|
1917
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Alone
(
Odno
)
A man's unfaithful wife and her lover conspire to deprive him of his daughter.5
|
|
1917
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Snows
(
Snega
)
A continuation of the story begun in "Spring Floods". The main characters are living happily together when a former love of the nobelman's returns and tries to persuade him to father her child. He resists, however, and returns to his wife and child.5
|
|
1917
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Spring Floods
(
Polovod'e
)
A provincial nobleman, whose wife is frequently absent and unfaithful, falls in love with a peasant woman, has a child with her, and lives happily ever after. The nobleman's wife and her lover, however, realize the barren, trivial nature of their lives. Reworked and republished in 1922 under the title of "Forest Dacha" (Lesnaya dacha).5
|
|
1917
| Zamyatin, Evgeny I.
| Islanders
(
Ostrovityane
)
A satire of the monotonous, unimaginitive, repressed life of "respectable" English folk. One young man dares to break the mold by falling in love with a showgirl and killing her lover. When this rebel is hanged for his crime, life can return to normal.
|
|
1918
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Along the Old Road
(
Po staromu traktu
)
An old, impoverished prince lives alone on his estate, surviving by collecting fees from black marketeers who travel along an old road crossing his property. He is confused when hearing news of the tsar's abdication.5
|
|
1918
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Death Beckons
(
Smertelnoye manit
)
Story of a young peasant woman. In her youth, she falls in love with a boy, but can't marry because her mother confesses that the boy is her illegitimate son. Eventually she falls in love with another and marries, but their child dies. The women then goes wandering around looking for God and death.5
|
|
1918
| Romanov, Panteleimon S.
| About Cows
(
xxx
)
Peasants are confused about the new marriage and divorce laws, particularly what to do with a cow after divorce.
|
|
1918
| Zamyatin, Evgeny I.
| Fisher of Men
(
Lovets cheloveka
)
A hypocritical English bourgeois makes money by blackmailing couples who make love in London parks.
|
|
1918 pub. 1922
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Things
(
Veshchi
)
A woman, preparing to move, sadly remembers her engagement to a man, which was broken off 30 years ago. She decides to bring along on her move several things which she had intended to leave behind, witnesses to her her life.5
|
|
1919
| Pilnyak, Boris
| At Nikola on the White Springs
(
U Nikoly, chto na Belykh Kolodeziakh
)
An anarchist commune breaks up following a deadly gun-battle among members, arguing over the distribution of confiscated property.5
|
|
1919
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Heirs
(
Nasledniki
)
A family of impoverished aristocrats--malicious, bored, trivial, superfluous, and alienated from life--gather on an old estate, hording their jewelry and hoping to hide out until the revolutionary ends.5
|
|
1919
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Thousand Years
(
Tisyacha let
)
Two Russian noblemen, brothers, have different attitudes abou the Revolutionary changes. In the end, tradition and nature reassure them.5
|
|
1919 pub. 1920
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Country Roads
(
Proselki
)
Story of three peasant families in rural Russian, living traditionally and close to nature, contrasted with hungry city dwellers, you show up looking to barter for food. One of Pilnyak's first “ornamental stories”
|
|
1920
| Babel, Isaak E.
| Second Brigade Commader
(
Kombrig Dva
)
new brigade commander is appointed, receiving his third promotion in a week. He has a successful day in battle and displays the masterful indifference of a Tartar Khan.
|
|
1920
| Fedin, Konstantin
| Orchard
(
Sad
)
An old gardener watches sadly as the orchard he cared for and the manor house of the old owners are turned over to a Soviet orphanage and fall into neglect. He sets the house and orchard on fire.
|
|
1920
| Zamyatin, Evgeny I.
| Cave
(
Peshchera
)
Life in an unheated room in Petrograd is compared to living in a prehistoric cave. A story of the degredation and poverty of people, clinging to a single idea -- to get food and fuel. Neorealism at its best.
|
|
1920
| Zamyatin, Evgeny I.
| We
(
My
)
An anti-Utopian novel. In the mathematically perfect One State, a loyal scientist, D-503, is infected with an irrational number (love). This infection leads to D-503 getting involved with a band of renegades intent on sabotaging the Integral, a spaceship with the mission of forcing happiness on the rest of the universe. The rebels cause some chaos, but are defeated. All citizens are rewarded with an imagination-removing operation, which brings things back to normal. Contains one of the earliest references to electric toothbrushes in all of world literature.
