Russian Literature and Culture

01/10/2026

We are delighted to announce that the book of translations of Anton Chekhov's earliest stories, featuring translators from nine countries, has been finally published in English.

This volume presents the first comprehensive annotated edition of Chekhov's earliest stories in English. Translated as part of a unique project involving 85...

06/04/2025

Summer in Russian classic literature

"It was a quiet summer morning. The sun was already high in the clear sky, yet the fields still glistened with dew. The newly awakened valleys smelled of fragrant freshness, and in the forest, still damp and quiet, the early birds were singing merrily. On the top of a gentle hill, covered from top to bottom with newly blossomed rye, a small village could be seen. Along a narrow country lane toward the village, a young woman walked."
From "Rudin" by Ivan Turgenev

01/01/2025

Wonders of Russian winter

"Just think, what can you expect in winter but frost!" said the ladies, persuading the governor, who tried to insist that the fete should be postponed. "If anyone is cold, they can go and warm themselves." The trees, the horses, the men's beards were white with frost; it even seemed that the air itself was crackling, as if it could not bear the cold; but nevertheless the frozen public was skating."
From Anton Chekhov's "Frost"

11/03/2024

Afanasy Fet

Какая холодная осень!
Надень свою шаль и капот.
Смотри, — из-за дремлющих сосен
Как будто пожар восстаёт.

Сияние северной ночи
Я помню всегда близ тебя:
И светят фосфо́рные очи,
Да только не греют меня.

1854

10/05/2024

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Did you know that this is the 194th anniversary of the Boldino Autumn by Alexander Pushkin?

October has arrived - the woods have tossed
Their final leaves from naked branches;
A breath of autumn chill - the road begins to freeze,
The stream still murmurs as it passes by the mill,
The pond, however's frozen; and my neighbor hastens
to his far-flung fields with all the members of his hunt.
The winter wheat will suffer from this wild fun,
And baying hounds awake the slumbering groves.
II
This is my time: I am not fond of spring;
The tiresome thaw, the stench, the mud - spring sickens me.
The blood ferments, and yearning binds the heart and mind..
With cruel winter I am better satisfied,
I love the snows; when in the moonlight
A sleigh ride swift and carefree with a friend.
Who, warm and rosy 'neath a sable mantle,
Burns, trembles as she clasps your hand.
- Alexander Pushkin, 1833
Translation: Best Poems Encyclopedia

04/01/2024

"Зарево охватило треть неба, блестит в церковном кресте и в стёклах господского дома, отсвечивает в реке и в лужах, дрожит на деревьях; далеко-далеко на фоне зари летит куда-то ночевать стая диких уток… И подпасок, гонящий коров, и землемер, едущий в бричке через плотину, и гуляющие господа — все глядят на закат и все до одного находят, что он страшно красив, но никто не знает и не скажет, в чем тут красота." Антон Чехов. 'Красавицы',1888

01/07/2024

...Imagine striking a match in that midnight cave,
The fire, the farm beasts in outline, the farm tools and stuff;
And imagine, as you towel your face in the enveloping folds,
Mary, Joseph, and the Infant in swaddling clothes.
Imagine the kings, the caravans’ stilted procession
As they make for the cave, or, rather, three beams closing in
And in on the star, the creaking of loads, the clink of a cowbell;
No thronging of Heaven as yet, no peal of the bell...

Nativity Poem, 1989 by Joseph Brodsky
Translated by Seamus Heany
The New Yorker, 2000