Download or read book Under the Sky of My Africa written by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-30 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wide-ranging consideration of the nature and significance of Pushkin's African heritage Roughly in the year 1705, a young African boy, acquired from the seraglio of the Turkish sultan, was transported to Russia as a gift to Peter the Great. This child, later known as Abram Petrovich Gannibal, was to become Peter's godson and to live to a ripe old age, having attained the rank of general and the status of Russian nobility. More important, he was to become the great-grandfather of Russia's greatest national poet, Alexander Pushkin. It is the contention of the editors of this book, borne out by the essays in the collection, that Pushkin's African ancestry has played the role of a "wild card" of sorts as a formative element in Russian cultural mythology; and that the ways in which Gannibal's legacy has been included in or excluded from Pushkin's biography over the last two hundred years can serve as a shifting marker of Russia's self-definition. The first single volume in English on this rich topic, Under the Sky of My Africa addresses the wide variety of interests implicated in the question of Pushkin's blackness-race studies, politics, American studies, music, mythopoetic criticism, mainstream Pushkin studies. In essays that are by turns biographical, iconographical, cultural, and sociological in focus, the authors-representing a broad range of disciplines and perspectives-take us from the complex attitudes toward race in Russia during Pushkin's era to the surge of racism in late Soviet and post-Soviet contemporary Russia. In sum, Under the Sky of My Africa provides a wealth of basic material on the subject as well as a series of provocative readings and interpretations that will influence future considerations of Pushkin and race in Russian culture.

Download or read book Faithful Ruslan written by Georgi Vladimov and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2011-09-27 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unavailable for twenty years, this harrowing allegory of obedience to authority is esteemed as “one of the defining literary texts of the post-Stalin period.” (The Guardian) Set in a remote Siberian depot immediately following the demolition of one of the gulag’s notorious camps and the emancipation of its prisoners, Faithful Ruslan is an embittered cri de coeur from a writer whose circumstances obliged him to resist the violence of arbitrary power. “Every writer who writes anything in this country is made to feel he has committed a crime,” Georgi Vladimov said. Dissident, he said, is a word that “they force on you.” His mother, a victim of Stalin’s anti-Semitic policy, had been interred for two years in one of the camps from which Vladimov derived the wrenching detail of Faithful Ruslan. The novel circulated in samizdat for more than a decade, often attributed to Solzhenitsyn, before its publication in the West led to Vladimov’s harassment and exile. A starving stray, tortured and abandoned by the godlike “Master” whom he has unconditionally loved, Ruslan and his cadre of fellow guard dogs dutifully wait for the arrival of new prisoners—but the unexpected arrival of a work party provokes a climactic bloodletting. Fashioned from the perceptions of an uncomprehending animal, Vladimov’s insistently ironic indictment of the gulag spirals to encompass all of Man’s inexplicable cruelty.

Download or read book Five Operas and a Symphony written by Boris Gasparov and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this eagerly anticipated book, Boris Gasparov gazes through the lens of music to find an unusual perspective on Russian cultural and literary history. He discusses six major works of Russian music from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, showing the interplay of musical texts with their literary and historical sources within the ideological and cultural contexts of their times. Each musical work becomes a tableau representing a moment in Russian history, and together the works form a coherent story of ideological and aesthetic trends as they evolved in Russia from the time of Pushkin to the rise of totalitarianism in the 1930s. Gasparov discusses Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla (1842), Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov (1871) and Khovanshchina (1881), Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin (1878) and The Queen of Spades (1890), and Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony (1934). Offering new interpretations to enhance our understanding and appreciation of these important works, Gasparov also demonstrates how Russian music and cultural history illuminate one another.

Download or read book The Gypsies Other Narrative Poems written by Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin and published by David R. Godine Publisher. This book was released on 2006 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Gypsies, the anti-Romantic tale of a city-dweller whose search for "unspoiled" values among gypsies ends in tragedy, is modern Russian literature's first masterpiece. The Bridegroom turns the Romantic ballad into a whodunit filled with sexual dread and subconscious terror. Count Nulin, a deliciously comic tale of country life, stands Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece on its head - what would have happened if Lucrece had slapped Tarquin's face? The Tale of the Dead Princess is Pushkin's version of the Snow White story, and the eerie Tale of the Golden Cockerel savagely politicizes the folk-tale form."--Jacket.

Download or read book Toffee the Fox written by Julia Shore and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Toffee the Fox is a touching story about kindness and friendship written by Julia Shore and illustrated by her husband, Andrew. This colorful children's book teaches little readers and listeners how wonderful it is to have friends and how important it is to help them in difficult situations. Toffee the Box contributes to the development of social competence in children.