|
|
1921
| Arosev, A.
| Torment
(
Strada
)
Hopeless moral dilemmas tear apart the protagonist.3
|
|
1921
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Extraordinary Adventures of Julio Jurenito and His Disciples
(
Neobychainiye Pokhozhdeniye Khulio Khurenito i Evo Uchenikov
)
A mysterious Mexican named Julio Jurenito meets up with a fictional Ilya Ehrenburg and several other disciples, who follow him on a quest to disrupt Europe, undermining its myths and complacent assumptions about religion, politics, love, marriage, art, socialism, and the rules of war. The Pope is lampooned, as is the eternal internal bickering among socialist factions. Eerily, the Nazi Final Solution is presaged as Julio sends out invitations to the extermination of the Jewish tribe. In Moscow, Jurenito meets with a Bolshevik leader obviously meant to represent Lenin. This fictional Lenin shows himself to be ruthless, vowing to exterminate all enemies. Praised by Zamyatin as a perfect example of literary heresy.
|
|
1921
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Partisans
(
Partizany
)
Four carpenters run afoul of the law and take the the hills, pursued by the authorities. They turn into partisans, die heroic deaths, and become Red heroes.3
|
|
1921
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Fifth Wanderer
(
Pyatii Strannik
)
The story of four wanderers. They are a puppet master (with his puppet "Pickelherring"), a scholarly master of many sciences, a philosopher, and an artisan-glazier. They sign a pact to go in quest of the solutions to their various pursuits. The searches end unsuccessfully. And, in the end, it turns out that all four wanderers are really just puppets, controlled by a mysterious fifth wanderer.
|
|
1921
| Lyashko, N.N.
| Thief's Mother
(
Vorova mat'
)
Story of a woman whose heart is too pure for the world around her.3
|
|
1921
| Malyshkin, Aleksandr G.
| Fall of Daira, The
(
Padeniye Daira
)
The Red Army breaks through at Perekop, bringing to an end organized White resistance in the Crimea. The masses are the heroes.
|
|
1921
| Nizovoi, Pavel
| Replacement
(
Smena
)
Depiction of the decay of a patriarchal peasant way of life.3
|
|
1921
| Seifullina, Lidia N.
| Lawbreakers
(
Pravonarushiteli
)
Realistic treament of one of the army of homeless boys roming the countryside in the wake of the Civil War and their moral regeneration.
|
|
1921
| Shimkevich, M.
| Wolf
(
Volk
)
Story showing bestiality as a human condition.
|
|
1921
| Tamarin, V.
| Desert
(
Pustynya
)
xxx
|
|
1921
| Vesely, Artem
| In the Village at Shrove-tide
(
V derevne na maslenitse
)
xxx
|
|
1921
| Vesely, Artem
| We
(
My
)
Whites march into a village and, with the connivance and approval of the kulaks and priests, execute all the Red sympathizers and plan ravishment of women. Whites also attack a nearby town, but the workers organize and are victorious.
|
|
1922
| Budantsev, Sergei F.
| Outpost of India
(
Forpost Indii
)
A local Persian Bolshevik attempts to lead the oppressed workers in a rebellion against the English colonialists. Betrayed, he dies a horrible death in prison at the insistence of the "cultured" English overlord, who also duplicitously despises the informer who helped him catch the Bolshevik.
|
|
1922
| Chapygin, Aleksei P.
| On Swan Lakes
(
Na lebyazh'ikh ozyorak
)
xxx
|
|
1922
| Drozdov, A
| Demon
(
Bes
)
Tale of the erosion of old humanistic values by sensuality and fear.3
|
|
1922
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Curious Incident
(
Liubopitnoe Proizshestvie
)
A Bolshevik leader tours the jail where he was once imprisoned under the tsar. He accidentally gets locked up with a Menshevik. By the time the mistake is discovered, the Bolshevik leader has gone looney and refuses to leave. The Cheka have to forcefully remove him to a sanitarium where, every morning, he shouts, "I only want to subvert!"
|
|
1922
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Improved Communist Man
(
Uskomchel
)
A thoroughly Communist Kremlin bureaucrat creates the ideal Communist agitator. The agitator, however, turns on the bureaucrat, so completely disrupting the bureaucrat's life that he goes mad and dies.
|
|
1922
| Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Firey Steed
(
xxx
)
Depiction of the Revolution in the Kuban Cossack region.
