Download or read book Woe from Wit written by Alexander Griboedov and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alexander Griboedov’s Woe from Wit is one of the masterpieces of Russian drama. A verse comedy set in Moscow high society after the Napoleonic wars, it offers sharply drawn characters and clever repartee, mixing meticulously crafted banter and biting social critique. Its protagonist, Alexander Chatsky, is an idealistic ironist, a complex Romantic figure who would be echoed in Russian literature from Pushkin onward. Chatsky returns from three years abroad hoping to rekindle a romance with his childhood sweetheart, Sophie. In the meantime, she has fallen in love with Molchalin, her reactionary father Famusov’s scheming secretary. Chatsky speaks out against the hypocrisy of aristocratic society—and as scandal erupts, he is met with accusations of madness. Woe from Wit was written in 1823 and was an immediate sensation, but under heavy-handed tsarist censorship, it was not published in full until forty years later. Its influence is felt not just in Russian literary language but in everyday speech. It is the source of a remarkable number of frequently quoted aphorisms and turns of phrase, comparable to Shakespeare’s influence on English. Yet owing to its complex rhyme scheme and verse structure, the play has frequently been considered almost untranslatable. Betsy Hulick’s translation brings Griboedov’s sparkling wit, spirited dialogue, and effortless crossing of registers from elevated to colloquial into a lively contemporary English.
Download or read book The Death of Vazir Mukhtar written by Yury Tynyanov and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 798 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar, a novel by Yury Tynyanov, one of the leading figures of the Russian formalist school, describes the final year in the life of Alexander Griboedov, the author of the comedy Woe from Wit. As ambassador to Persia, Griboedov was murdered in 1829 by a Tehrani mob during the sacking of the Russian embassy. One of the central texts of Russian formalist literary production, the novel is a brilliant meditation on the nature of historical and poetic consciousness and of artistic creation. It is a complex and fascinating work that explores the relationships among individual memory, historical fact, and the literary imagination. The result is a hybrid text, containing elements of various genres—historical, biographical, existential, and adventure novels—and a deeply personal, almost confessional testament to the writer’s relationship to his generation and the state. Completed in 1927, almost a century after the events it depicts, The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar marks the watershed between revolution and reaction. At a time when the Soviet regime was becoming increasingly restrictive of freedom of expression and conscience, Tynyanov grappled with the themes of disillusionment, betrayal, and unrealized potential. Unabashedly intellectual yet filled with intrigue and suspense, The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar is a great historical novel of Russian modernism.
Download or read book Woe from Wit written by Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov and published by Jiahu Books. This book was released on 2014-02 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Woe from Wit is Alexander Griboyedov's comedy in verse, satirizing the society of post-Napoleonic Moscow, or, as a high official in the play styled it, "a pasquinade on Moscow." The play, written in 1823 in the countryside and in Tiflis, was not passed by the censorship for the stage, and only portions of it were allowed to appear in an almanac for 1825. It was not, however, actually published until 1833, after the author's death, with significant cuts, and was not published in full until 1861. The play was a compulsory work in Russian literature lessons in Soviet schools, and is still considered a golden classic in modern Russia and other Russian-speaking countries. The play gave rise to numerous catchphrases in the Russian language, including the title itself.
Download or read book Aleksandr Griboedov s Woe from Wit written by Mary Hobson and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeks to account for the disparity between Aleksander Griboedov's Woe from Wit and his other works, by examining his plays and poems, letters and travel notes, the memoirs of his contemporaries, his literary sources and social milieu. Positive and negative influences are discussed.