Download or read book The Great Glass Sea written by Josh Weil and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twin brothers Yarik and Dima find themselves representing opposing ideologies in a dystopian world where they labor together in a sea of glass lit by space mirrors that keep the citizens of Petroplavilsk in perpetual daylight.

Download or read book The White Hotel written by D. M. Thomas and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1993-09-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The million copy, Booker Prize finalist, besteller “To describe this novel as spine-tingling in its indescribable poetic effect would be to trivialize its profoundly tragic theme. Say then that it is heart-stunning.”—The New York Times It is a dream of electrifying eroticism and inexplicable violence, recounted by a young woman to her analyst, Sigmund Freud. It is a horrifying yet restrained narrative of the Holocaust. It is a searing vision of the wounds of the twentieth century, and an attempt to heal them. Interweaving poetry and case history, fantasy and historical truth-telling, The White Hotel is a modern classic of enduring emotional power that attempts nothing less than to reconcile the notion of individual destiny with that of historical fate.

Download or read book For the Love of Music written by John Mauceri and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2019 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a lifetime of experience, profound knowledge and understanding, and heartwarming appreciation, an internationally celebrated conductor and teacher answers the questions: Why should I listen to classical music? How can I get the most from the listening experience? A protégé of Leonard Bernstein--his colleague for eighteen years--and an eminent conductor who has toured and recorded all over the world, John Mauceri helps us to reap the joys and pleasures classical music has to offer. Briefly, we learn the way a musical tradition born in ancient Greece, embraced by the Roman Empire, and subsequently nurtured by influences from across the globe, gave shape to the classical music that came to be embraced by cultures from Japan to Bolivia. Then Mauceri examines the music itself, helping us understand what it is we hear when we listen to classical music: how, by a kind of sonic metaphor, it expresses the deepest recesses of human feeling and emotion; how each piece bears the traces of its history; how the concert experience--a unique one each and every time--allows us to discover music anew. Unpretentious, graceful, instructive, this is a book for the aficionado, the novice, and anyone looking to have the love of music fired within them.

Download or read book The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery written by Muriel Heppell and published by Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. This book was released on 1989 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kievan Caves Monastery was for centuries the most important Ukrainian monastic establishment. It was the outstanding center of literary production, and its monks served throughout the territory of Rus' as bishops and monastic superiors. The most detailed source for the monastery early history is its Paterik, a thirteenth-century compilation containing stories reaching back to the monastery's foundation in the mid-eleventh century. Muriel Heppell now makes available the first complete English translation of the Paterik. With an introduction, map, and several appendices, Heppell discusses the work's Byzantine background and also sets it in its historical context. The Harvard Library of Early Ukrainian Literature is one portion of the Harvard Project in Commemoration of the Millennium of Christianity in Rus'-Ukraine sponsored by the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University. The Library encompasses literary activity in Rus'-Ukraine from its beginning in the mid-eleventh century through the end of the eighteenth century. Included are ecclesiastical and secular works written in a variety of languages, such as Church Slavonic, Old Rus', Ruthenian (Middle Ukrainian), Polish, and Latin. This linguistic diversity reflects the cultural pluralism of Ukrainian intellectual life in the medieval and early-modern periods. The Library consists of three parts: Texts, which publishes original works, in facsimile whenever appropriate; English Translations; and Ukrainian Translations. Each volume begins with an introductory essay by a specialist. The two translation series also include maps, appendices, and indices. A cumulative index to the entire Library is planned.

Download or read book 7 Best Short Stories by Alexander Pushkin written by Alexander Pushkin and published by Tacet Books. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alexander Pushkin was a Russian poet and writer who is considered the father of the modern Russian novel. The so-called Golden Age of Russian Literature was inspired by the themes and aesthetics of Pushkin - we are talking about names like Ivan Turgenev, Ivan Goncharov, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol. This selection of short stories brings you the best of Pushkin selected by August Nemo: The Queen of Spades The Shot The Snowstorm The Postmaster The Coffin-maker Kirdjali Peter, The Great's Negro

Download or read book Classical Fake Book Songbook written by Hal Leonard Corp. and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 1992-02-01 with total page 1003 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Fake Book). A comprehensive reference for all classical music lovers, the second edition of this fake book features 250 pieces added since the last edition. Imagine having one handy volume that includes everything from Renaissance music to Vivaldi to Mozart to Mendelssohn to Debussy to Stravinsky, and you have it here! We have included as much of the world's most familiar classical music as possible, assembling more than 850 beloved compositions from ballets, chamber music, choral music, concertos, operas, piano music, waltzes and more. Featuring indexes by composer, title and genre, as well as a timeline of major classical composers, this encyclopedic fake book is great to use for playing and performing, but it's also a terrific resource for concert-goers, music students and music lovers. The chords of the harmony are indicated, and lyrics, in the original language, are included where appropriate.

