Featured Biographies
Between Two Millstones, Book 1 by
Russian Nobel prize-winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) is widely acknowledged as one of the most important figures--and perhaps the most important writer--of the last century. To celebrate the centenary of his birth, the first English translation of his memoir of the West, Between Two Millstones, Book 1, is being published. Fast-paced, absorbing, and as compelling as the earlier installments of his memoir The Oak and the Calf (1975), Between Two Millstones begins on February 12, 1974, when Solzhenitsyn found himself forcibly expelled to Frankfurt, West Germany, as a result of the publication in the West of The Gulag Archipelago. Solzhenitsyn moved to Zurich, Switzerland, for a time and was considered the most famous man in the world, hounded by journalists and reporters. During this period, he found himself untethered and unable to work while he tried to acclimate to his new surroundings. Between Two Millstones contains vivid descriptions of Solzhenitsyn's journeys to various European countries and North American locales, where he and his wife Natalia ("Alya") searched for a location to settle their young family. There are fascinating descriptions of one-on-one meetings with prominent individuals, detailed accounts of public speeches such as the 1978 Harvard University commencement, comments on his television appearances, accounts of his struggles with unscrupulous publishers and agents who mishandled the Western editions of his books, and the KGB disinformation efforts to besmirch his name. There are also passages on Solzhenitsyn's family and their property in Cavendish, Vermont, whose forested hillsides and harsh winters evoked his Russian homeland, and where he could finally work undisturbed on his ten-volume history of the Russian Revolution, The Red Wheel. Stories include the efforts made to assure a proper education for the writer's three sons, their desire to return one day to their home in Russia, and descriptions of his extraordinary wife, editor, literary advisor, and director of the Russian Social Fund, Alya, who successfully arranged, at great peril to herself and to her family, to smuggle Solzhenitsyn's invaluable archive out of the Soviet Union. Between Two Millstones is a literary event of the first magnitude. The book dramatically reflects the pain of Solzhenitsyn's separation from his Russian homeland and the chasm of miscomprehension between him and Western society.
Location: Mugar Stacks PG3488.O4 Z4613 2018Publication Date: 2018
The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: growing up in communist Russia by
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography The prizewinning memoir of one of the world's great writers, about coming of age as an enemy of the people and finding her voice in Stalinist Russia Born across the street from the Kremlin in the opulent Metropol Hotel--the setting of the New York Times bestselling novel A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles--Ludmilla Petrushevskaya grew up in a family of Bolshevik intellectuals who were reduced in the wake of the Russian Revolution to waiting in bread lines. In The Girl from the Metropol Hotel, her prizewinning memoir, she recounts her childhood of extreme deprivation--of wandering the streets like a young Edith Piaf, singing for alms, and living by her wits like Oliver Twist, a diminutive figure far removed from the heights she would attain as an internationally celebrated writer. As she unravels the threads of her itinerant upbringing--of feigned orphandom, of sleeping in freight cars and beneath the dining tables of communal apartments, of the fugitive pleasures of scraps of food--we see, both in her remarkable lack of self-pity and in the two dozen photographs throughout the text, her feral instinct and the crucible in which her gift for giving voice to a nation of survivors was forged. "From heartrending facts Petrushevskaya concocts a humorous and lyrical account of the toughest childhood and youth imaginable. . . . It [belongs] alongside the classic stories of humanity's beloved plucky child heroes: Edith Piaf, Charlie Chaplin, the Artful Dodger, Gavroche, David Copperfield. . . . The child is irresistible and so is the adult narrator who creates a poignant portrait from the rags and riches of her memory." --Anna Summers, from the Introduction
Location: Mugar Stacks PG3485.E724 Z4613 2017Publication Date: 2017
The Bones of Berdichev: the Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman by
Chronicles the life of the Russian Jew and World War II correspondent for the Soviet Army who became a passionate critic of the new regime.