|
|
1922
| Gorky, Maksim
| Hermit
(
Otshelnik
)
A cave-dwelling hermit dispenses advice and somewhat non-Orthodox religious comfort to his many visitors, who come telling their tales of woe. His specialty is understanding women, a result of his serious womanizing many years earlier.
|
|
1922
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Armored Train 14-69
(
Bronepoezd 14-69
)
In remote Siberia, a band of Red partisans are given the assignment of blocking a White armored train with only small weapons and bare hands. How do they do it? A Chinese member of the group lies across the tracks, getting mangled and killed, but stopping the train.3
|
|
1922
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Azure Sands
(
Golubie peski
)
Various forces try to capture a remote Siberian town during the Civil War. In the end, all the heroes die--White, Red, and Green--and the town again sinks into obscurity.3
|
|
1922
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Colored Winds
(
Tsetniye vetra
)
Civil War tale.
|
|
1922
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Kyzymil, Golden River
(
Kyzymil' - zolotaya reka
)
xxx
|
|
1922
| Kataev, Valentin P.
| Beautiful Trousers
(
xxx
)
A very hungry philologist writes a play, hoping to sell it and make some money for food. But the play is too hard to produce, with infants, snakes, and crows in the cast. So, instead, the philologist steals a beautiful pair of trousers and sells them for food.
|
|
1922
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Shields (and Candles)
(
Shchity (i Svechi)
)
A soldier comes to kill a carpenter for the disgrace and murder of his sister. Instead, he sits down to play cards with the carpenter, a shoemaker, and a mute. After the game, the soldier takes out his sword to complete his murderous mission. Instead, the carpenter and others set upon the soldier and kill him.
|
|
1922
| Libedinsky, Yuri N.
| Week
(
Nedelya
)
A story of a peasant revolt in a remote town in the Urals. Individual Communists are shown as imperfect, with doubts and contradictions. Some are mere self-servers. Contractions between the Party and the peasants as well as many of the failings of the Party are frankly presented. In the end, the revolt is put down, but most of the leading Communists are brutally murdered. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1922
| Neverov, Aleksandr
| A Bug, Winning His Freedom
(
Zhuk, Poluchivshii Svobody
)
A fly, trapped in a room, repeatedly bangs its head against the upper glass of a window trying to escape. The lower part of the window is open, but the bug doesn't see this. Frustrated with the bug's foolishness, a man finally grabs the bug and hurls it out the window to its freedom.
|
|
1922
| Neverov, Aleksandr
| Happiness
(
Schastye
)
A man tries to find happiness in personal possessions--a gramophone, a bed, a pig. But everything disappoints him and, in the end, he dies quietly.
|
|
1922
| Neverov, Aleksandr
| Love
(
Liubov
)
A flower declares its love for a butterfly, but is rejected.
|
|
1922
| Neverov, Aleksandr
| Sparrow
(
Vorobei
)
A sparrow, dissatisfied with its life, wants to become a falcon, but then is frightened to learn that while a sparrow may be hunted by a cat, falcons are pursued by thousands of hunters.
|
|
1922
| Nikitin, Nikolai
| Fort Vomit
(
Rvotnii Fort
)
xxx
|
|
1922
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Forest Dacha
(
Lesnaya dacha
)
Reworking of the earlier story "Spring Floods" (Polovod'e) with the nobleman recast as a forester.
|
|
1922
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Naked Year
(
Golii God
)
Rich, polyphonic compendium of language swirled around the skeleton of the first year of the Revolution. Main theme is that of Europe (order, intellect, revolutionaries) vs. Asia (chaos, nature, peasants).
|
|
1922
| Semyonov, Sergei A.
| Hunger
(
Golod
)
Workmen in revolutionary Petrograd are starving. Written in the form of a diary.
|
|
1922
| Semyonov, Sergei A.
| Typhus
(
Tif
)
xxx
|
|
1922
| Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| Change
(
Peremena
)
xxx
|
|
1922
| Tarasov-Rodionov, Aleksandr I.
| Chocolate
(
Shokolad
)
The chairman of a local Cheka is falsely accused of bribery, corruption, and entnaglement with a counterrevolutionay ballerina. Although the investigating committee establishes his innocence, he is ordered to be shot anyway as an example to the masses. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1922
| Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Aelita
(
Aelita
)
A Soviet engineer-inventor and a Red Army soldier travel to Mars. The inventor attempts to win the love of a Martian princess, and the soldier works to export revolution to the Red planet.
