September 01, 2014

For Better or Worse


For Better or Worse

Every time one thinks that things just can't get any worse on the US-Russian relations front, they do.

In the past decade and a half‘s slow downward spiral there has been the war in Chechnya, the US bombing of Serbia, spy scandals, the ABM Treaty, NATO expansion, the war in Georgia, the failed “reset” button, Edward Snowden, the annexation of Crimea, and now the war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, from the outside looking in, Americans see the de-democratization of elections, crackdowns on press freedoms, politically motivated criminal prosecutions, the theft of state assets, and a worrying political homogenization of society.

And from the inside looking out, Russians see NATO encirclement, US and EU meddling in its sphere of influence, American military intervention in Islamic states situated on Russia‘s underbelly, and neighbors who are freeloading off cheap Russian energy.

It is hard not to look at these events and oppositional worldviews and conclude that the situation is hopeless.

Yet it bears remembering that for most of the twentieth century the US and the USSR found a way to coexist (while of course conducting many wars through proxy), despite the fact that each had an ideology that swore the other state would crumble.

It also is worth remembering that for most of the nineteenth century the US and Russia had the best of relations, despite the fact that they had oppositional views on the nature of society and political freedoms, and that their territorial empires were butting up against one another in the Pacific.

When the world is self-inflicting arson, mayhem and banality on itself (which, admittedly, it seems to be doing most of the time), it helps to step back and keep things in perspective.

When Russians and Ukrainians, tied together by centuries of history, are fighting over scraps of territory, when spies are violating one another‘s air and desktop space, when politicians are deciding what people have a right to read, watch and eat, it is good to take a breather. It is good to read about street photographers, to run off into the wilderness in search of wolves, to ruminate on soulful poetry, or to wonder at beautiful animals.

The world gave us the unimaginable tragedy of a downed airliner. We respond by embellishing the cover of our magazine with an unlikely, noble and beautiful giraffe.

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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. 
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.
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.
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.
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

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.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
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.
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.
Survival Russian

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.

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