From Russia with tough love
340435
There is an old, politically-incorrect adage regarding the translation of a literary work from one language to another. A translation is like a woman: if it's beautiful, it's not faithul; if it's faithful, it's not beautiful. This saw kept buzzing through my brain while I was reading Vladimir Nabokov's 1964 English translation of Alexander Pushkin's novel-in-verse "Eugene Onegin". The poem has a unique place in Russian literature, required reading in schools -- required memorization, from what I understand. It seems an odd choice for school rooms, being an ironic love story with a sardonic edge; but then American students are required to read "Silas Marner", George Eliot's tale of greed and redemption. Nabokov, the author of the dazzling "Pale Fire", was born in Old Russia in 1899 and became a master of his native language as well as English. His version of Pushkin's masterpiece doesn't attempt to maintain the meter or rhyming scheme of the original, thereby leading to the danger of "piped-in background music", but presents a literal translation of "humble fidelity". There have been several English translations, and Nabokov sternly appraises them all. (Tchaikovsky's opera is dismissed as "slapdash".) He even goes so far as to compare his work with that of other translators. Thus, Onegin's flirtation with a serf in Book Four is translated by Nabokov as: "sometimes a white-skinned, dark-eyed girl's young and fresh kiss". In his notes Nabokov is amused by an earlier translator's "And, if a black-eyed girl permitted, sometimes a kiss as fresh as she" and is positively aghast at this rendering: "A kiss at times from some fair maiden, dark-eyed, with bright and youthful looks". Now, to an English-only reader, these don't really sound that ridiculous; but Nabokov, in his bilingual security, can be a caustic critic. (As evidently are some of his admirers: I've noticed in Amazon.com that "Eugene Onegin" causes some emotional responses.) By the way, the notes alone are worth the price of admission. Ferociously erudite, Nabokov can also be extremely witty, as when he is discussing Byronic heroes: "Judged by a number of early-nineteenth-century English and French novels that I have perused, the four main outlets or cures for ennui found by the characters suffering from it were: (1) making a nuisance of oneself; (2) committing suicide; (3) joining some well-organized religious group; and (4) quietly submitting to the situation." So, you've been alerted. Get out your dictionary (you'll need it), dust off your French (there's lots of it), and settle down to what might be called Nabokov's labor of tough love.
1542679
An epic story about WW II in Leningrad. The young couple face s major opposition every way they turn. The problems multiply with every page you turn. Life in the Soviet Union will never be the life Alexander wants for Tatiana. But what is young the American boy doing in the Red Army? The answers are only the problem, what is the answer to their problem? Are there answers or is there only agony? Can they ever find the happiness they deserve so much.
4156205
Masha Gesson has an amazing background to write about contemporary Russia.  Besides being native of St. Petersburg, she traveled extensively in the Caucasus.  The book is a furious indictment of Putin and the KGB.  She provides credible evidence that the KGB, not the Chechens, blew up some buildings to provide an excuse to invade Chechnya -- or to get Russian public opinion on his side.  She describes the hellish childhood of Vladimir Putin, his thuggish behavior, and amazing incidents of his kleptomania.
1356270
Morgan is searching for love and feels he'll only find it in a Russian woman. He's in his thirties, a California man desperate to find true love, but he is set on certain ideals. The book is well written and easy to read, in a conversational tone. The author has a style all his own which makes the memoir a worthy read and memorable. From his poetic beginning to the last when he discovers his own truth, it's a book a reader will enjoy. He flew to Russia for to find true love. Will he come back with it? My favorite line in the book is, "It's too bad we can't choose who we love." Insightful. Brings us to that age-old question is it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? To know love and lose it, is it worth it? From the opening in the digs where two skeletons are found in an unusual position to the last pages when the plane  leaves the Russian runway, the book is thought-provoking and insightful and leaves the reader to ponder and discover his own truth. Sometimes we must lose ideals to find true, lasting love, but can Morgan give up his? Brings me to mind of an old country song about the man's baby being made in the USA. Makes me wonder if Morgan couldn't have pursued a different part of it rather than California? The USA is a multicolored patchwork quilt, offering a gumbo of women of different cultures, as different as night and day. All women in the USA are not like California ones. Morgan has a friend he talks with named Kim, who offers him guidance and act like a mom to him, though a young one, but will her guidance be enough to help him find that true, lasting love he's searching for? Is it out there? Is it in Russia as his mind is set on, or could it possibly be in a place he never thought to look? They say don't search for love; it will find you. Really enjoyed this journey through Morgan's mind.
3440505
I knew a Russian village such as Mishenko.  It's called Ovrashki, about 60-70 miles south of Moscow. As Booth walks us through it, its forests, its foxes and birds, its half-abandoned repair shops, its smells of fresh-baked bread, and most of all, its relationships, I am back in Ovrashki, leaning against the wall of a mud hut transfixed by summer flowers, watching a table being spread with everything eaten in this world,  full of love for the people surrounding me, and full of reflections in infinite variety of feeling and manifestation on the paths we take toward our inevitable end.  In this case, the path was through a coal-mining piece of the Gulag archipelago, where brutalized comrades emerge with the same relationships, emotions, and self-knowledge that one sees in the post-Gulag village.  It's a tear-jerker of self-knowledge and awakened sensitivity to what exists around you and through you.  Well-done!
4624735
Boy is this a tough book! But at the end of it you'll have a thorought, never-told-before story in your mind just how and why the Soviet Union unglued. More importantly for current times, you'll know just how scrappy are Ukraine and the other satellite republics. The constant below-the-radar scuffle between a well-meaning Gorbachev and poor alcoholic, depressive Boris Yeltsin is key to understanding the fall of the USSR and it is well chronicalled. George HW Bush and James Baker were in and out of Kiev and Moscow all the time: They were trying to end the Cold War via the SALT I and II treaties (that were almost worthless) while really not having a clue that the Cold War was ending by attrition occurring within the Soviet Union. I mean they knew it but then again they didn't, because they knew poor Gorby was losing control while a crude, unseemly Yeltsin was gaining control. I'm not sure even Gorby and Boris knew who was in control there for a while! And that's the surprise to the story. The deficit? On the day the USSR fell, almost a million scientists, physicists, mathematicians and others--including those involved in nuclear suitcase bombs and dirty bacteria for biowarfare--received a pink slip on the same day. The US government immediately launched an investigation using Lawrence-Livermore Laboratories: they found that 35% of those disenfranchised scientists would work for a rogue government in order to feed their families. THIS WAS HUGE! So we picked out the best and the brightest and brought them to America. However, that's the only deficit in a very extensive treatise on how the Empire fell. Well done!
3086357
This book is an exciting and entertaining personal history about a great Russian Pilot. It tells about his struggle with his dealing with the ideology of living in the Soviet society. Then with his eventual rejection and disillusionment of it. At the end you have to agree that the Russian People "are tough" and to admire them for being able to survive while living in that country.
2377924
With the late 1999 rise of Vladimir Putin to first Premier, then later president, of the Russian Federation, a new class of leadership took over the levers of power in Russia. What they faced was a country in chaos, reeling from a currency crisis, a long war in the Caucuses, and general malaise in the country. Putin and his siloviki ended the war in Chechnya, started reforming the military, and gave a much different public perception of Russian leadership then the drunken and overwhelmed Yeltsin. What he also brought was a state run to the benefit of his former KGB colleagues. He enriched his friends and destroyed anyone who challenged politically. He also took a much darker view of world politics and relations with the west, especially the United States. Russian security services took to challenging Westerners operating in Russia, and there was probably a similar increase in Russian operations overseas. Russian journalists Soldatov and Borogan are brave to chronicle these topics and much more in this engrossing book. It will do wonders to fill in the picture of how Russian leadership views ongoing issues with the West over Ukraine, the expansion of NATO, and the need to make Russia appear at least to be among the worlds great powers.
2822671
Although Russian literature is depressing is a stereotype, it is a stereotype that I have largely found true, seeing as my main experiences with Russian literature have been from Dostoyevsky (Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov), Tolstoy (Anna Karenina, Complete Plays), and Chekov (The Cherry Orchard, a handful of short stories).  But there is nothing depressing about Ruslan and Lyudmila (except, debatably, the epilogue), and much about it that will evince a chuckle or even a guffaw.  Written while Pushkin was a hedonistic young man in the process of being barred from the capital by an irate Tsar Alexander I, the tale reflects his cheeky, twinkle-eyed approach to life at this time.