|
|
1922 -1941
| Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Road To Calvary
(
Khozhdeniye Po Mukam
)
A trilogy telling the story of Russian intellectuals who convert to Bolshevism during the Civil War. Stalin Prize winner.
|
|
1923
| Babel, Isaak E.
| How It Was Done in Odessa
(
Kak Eto Delalos v Odesse
)
Gangster Benya Kirk becomes wealthy and gets the title of "King" through senseless murder, making the innocent pay for the murder, and forcing the community to pay the cost of extravagant funerals for his murder victims.
|
|
1923
| Babel, Isaak E.
| King
(
Korol
)
Thug, extortionist, murderer, gangster Benya Kirk portrayed lovingly as he hosts an obscenely opulent wedding and simultaneously extends his reign of terror and intimidation via arson.
|
|
1923
| Babel, Isaak E.
| Letter
(
Pismo
)
Some brothers fight with the Reds against their father, who is with Deniken's Whites. The father captures and kills one son. A second son captures and kills the father.
|
|
1923
| Babel, Isaak E.
| Salt
(
Sol
)
Soldiers take pity on a woman with a baby and let her ride on their troop train. It turns out, however, that the baby is really a sack of salt. The soldiers feel insulted and cheated. (Thinking that she was a mother they didn't even try to violate her.) So they throw her off the moving train
|
|
1923
| Budantsev, Sergei F.
| Army Commander
(
Komandarm
)
A vainglorious, spiritually empty left Social-Revolutionary, filled with a hatred of Soviet power, leads a revolt in Astrakhan in 1918.
|
|
1923
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Life and Death of Nikolai Kurbov
(
Zhizn' i Smert Nikolaya Kurbova
)
A dedicated member of the Cheka works tirelessly against enemies of the people and signs death warrants without hesitation. However, his faith is shaken when the NEP is announced, and he ends up shooting himself.
|
|
1923
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Love of Jeanne Ney
(
Liubov Zhanny Nei
)
A young, respectable French bourgeois woman falls in love with a Russian Communist who is sent to France on a subversive mission. He is arrested on a murder charge and the only way to prove his innocence to to reveal his true mission. He remains heroically silent and is sentences to death. Jeanne sacrifices her honor in a vain attempt to save her lover.
|
|
1923
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Trust D.E.
(
Trest D.E.
)
American millionaires finance a plan to destroy Europe. Viruses and poison gas are used to reduce the continent to a desert.
|
|
1923
| Furmanov, Dmitri
| Chapaev
(
Chapaev
)
A straightforward, factual narrative concerning the exploits of Chapaev, a colorful and charismatic commander of Red Amry forces, who, along with his faithful political commisar, Klichkov, fights a never-ending battle against Kolchak, Cossacks, and other enemies of Communism during the Civil War. But in the end, the Cossacks catch him with his pants down. Perhaps the granddaddy of all Socialist Realism. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1923
| Furmanov, Dmitri
| Red Landing
(
Krasnii Desant
)
A story about a Red Army operation against Wrangle's forces.
|
|
1923
| Grin, Aleksandr
| Scarlet Sails
(
Aliye Parusa
)
The daughter of a sailor meets a sorcerer who tells her that a prince will come for her. She believes the story and waits. In the end, her prince does in fact come.
|
|
1923
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Duty
(
Dolg
)
A Red officer saves the life of a White. Later, when the tables are turned, the White returns the favor.3
|
|
1923
| Kataev, Ivan Ivanovich
| Milk
(
Moloko
)
A Communist, swayed by the appealing human qualities of his kulak adversary, chokes down his class revulsion and gives vent to a feeling of sympathy for his fellow man.3
|
|
1923
| Leonov, Leonid M.
| End of a Petty Man
(
Konets melkovo cheloveka
)
A world-famous paleontologist is writing a major scientific work and ignores the world around him--War Communism, famine, etc. He slips into madness and is visited nightly by his double. Before dying, he decides to destroy his manuscript.
|
|
1923
| Libedinsky, Yuri N.
| Tomorrow
(
Zavtra
)
Centers around the fictional news of a successful Communist revolution in Germany and the effect the news has on Bolsheviks in the USSR. Later denounced by the author as ideologically unsound, written under the pernicious influence of Trotskyism.
|
|
1923
| Neverov, Aleksandr
| Marya the Bolshevik
(
xxx
)
Women's liberation comes to a post-revolutionary Russian village. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1923
| Neverov, Aleksandr
| Tashkent, City of Bread
(
Tashkent, Khlebnii Gorod
)
A village boy sets out on a long and perilous journey to find food for his ailing mother. Chaos, revolution, civil war, famine, death, tragedy, and comedy all intermingle.
|
|
1923
| Nikandrov, N.
| Damned Cigarette Lighters!
