on the novel Zuleikha by Guzel Yakhina and aired on channel Russia-1 in April 2020. The series stars Chulpan Khamatova as Zuleikha Valieva, a peasant woman from the Tatar village in the Soviet Union.
Ewa Felińska was a Polish author and prosaist. She is most notable for authoring several novels and for her contributions to Orgelbrand's Universal Encyclopedia. She was the mother of Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński.