Location: Mugar Stacks PG3476.G7 Z67 1996Publication Date: 1996
Guides to Russian Literature
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- The Modern Encyclopedia of East Slavic, Baltic, and Eurasian Literatures byLocation: Mugar Reference X PG2940 .M6Publication Date: 1977
A History of Russian Literature by
Russia possesses one of the richest and most admired literatures of Europe, reaching back to the eleventh century. A History of Russian Literature provides a comprehensive account of Russian writing from its earliest origins in the monastic works of Kiev up to the present day, still rife withthe creative experiments of post-Soviet literary life. The volume proceeds chronologically in five parts, extending from Kievan Rus' in the 11th century to the present day.The coverage strikes a balance between extensive overview and in-depth thematic focus. Parts are organized thematically in chapters, which a number of keywords that are important literary concepts that can serve as connecting motifs and "case studies", in-depth discussions of writers, institutions,and texts that take the reader up close and. Visual material also underscores the interrelation of the word and image at a number of points, particularly significant in the medieval period and twentieth century.The History addresses major continuities and discontinuities in the history of Russian literature across all periods, and in particular bring out trans-historical features that contribute to the notion of a national literature. The volume's time-range has the merit of identifying from the earlymodern period a vital set of national stereotypes and popular folklore about boundaries, space, Holy Russia, and the charismatic king that offers culturally relevant material to later writers. This volume delivers a fresh view on a series of key questions about Russia's literary history, byproviding new mappings of literary history and a narrative that pursues key concepts (rather more than individual authorial careers). This holistic narrative underscores the ways in which context and text are densely woven in Russian literature, and demonstrates that the most exciting way tounderstand the canon and the development of tradition is through a discussion of the interrelation of major and minor figures, historical events and literary politics, literary theory and literary innovation.
Location: OnlinePublication Date: 2018
The Cambridge Companion to the Classic Russian Novel by
Many Russian novels of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have made a huge impact, not only inside the boundaries of their own country but across the western world. The Cambridge Companion to the Classic Russian Novel offers a thematic account of these novels, in fourteen newly-commissioned essays by prominent European and North American scholars. There are chapters on the city, the countryside, politics, satire, religion, psychology, philosophy; the romantic, realist and modernist traditions; and technique, gender and theory. In this context the work of Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Bulgakov, Nabokov, Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn, among others, is described and discussed. There is a chronology and guide to further reading; all quotations are in English. This volume will be invaluable not only for students and scholars but for anyone interested in the Russian novel.
Location: Mugar Memorial Library Stacks (PG3098.3 .C33 1998 ) and OnlinePublication Date: 1998
The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry by
The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry presents the major themes, forms, genres and styles of Russian poetry. Using examples from Russia's greatest poets, Michael Wachtel draws on three centuries of verse, from the beginnings of secular literature in the eighteenth century up to the present day. The first half of the book is devoted to concepts such as versification, poetic language and tradition; the second half is organised along genre lines and examines the ode, the elegy, ballads, love poetry, nature poetry and patriotic verse. All poetry appears in the original followed by literal translations. This book is designed to give readers with even a minimal knowledge of the Russian language an appreciation of the brilliance of Russian poetry.
Location: Mugar Memorial Library Stacks (PG3041 .W328 2004 ) and OnlinePublication Date: 2004- Soviet Dissident Literature: a critical guide byLocation: Mugar Memorial Library Stacks (PG3026.U5 W64 1983 )Publication Date: 1983
Texts
- Fundamental Digital Library - Russian Literature & Folklore FEB-web is a project instituted in 1995 by the Gorky Institute of World Literature and the Informregistr Center at the Russian Ministry for Communications, and online since July 2002. FEB-web is, first and foremost, a repository of Russian verbal art and the scholarly and other texts vital to understanding it. FEB-web makes the canon of Russian verbal art available free of charge to anyone with internet access.
- Russian National Corpus This website contains a corpus of the modern Russian language incorporating over 300 million words. The corpus of Russian is a reference system based on a collection of Russian texts in electronic form. The Corpus is intended for all who are interested in the Russian language and various associated fields: professional linguists, language teachers, school and university students, foreigners learning the language.
- Internet Archive: Russian Literature The Internet Archive's materials relating to Russian literature. Predominantly text, but also contains audio and images.
Finding Articles
- BU Libraries Search This link opens in a new window BU Libraries Search provides a single place to search for a wide variety of research material provided by the library. Resources covered by the search includes books and eBooks, journals, scores and sheet music, video and audio recordings, and other physical and electronic items held by the library. Coverage encompasses materials relating to the prehistoric and antique world through to the present.