Download or read book The Woes of Wit written by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Griboyedov and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Diplomacy and Murder in Tehran written by Laurence Kelly and published by Harvard Common Press. This book was released on 2006-10-17 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this first biography of Alexander Griboyedov in English, Laurence Kelly paints a vivid picture of a man of remarkable literary talent and diplomatic gifts that were nevertheless overshadowed by ill-fortune. Involved in the 1825 Decembrist plot to overthrow the Tsarist state and the mission to further Russia's expansionist agenda in the Caucasus, the famous writer was eventually murdered by zealous mobs in Tehran. This book makes an invaluable contribution to the diplomatic history of Russia, the Caucasus and Iran at the same time illuminating the life and works of a writer who was among ninteenth-century Russia's most respected and prominent writers.
Download or read book Woe From Wit written by Александр Грибоедов and published by Litres. This book was released on 2018-02-28 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We present to readers the translation of the comedy in verses “Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov made by the English poet and translator Mary Hobson.Представляем читателям перевод комедии в стихах А.С. Грибоедова «Горе от ума», выполненный английской поэтессой и переводчицей Мэри Хобсон.
Download or read book Reflective Laughter written by Lesley Milne and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A witty overview of humour in Russian culture.
Download or read book Mapping Lives written by Peter France and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-23 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These essays on the problems and functions of biography - particularly those of writers, thinkers and artists - investigate a subject of enduring importance for those interested in culture.
Download or read book Four Russian Plays written by Joshua Cooper and published by Viking Press. This book was released on 1972-01-01 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Double Life written by Karolina Pavlova and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unsung classic of nineteenth-century Russian literature, Karolina Pavlova’s A Double Life alternates prose and poetry to offer a wry picture of Russian aristocratic society and vivid dreams of escaping its strictures. Pavlova combines rich narrative prose that details balls, tea parties, and horseback rides with poetic interludes that depict her protagonist’s inner world—and biting irony that pervades a seemingly romantic description of a young woman who has everything. A Double Life tells the story of Cecily, who is being trapped into marriage by her well-meaning mother; her best friend, Olga; and Olga’s mother, who means to clear the way for a wealthier suitor for her own daughter by marrying off Cecily first. Cecily’s privileged upbringing makes her oblivious to the havoc that is being wreaked around her. Only in the seclusion of her bedroom is her imagination freed: each day of deception is followed by a night of dreams described in soaring verse. Pavlova subtly speaks against the limitations placed on women and especially women writers, which translator Barbara Heldt highlights in a critical introduction. Among the greatest works of literature by a Russian woman writer, A Double Life is worthy of a central place in the Russian canon.
Download or read book Permanent Evolution written by Yuri Tynianov and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yuri Tynianov was a key figure of Russian Formalism, an intellectual movement in early 20th century Russia that also included Viktor Shklovsky and Roman Jakobson. Tynianov developed a groundbreaking conceptualization of literature as a system within—and in constant interaction with—other cultural and social systems. His essays on Russian literary classics, like Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin and works by Dostoevsky and Gogol, as well as on the emerging art form of filmmaking, provide insight into the ways art and literature evolve and adapt new forms of expression. Although Tynianov was first a scholar of Russian literature, his ideas transcend the boundaries of any one genre or national tradition. Permanent Evolution gathers together for the first time Tynianov’s seminal articles on literary theory and film, including several articles never before translated into English.
Download or read book Memoirs and Madness written by Frederick H. White and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2006 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Memoirs and Madness examines memoir as a literary genre and investigates how Leonid Andreev's posthumous legacy was influenced by the writing of his contemporaries. A Book About Leonid Andreev (1922), which includes the work of renowned Russian authors such as Belyi, Blok, Chukovskii, Chulkov, Gor'kii, Teleshov, Zaitsev, and Zamiatin, has had an impact on how Andreev has been read and spoken about since his death. While past scholarship has focused on the philosophical and sociological factors in Andreev's life, Frederick White pays special attention to the author's history of mental illness, described by the memoirists with vague terms such as "creative energy" or "inner turmoil."" --Résumé de l'éditeur.