Ruslan and Lyudmila is a mock-epic narrative poem set in the days of Vladmir the Greats Kievan state.  Rusln has just been married to the lovely Lyudmla, and is about to enjoy the first night of his marriage, when his bride is spirited away just seconds before their consummation by Chernomr, a lecherous wizard-dwarf with an immense magical beard that he has sported from birth.  Angry at the loss of his daughter, Vladmir sends Rusln out to recapture her, accompanied by three antagonistic knights, each with their own fatal flaw: Rogdy (wrath), Farlf (sloth/cowardice), and Ratmr (lust).  Before Rusln arrives, Lyudmla has managed to seize the wizards enchanted cap, making her invisible, but he must still battle Chernomr, find Lyudmla, and survive the return journey.  A hermit-sorceror of Finnish descent, a disgruntled witch named Nana, and an enormous severed head complicate the picture, as does a last-minute invasion by the pagan Pechenegs.  Making use of many common motifs, characters, and plots of Russian folk and fairy tales, Pushkin creates a narrative that is traditional and modern, with genuine heroism and comical buffoonery, elevated chivalric discourse and crude amorous jesting.  The appeal of such a unique tale is broad, and the happy ending, marred only slightly by deaths stamp, is a fitting conclusion to the six cantos of escapades the poem contains.

