June 04, 2020

Celebrate Life (#TBT)


Celebrate Life (#TBT)
Portrait of Apollon Maykov. By Vasily Perov

In these difficult times, let’s celebrate life. Specifically, five Russians who happen to share today, June 4, as their birthday.

Alexander Gorchakov (1798) was one of the most effective and influential Russian diplomats of the nineteenth century, notable for presiding over Russia’s sale of Alaska to the US, and for rebuilding Russian prestige in the aftermath of the Crimean War. Soon after becoming foreign minister, he announced that Russia would for a time be avoiding foreign entanglements, using the now famous line, “Russia is not sulking, she is composing herself.”

Appollon Maykov (1821, new style) was a poet and translator noted for verses praising the Russian countryside. He also translated the epic The Tale of Igor’s Campaign into modern Russian (a four-year job). Many of Maykov’s poems were set to music by Rimsky-Korsakov and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. He wavered his entire life between liberalism and conservatism, in the end choosing the latter. He was very close to Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Yevgeny Mravinsky
Portrait of Yevgeny Mravinsky,
painting by Lev Russov (1926–1987)

Yevgeny Mravinsky (1903) was one of the most influential and exciting conductors of the Soviet era, leading the Leningrad Philharmonic from 1938-1988, where he premiered six of Shostakovich’s symphonies, one of which the composer dedicated to him.
 

Viktor Platonovich Nekrasov (1911) was a writer, journalist, editor, and a long-time dissident against Soviet power in the post-Stalinist era of de-Stalinization. During World War II, he served in the Red Army and fought in the Battle of Stalingrad. After the war, he became a journalist and based his first book In the Trenches of Stalingrad on his experiences there. The novel (excerpted in the May/June 2020 issue of Russian Life and soon to be published by Russian Life Books in its entirety) was awarded the USSR State Prize for literature in 1947. He emigrated to France in 1974 and died there about a decade later.

Alexei Navalny (1976) is a modern politician, lawyer, and activist about whom few are neutral. Over the past decade he has risen in prominence campaigning for the Moscow mayoralty and the Russian presidency, while being an outspoken and particularly articulate and creative critic of Kremlin corruption.

 

 

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Some of our Books

Life Stories
September 01, 2009

Life Stories

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.

93 Untranslatable Russian Words
December 01, 2008

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.

How Russia Got That Way
September 20, 2025

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka
November 01, 2012

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.

White Magic
June 01, 2021

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.

A Taste of Chekhov
December 24, 2022

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.

The Little Humpbacked Horse
November 03, 2014

The Little Humpbacked Horse

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.

Russian Rules
November 16, 2011

Russian Rules

From the shores of the White Sea to Moscow and the Northern Caucasus, Russian Rules is a high-speed thriller based on actual events, terrifying possibilities, and some really stupid decisions.

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