Download or read book Natasha s Dance written by Orlando Figes and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History on a grand scale--an enchanting masterpiece that explores the making of one of the world's most vibrant civilizations A People's Tragedy, wrote Eric Hobsbawm, did "more to help us understand the Russian Revolution than any other book I know." Now, in Natasha's Dance, internationally renowned historian Orlando Figes does the same for Russian culture, summoning the myriad elements that formed a nation and held it together. Beginning in the eighteenth century with the building of St. Petersburg--a "window on the West"--and culminating with the challenges posed to Russian identity by the Soviet regime, Figes examines how writers, artists, and musicians grappled with the idea of Russia itself--its character, spiritual essence, and destiny. He skillfully interweaves the great works--by Dostoevsky, Stravinsky, and Chagall--with folk embroidery, peasant songs, religious icons, and all the customs of daily life, from food and drink to bathing habits to beliefs about the spirit world. Figes's characters range high and low: the revered Tolstoy, who left his deathbed to search for the Kingdom of God, as well as the serf girl Praskovya, who became Russian opera's first superstar and shocked society by becoming her owner's wife. Like the European-schooled countess Natasha performing an impromptu folk dance in Tolstoy's War and Peace, the spirit of "Russianness" is revealed by Figes as rich and uplifting, complex and contradictory--a powerful force that unified a vast country and proved more lasting than any Russian ruler or state.
Download or read book The misfortune of being clever written by A. S Griboyedof and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Minds Wide Shut written by Gary Saul Morson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-31 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely exploration of intellectual dogmatism in politics, economics, religion, and literature—and what can be done to fight it Polarization may be pushing democracy to the breaking point. But few have explored the larger, interconnected forces that have set the stage for this crisis: namely, a rise in styles of thought, across a range of fields, that literary scholar Gary Saul Morson and economist Morton Schapiro call “fundamentalist.” In Minds Wide Shut, Morson and Schapiro examine how rigid adherence to ideological thinking has altered politics, economics, religion, and literature in ways that are mutually reinforcing and antithetical to the open-mindedness and readiness to compromise that animate democracy. In response, they propose alternatives that would again make serious dialogue possible. Fundamentalist thinking, Morson and Schapiro argue, is not limited to any one camp. It flourishes across the political spectrum, giving rise to dueling monologues of shouting and abuse between those who are certain that they can’t be wrong, that truth and justice are all on their side, and that there is nothing to learn from their opponents, who must be evil or deluded. But things don’t have to be this way. Drawing on thinkers and writers from across the humanities and social sciences, Morson and Schapiro show how we might begin to return to meaningful dialogue through case-based reasoning, objective analyses, lessons drawn from literature, and more. The result is a powerful invitation to leave behind simplification, rigidity, and extremism—and to move toward a future of greater open-mindedness, moderation, and, perhaps, even wisdom.
Download or read book Calligraphy Lesson written by Mikhail Shishkin and published by Deep Vellum Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-27 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English-language collection of short stories by Russia's greatest contemporary author, Mikhail Shishkin, the only author to win all three of Russia's most prestigious literary awards. Often included in discussions of Nobel Prize contenders, Shishkin is a master prose writer in the breathtakingly beautiful style of the greatest Russian authors, known for complex, allusive novels about universal and emotional themes. Shishkin's stories read like modern versions of the eternal literature written by his greatest inspirations: Boris Pasternak, Ivan Bunin, Leo Tolstoy, and Mikhail Bulgakov. Shishkin's short fiction is the perfect introduction to his breathtaking oeuvre, his stories touch on the same big themes as his novels, spanning discussions of love and loss, death and eternal life, emigration and exile. Calligraphy Lesson spans Shishkin's entire writing career, including his first published story, the 1993 Debut Prize–winning "Calligraphy Lesson," and his most recent story "Nabokov's Inkblot," which was written for a dramatic adaptation performed in Zurich in 2013. Mikhail Shishkin (b. 1961 in Moscow) is one of the most prominent names in contemporary Russian literature. A former interpreter for refugees in Switzerland, Shishkin divides his time between Moscow, Switzerland, and Germany.