The edition, produced by the small British press Alma Classics, is excellent in every respect.  Roger Clarke, the translator, has included a great deal of information about the translation, Pushkins life, and the work itself, and has provided the reader with extensive explanatory notes and an appendix containing certain risqu or politically sensitive passages that Pushkin removed in a later edition of the poem.  His short introduction is also well done.  The cover art, back cover blurbs, and overall layout are all quite satisfying.  For those who read Russian, the dual-language nature of this publication (the original Russian on left pages and the corresponding English translation on the right) will provide them with the satisfaction of digesting Pushkin in the original.  I eagerly await further reads from Alma Classics.

For those who have been intimidated by Russian literature in the past, or who enjoy Russian literature but have not been introduced to Pushkin as of yet, this work is for you.  I would also recommend it to those who enjoy satirical or comic long poems such as those by Alexander Pope and Lord Byron, as well as those readers who simply enjoy a ripping good hero-princess yarn (with a few twists).
3387903
A moving film about the hardships of the Russian Orphan system. Moving beyond words this gem of a film will make you laugh and cry. A wonderful movie
401481
My husband speaks Russian, has visited there numerous times, and was familiar with this song.  This is a truly stunning version.
3054077
This film is set at the beginning of the 17th century when Russia had a severe crisis over who was to inherit the throne after the Tsar died. There are many contenders but none too genuine. This was called the time of `chaos' as the people are leaderless, and the Poles had invaded Russia. Their Hetman (Michel Zebrowski) has captured the Tsarina Kseniya Godunova. He has fallen in infatuation with her and sees marriage to her as a way to legitimise his false claim to the throne.  Throw into the mix a lowly serf Andrei played by Pyotr Kislov, he really does love the Tsarina and through guile and cunning sets about saving her and in the long run, Russia too.

The opening sequences start in 1605 and we get a pocket `history' lesson to take us up to date. This is not a true history lesson though and quite happily mixes up faith, mysticism and myth with all the action. We have a holy man who won't come down from his tree until the chaos has ended, lots of iconography (very Russ indeed) and a recurring theme of Unicorns.  Whilst we are thrown into the current plight of the characters, the missing detail is told in vivid flashback, so by about half way through you get to understand the real histories of those involved and the attraction Andrei has for the Tsarina.

This has been criticised for being anti -Polish, well of course it is, this is a Russian film and the Poles are the enemy. They do get the best costumes though, they are all armoured up and wear wings to give them the look of avenging angels. That is one of the many strengths of this film, the costumes are stunning. Add to that the overall excellent cinematography and attention to detail and this makes for a real visual feast.

There is buckets of action too and it is done really well, the CGI that had to be used in places is so good that you really don't notice and as good special effects should do, it actually adds to the emotional upsurge that was intended.  Look out for the siege sequences, they are brilliant. My only complaint is around the subtitles, not everything is translated especially the Italian parts; and on occasion the Russian translation is over the English translation, making it virtually impossible to read.

