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Krylov on how one negotiates with wolves. Hint: one doesn't. "Of wolves I’ve learned a thing or two. With them there’s only one sure truce."

Fyodor Tyutchev (whose 115th birthday is today) was endowed with genius and good luck: a great Russian poet, he was not killed in a duel or in the Caucasus.  Nor did he rot in Siberia, but instead lived until he was 70 and died in his own bed. 

On September 29-30, 1941, Nazi troops shot over 33,000 Jews at the edge of the Babi Yar ravine near Kiev. Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem memorializing the tragedy ensures it will never be forgotten. 

In honor of Alexander Pushkin's 217th birthday, here's a small sample of his poems to show that his writing isn't just pretty and witty – it can help you through almost any situation.

On the occasion of Pushkin's birthday, we offer a post on the challenge of translating his most famous love lyrics, "Я вас любил," with a bonus look at Innokenty Annensky's "Среди миров."

Under Stalin, a poem could mean life or death. For many poets, it was a one-way ticket to the Gulag. Today, poems can be a means to face cultural memories of arrests in the night, forced labor, and the silence demanded of people fearing those fates. 

As a metal, Silver means second place; as a period of poetic production in Russia, the Silver Age is unparalleled. The years 1890-1925 (give or take) stand out for the explosion of poetic voices, forms, and innovations. With help from the recently published Russian Silver Age Poetry, we explore what sets that period apart.

There's plenty of talk about how Russia is dark and dismal, its writers pathologically depressed, and the general mood among the populace about as cheery as a Siberian winter. These stereotypes give short shrift to Russian humor...