November 03, 2016

False history and forensic literature


False history and forensic literature

Hist, lit, and fed leg

1. With next year as the centenary of the October Revolution (falling on November 7, in the current calendar), Russia’s security council is looking to prevent the falsification of history.One proposal is to create an agency to counter information attacks and distortions of the past by anti-Russian sources (namely, the West). Others say that history should remain in the hands of academics. As the debate goes on, the future of history looks uncertain.

2.You can learn a lot from a dirty piece of paper with a masterpiece written on it. Researchers examining Mikhail Bulgakov’s manuscript of Master and Margarita have found traces of both morphine and proteins linked to kidney disease. It was previously suspected that the morphine may have been planted by the NKVD (the precursor to the KGB). The new research is proof of the pain suffered by the author – and perhaps, the inspiration that accompanied his suffering.

3. Is the “Russian nation” a culture? A territory? A feeling? A profound depth of soul? All that, and maybe a law, too. President Putin has supported proposed federal legislation on the Russian nation and the management of inter-ethnic development." The announcement comes just before Unity Day on November 4, and the nationalists marching to observe the holiday may not share the value of ethnic unity.

In odder news

  • Ivan the Terrible has been sacked. Literally: someone put a sack over the head of Oryol's monument to the 16th-century Tsar.
  • An international team of astronauts – hailing from the U.S., Russia, and Japan – has safely returned after 115 days in space. Now that's putting aside national differences. 
  • There’s magic in the air. At least, 36% of Russians believe there is, according to a recent poll.

Quote of the week

"I note with satisfaction that nearly 80% of the country’s citizens think relations between people of different nationalities are kind and normal."
—President Vladimir Putin on Russia’s improved sense of national unity. He added that several years ago, the figure was only 55%.

Cover image: from the televised Master and Margarita. lenta.ru.

Want more where this comes from? Give your inbox the gift of TWERF, our Thursday newsletter on the quirkiest, obscurest, and Russianest of Russian happenings of the week.

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (bilingual)

The fables of Ivan Krylov are rich fonts of Russian cultural wisdom and experience – reading and understanding them is vital to grasping the Russian worldview. This new edition of 62 of Krylov’s tales presents them side-by-side in English and Russian. The wonderfully lyrical translations by Lydia Razran Stone are accompanied by original, whimsical color illustrations by Katya Korobkina.
The Little Golden Calf

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.
Marooned in Moscow

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.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

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.
A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
The Moscow Eccentric

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.
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
Fearful Majesty

Fearful Majesty

This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955