May 10, 2020

The Mysterious Origins of a Flea-Market Painting


The Mysterious Origins of a Flea-Market Painting

Peter Guppy of Prosperity Hardware thinks he has a Kazimir Malevich painting on his hands. This wonderful video from The New Yorker magazine talks about the difficulty of validating art and the provenance of this painting, which was acquired at a Moscow open-air market in 1994...

"Follow your dreams, because it is an adventure, and you will be rewarded for your adventures."

Is it or isn't it? You be the judge. [11 minutes]

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Malevich's Ukrainian Square
  • September 01, 2016

Malevich's Ukrainian Square

A century-old work of art by an avant-garde artist has become a symbol for the growing rift between Russia and Ukraine, just as more is being learned about its famous artist.
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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 Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

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.  
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
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.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

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Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
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A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

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