That aside, this is a rollercoaster of a film, with action, intrigue, romance and a ruddy great story with excellent performances all round. Vladimir Khotinenko has done a masterful job in the direction of this film, and at 143 minutes has done superbly to keep the momentum up throughout. If you like action films based on historical events, then you will not be disappointed. If you want a history lesson this is not for you, but I thought it was just excellent and intend to watch again very soon.
1593676
This is a powerful, intense, and forbidding Russian movie directed by Andrey Zyvagintsev. This film was inspired by Marvin Heeymeyer of the United States who was outraged over the outcome of a zoning dispute in Colorado and was adapted into a Russian setting. The story takes place in the coastal town of Kolya on the Barents Sea. The main character is Nikolai a fisherman ( Aleksey Serebryakov) who is forced to fight back in the courts when a corrupt mayor Vadim ( Roman Madyanov) tries to seize possession of his property that has been in his family for generations. Nikolai enlists the help of his old army friend Dmitri (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) now a enterprising lawyer in Moscow, to help fight the illegal repossession of his property. Dmitri uses compromising documents against Vadim, but it only stops the ruthless mayor for the moment. Nikolai's life begins to unravel when he learns that his wife Lilia (Elena Lyadova) and Dmitri are having an extramarital affair while Vadim finds a way to use his superior resources and power to seize the property once and for all to build his development.  The film is mesmerizing: story, characters, setting, cinematography, acting, directing: from beginning to end. When you are watching this movie on the big screen in the theater you are one with it, all distractions fade away. This movie is a beautiful work of art. I purposely left out some of the storyline because I think it should be revealed while you are watching the movie.
4016417
I had read just two Dostoevsy novel before this - 'The Brothers Karamazov' and 'Notes from the Underground', but lots of Turgenev and some other Russians - Kropotkin, Goldman, .... I also have some connection with Russian people because some of my work colleagues are Russian ex-patriots (one even carries a family name mentioned at one point in 'The Idiot').

Russian naming is difficult for those of us who do not have the Russian background, and 'The Idiot' was hard to keep straight in my mind - I probably didn't feel comfortable with names to near the end of this very long novel. There's Pavlovitch and Pavlischtev - not the same person. The hero Myshkin is also Lyov Nikolayevitch. Gavril is also Ganya (the short form of his name). With a large suite of characters, tracking these names is not easy. Perhaps a publisher/translator might provide a guide for non-Russian readers. I did find some connection through my knowledge of music: Madame Epanchin, Lizaveta Pokofyevna reminded me of Prokofiev, and the young man dying of consumption, Ippolit, reminded me of Ippolitov-Ivanov.

This novel is a psychological thriller and it may be unbelievable to most readers. How did Dostoevsky know that there are people in the world like Myshkin - perhaps he was one himself, perhaps he observed and understood one. Myshkin, perhaps because of his own 'illness' is attuned to everyone else's needs - sacrificing his own needs as totally without value. So what happens when two women fall in love with him (strange though each of them is)? He wants to love them both. Neither can accept that, but still he cannot let go. This seems to be a recipe for disaster (and in some ways it is), but Myshkin flourishes where he might not have because he has the most extraordinary view of the value of every moment of life. Early on he describes a guillotine execution he had observed and how the man being executed clung to every moment of his life - trying to maximise the richness of it even as the blade came down on his neck. Does Dostoevsky really believe that this is an idiotic way to live life? Or is he recommending that we should all pay more attention, be less flippant with the time that passes us by?

One of the women who fall in love with Myshkin is one of Madame Epanchin's daughters - Aglaia Ivanovna. Despite her love, Aglaia torments Myshkin (but that's not of much significance to him). Here is a quote that meant so much to me - a real insight into Myshkin's personality. 'There is no doubt that the mere fact that he could come and see Aglaia, again without hindrance, that he was allowed to talk to her, sit with her, walk with her was the utmost bliss to him; and who knows, perhaps, he would have been satisfied with that for the rest of his life.'

This novel is hard work, and it's not a happy story. But it is rewarding in its insight into human nature. If you read it you will have to decide for yourself if people like Myshkin actually do exist. And if you happen to meet one - how should you interact with them?

other recommendations:
explore the philosophy of phenomenology - I don't have a preferred book to suggest
as a contrast - 'Spring Torrents' - Ivan Turgenev (the author is mentioned in 'The Idiot')
'Under Western Eyes' - Joseph Conrad
'Sylvie and Bruno' - Lewis Carroll
2548529
This is a well written western that takes place almost entirely in Russia.  It includes trials of the initial purpose, accomplishment, conflict and bittersweet completion.  It has all the components of a classic western with an off beat setting.

I read/listened to this using the WhisperSync option from Amazon that ties the e-book to its audio-book.  Although I had problems initially in the download of the audio-book I found the experience enjoyable.
2357994
Though it is a work of fiction, this novel expresses a great deal of knowledge of Russian culture after the fall of the Soviet Union, dealing heavily with the corruption of the Oligarchs in a very palatable manner. It is a window to the past that allows us to understand modern-day Russia in a different light, and helps us in, an auxiliary manner, grasp parts of the origin today's Russian-Ukranian conflict. Bravo!
3588254
Alexander is a strong Russian with great family values and oh did I add he's a billionaire.  Yet he falls for a single hard working mom who is a caring and lovable woman. The way he enveloped her family and his own sister was admirable. He loved so strongly and his passion was so tangible in the story. A great and suspenseful story emailing the Russia mafia. Oh a must read.