September 08, 2011 Review: New Fiction for Russophiles It should come as no surprise,” writes Vyacheslav Pyetsukh at the beginning of The New Moscow Philosophy, “that where literature goes life follows, that Russians not only write what they live but in part live what they write…” Literature Reviews Russia File
September 01, 2011 Review: Three World War Two Histories It is the great, cruel paradox of World War II in Russia that heinous, unanswered crimes coexisted with truly heroic, astonishing human achievement. That – be it out of fear or love of the Motherland or self-defense – Soviets fought so bravely to defend a system that treated them like cattle, confiscating from them the land, the bread and the peace that the Revolution had allegedly been all about, shipping them and their relatives off to Siberian labor camps, sentencing soldiers unfortunate enough to have been captured in war into “penal battalions.” History Reviews Russia File
April 01, 2011 On PBS this Month: The Great Famine Today, Herbert Hoover – the 31st president of the United States (1929-1933) – is probably most associated with the onset and deepening of the Great Depression. Few know that prior to his presidency he was a successful international mining engineer (and had some lucrative investments in Russia before the Revolution), and later headed up the ARA (American Relief Administration), designed to deliver needed foreign aid to Belgium in the aftermath of World War I. Film & TV History Int'l Relations Reviews Russia File
March 30, 2011 On PBS next week: Desert of Forbidden Art Igor Savitsky single-handedly saved over 40,000 works of avant-garde Soviet art by hiding them in plain sight. Well, in plain sight in a completely out of the way museum in Nukus, Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan). Art Film & TV Reviews Russia File
March 15, 2011 Review: The Trinity Six I love a good thriller, and so was excited to get this review copy in the mail last month. The premise is interesting, the characters mainly believable, and the well-layered plot drives you along, just not as intensely as I would have liked. Reviews Russia File
March 03, 2011 Review: The Road & More This amazing collection of fiction and non-fiction by one of the 20th century's most talented and most overlooked writers re-demonstrates that Grossman was a meticulous documentarian of the Russian soul. Literature Reviews Russia File
January 09, 2011 The Little Golden Calf Named Best Translation of 2010 We are EXCITED to announce that Anne O. Fisher's translation of Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov's classic novel, The Little Golden Calf, which we published in 2009, has received the 2010 AATSEEL Book Award for Best Translation into English. Literature Reviews Russian Life Magazine Russia File
February 09, 2010 A "very bouncy" translation of The Little Golden Calf The Louisville Courier-Journal has a nice feature this morning on Anne Fisher, the translator and driving force behind our new translation of The Little Golden Calf. It talks about how the book went in and out of favor with the Soviet regime, and how Anne was inspired to bring the work out in English because it had been so instrumental in forging her own understanding of all things Russian. Literature Reviews Russian Life Magazine Russia File
February 28, 2022 to December 31, 2024 Free Russian Language Guided Tours Metropolitan Museum of Art | New York, NY Russian-speaking guides conduct tours of the museum's highlights every Monday at 11 am. Art Exhibit
November 11, 2023 to September 15, 2024 Visions of Transcendence: Creating Space in East and West Wende Museum | Culver City, CA This exhibit highlights the resilience and creative power of people deprived of their freedom or their own place to live. Art Exhibit
The Little Golden Calf Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
301 Things Everyone Should Know About Russia How do you begin to get a handle on the world's largest country? This colorful, illustrated guide will get you started...
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 Moscow Eccentric Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.
Fish: A History of One Migration This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
Marooned in Moscow This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
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 Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.
Moscow and Muscovites Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin.
At the Circus This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.
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.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
January 10, 2014 Why Don't Russians Smile? It is a common trope that Russians never smile. Which of course is interpreted to mean they are unfriendly, gloomy, sullen – positively Dostoyevskian. This, of course, is a complete misreading of body language and cultural norms. Culture Humor Language Russia File
May 07, 2015 The Most Useful Russian Inventions What do radio, television, the periodic table, and helicopters have in common? Russians were involved in developing all of them – and more! Reference Science Russia File
August 22, 2020 Sad Smiles and Kremlin Corruption Recounting a 2008 meeting with activist Alexei Navalny, before he rose to prominence. Government Politics Russia File
May 09, 2020 Russian/Soviet War Movies You Can Stream Some of the best Russian and Soviet films about World War II that you can stream online. Film & TV Reference War Culture Through Film CVSG Russia File
January 28, 2020 Meet Russia's favorite sable Siberian sable fur was once Russia's biggest luxury export, but now we can't get enough of Instagram star Umora, the sable inspiring Russians to never look at fur coats again. Animals Internet Interview Russia File
November 18, 2016 Famous Americans with Russian Roots America is a land built by immigrants. We researched famous Americans with Russian roots and offer this compilation. History Reference Russians Abroad Russia File