Download or read book The Possessed written by Elif Batuman and published by Granta Books. This book was released on 2011-04-07 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roaming from Tashkent to San Francisco, this is the true story of one budding writer's strange encounters with the fanatics who are devoted - absurdly! melancholically! ecstatically! - to the Russian classics. Combining fresh readings of the great Russians from Gogol to Goncharov with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence, The Possessed introduces a brilliant and distinctive new voice: comic, humane, charming, poignant and completely, and unpretentiously, full of an infectious love for literature.

Download or read book Russian Tarot of St Petersburg written by Cynthia Giles and published by U.S. Games Systems. This book was released on 1996 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yury Shakov's elegant Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg deck is illuminated by this fascinating companion book by Cynthia Giles. Giles connects Russian history, culture, and spirituality to thorough interpretations of this best-selling deck. The cards are beautifully detailed miniature paintings reminiscent of the Imperial Faberge Easter Eggs.

Download or read book The Daughter of the Commandant written by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-01-29 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My father, Andréj Petróvitch Grineff, after serving in his youth under Count Münich, had retired in 17—with the rank of senior major. Since that time he had always lived on his estate in the district of Simbirsk, where he married Avdotia, the eldest daughter of a poor gentleman in the neighbourhood. Of the nine children born of this union I alone survived; all my brothers and sisters died young. I had been enrolled as sergeant in the Séménofsky regiment by favour of the major of the Guard, Prince Banojik, our near relation. I was supposed to be away on leave till my education was finished. At that time we were brought up in another manner than is usual now. From five years old I was given over to the care of the huntsman, Savéliitch, who from his steadiness and sobriety was considered worthy of becoming my attendant. Thanks to his care, at twelve years old I could read and write, and was considered a good judge of the points of a greyhound. At this time, to complete my education, my father hired a Frenchman, M. Beaupré, who was imported from Moscow at the same time as the annual provision of wine and Provence oil. His arrival displeased Savéliitch very much. "It seems to me, thank heaven," murmured he, "the child was washed, combed, and fed. What was the good of spending money and hiring a 'moussié,' as if there were not enough servants in the house?" Beaupré, in his native country, had been a hairdresser, then a soldier in Prussia, and then had come to Russia to be "outchitel," without very well knowing the meaning of this word. He was a good creature, but wonderfully absent and hare-brained. [...]

Download or read book Love Poems written by Alexander Pushkin and published by Alma Classics. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the many aspects of Alexander Pushkin's immense contribution to Russian language and literature, and perhaps the one he is most popular for, is his mastery of the love poem, a genre which he perfected like few others before or after him. This volume contains a selection of his most famous and enduring verse explorations of love, such as 'I Loved You', 'Night' and 'I Well Recall a Wondrous Meeting', pieces which are crowning achievements of the European canon and still have the same timeless emotional resonance today.

Download or read book The bronze Horseman written by Александр Пушкин and published by Litres. This book was released on 2018-11-30 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Предлагаем вниманию читателей сборник произведений А. С. Пушкина в переводе на английский язык. В книгу вошли поэмы «Медный всадник», «Руслан и Людмила» и «Бахчисарайский фонтан».

Download or read book The Complete Grimm s Fairy Tales written by Jacob Grimm and published by . This book was released on 2018-01-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once upon a time in a fairy tale world, There were magical mirrors and golden slippers;Castles and fields and mountains of glass,Houses of bread and windows of sugar.Frogs transformed into handsome Princes,And big bad wolves into innocent grandmothers.There were evil queens and wicked stepmothers;Sweethearts, true brides, and secret lovers. In the same fairy world, A poor boy has found a golden key and an iron chest, and " We must wait until he has quite unlocked it and opened the lid . . ." A classic collection of timeless folk tales by Grimm Brothers, Grimm' s Fairy Tales are not only enchanting, mysterious, and amusing, but also frightening and intriguing. Delighting children and adults alike, these tales have undergone several adaptations over the decades. This edition with black-and-white illustrations is a translation by Margaret Hunt.