- American Bibliography of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies This link opens in a new window Covers North American scholarship on East-Central Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Union. Contains bibliographic records for journal articles, books and book chapters, book reviews, dissertations, online resources, and selected government publications.
- Literature Online This link opens in a new window LION includes texts, criticism, and reference material, including thousands of literary articles, essays, biographies and encyclopedia entries on over 350,000 works of poetry, prose, and drama from the 8th to the 21st century.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new window Indexes critical materials on literature, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Includes citations from worldwide publications: periodicals, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies.
- Literature Criticism Online This link opens in a new window Contains critical and biographical essays on authors currently living or who died after Jan. 1, 2000. May be searched simultaneously with Contemporary Authors and the Dictionary of Literary Biography.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new window This database provides full text access to the back issues of core scholarly journals in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Book reviews are included as well as journal articles. Abstracts are available for some of the articles.
- Project Muse This link opens in a new window Project Muse provides digital access to scholarly journals and books in the humanities and social sciences. The scholarly content comes from non-profit scholarly publishers, including university presses and societies. The full text resources include journal articles, book reviews and book chapters.
- Linguistics Collection This link opens in a new window The Linguistics Collection is comprised of index and full-text databases covering all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The collection includes the Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA), which abstracts and indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. And Linguistics Database, which includes full-text journals and other sources in linguistics including many titles indexed in LLBA.
Literary Biography
- Contemporary Authors This link opens in a new window A bio-bibliographical guide to current writers in fiction, general nonfiction, poetry, journalism, drama, motion pictures, television, and other fields.
- Gale in Context: Biography This link opens in a new window Biography In Context offers biographical information about historically significant figures as well as present-day newsmakers. It includes reference content alongside magazine and journal articles, primary sources, videos, audio podcasts, and images.
- Literature Online This link opens in a new window LION includes texts, criticism, and reference material, including thousands of literary articles, essays, biographies and encyclopedia entries on over 350,000 works of poetry, prose, and drama from the 8th to the 21st century.
- SovLit.net Collection of texts, documents, and biographies by and about Soviet writers
Browse books and ebooks on:
- Russian Writers and Soviet Society, 1917-1978 byLocation: Mugar Memorial Library Stacks (PG3022 .H5 1979 )Publication Date: 1979-08-01
Dictionary of Russian Literature since 1917 by Location: Mugar Memorial Library Stacks (PG3017 .K3513 1988 )Publication Date: 1988
Reference Guide to Russian Literature by
"This guide provides informative essays and selective bibliographies on the main writers of Russian for students and general readers. Covering all of Russian literature, this handbook emphasizes 19th- and 20th-century authors. The guide uses the Western alphabet, so anonymous works appear under their English title and are interfiled in alphabetical order with author entries. Entries for writers include a brief biography, a list of the writer's primary works in chronological order, a selected list of bibliographies, and critical studies. The guide begins with 13 detailed essays that cover most periods, topics, and genres of Russian literature. This reference source belongs in all libraries with large literature collections".--"Outstanding Reference Sources : the 1999 Selection of New Titles", American Libraries, May 1999. Comp. by the Reference Sources Committee, RUSA, ALA.
Location: Mugar Memorial Library Reference X (PG2940 .R44 1998 )Publication Date: 1998
Dictionary of Russian Women Writers by
The first reference work in any language devoted to Russian women writers, this dictionary systematically covers, in detail, the lives of 448 women who wrote from the period of Catherine the Great to the present. Despite their significant achievements, women writers are generally missing from the canons of Russian literature. The present editorial team individually began the process of uncovering this lost literary heritage over ten years ago. More recently, they joined forces with and enlisted contributions from scholars in North America, Europe, and Russia. Each entry comprises a bio-critical sketch followed by lists of important writings in the original and in translation, archival sources, and major secondary references. Data has been researched worldwide, with biographical information culled from diaries, memoirs, and other primary sources as well as literary histories and reference works. A general bibliography supplements the secondary sources provided with each entry.
Location: Mugar Memorial Library Reference X (PG2997 .D53 1994 )Publication Date: 1994