(
Proklyatiye zaigalki!
)
"Physiology" of a self-employed, semi-skilled, artisan NEP type.3
|
|
1923
| Ognyov, Nikolai
| Eurasia
(
Evrasiya
)
Ornamentalism in the style of Pilnyak.
|
|
1923
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Materials for a Novel
(
Materialy k romanu
)
Tale built around sixty years of the inner life of a factory, focusing mainly on the years 1905 and 1921. Distinction made between the oppressive machine civilization of capitalism and the liberating machine civilization of Communism.3
|
|
1923
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Old Cheese (aka Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
(
Starii syr
)
Some Russians are living on an anarchist commune on the steppe. The commune is raided by Kirghiz tribesmen, who kill the men and rape the women. One of the women becomes pregnant as a result, but she accepts and loves the child nonetheless. The Kirghiz raiders are swept away by the Red Army, and the commune again flourishes.5
|
|
1923
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Speranza
(
Speranza
)
Life aboard an aging English coal transport ship. It is buffeted by storms, and the crew is crudely exploited, but still they dream. An Estonian and a Russian on the ship long to return to the workers paradise of Russia. 5
|
|
1923
| Seifullina, Lidia N.
| Mulch
(
Peregnoi
)
A good-for-nothing peasant is transformed by the Revolution, as is his village.
|
|
1923
| Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| One's Own Fate
(
Sovya sud'ba
)
Anti-Freudian novel.
|
|
1923
| Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya.
| Play in the Village of Ogryzovo
(
Spektakl' v Sele Ogryzove
)
A post-Revolutionary village produces its first play. Most everything goes wrong, resulting in unintended hilarity. The author, however, retains the respect of the villagers for taking the first step in bringing them a new cultural life.
|
|
1923
| Shklovsky, Viktor B.
| Zoo, or Letters not about Love
(
Zoo, Pis'ma ne o liubvi, ili Tret'ya Eloiza
)
Collection of thirty letters exchanged between an autobiographical character residing in Berlin and one Alya in Petrograd. The letters provide fragmentary insights into moods and thoughts of the major characters but offer virtually no plot.4
|
|
1923 - 1924
| Shaginyan, Marietta S.
| Mess-Mend, or a Yankee in Petrograd
(
Mess-Mend, ili yanki v Petrograde
)
Amusing spy thriller, comedy, and science fiction novel all rolled into one. Western capitalists and members of the deposed nobility plot to assassinate Lenin and the entire Soviet government. But they are foiled by a secret American workers organization, the Soviet government, and nature itself, which afflicts the deposed princes, capitalists, etc., with a bizarre degenerative disease, literally turning them into beasts.(Click here for detailed summary)
|
|
1923?
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Carpenters
(
Stolyari
)
A wooden boy becomes a master carpenter and sets off on a fruitless quest for a magic plane.
|
|
1923?
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Chronicle of the City of Leipzig for the Year 18..
(
Khronika Goroda Leiptsiga za 18.. God"
)
A student, in love with the daughter of his philosophy professor, makes a deal with the devil: To win the love of the girl he agrees to take on a vow of silence. He loses the envelop in which his silence is sealed, breaking the deal and losing his love. In despair, he has himself sculpted into a small bronze statue and ends up on an obscure shelf in an antique shop. (Students...go figure.) Told in a mixed-up, non-chronological sequence with frequent interruptions by the author.
|
|
1923?
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Engineer Shvartz
(
Inzhenir Shvartz
)
A representative of the two-dimensional Country of Geometrists comes to the Soviet Union on a friendly visit. Before leaving, he entrusts his notes on the two-dimensional world to a young mathematician. Or perhaps it was all a dream.
|
|
1923?
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Purple Palimpsest
(
Purpurnii polimkpsest
)
A bookbinder and a scholar are traveling to each other's towns. On the road, their carriages collide. Afterwards, they accidentally get into the wrong coaches and each is taken back to his home town. However, some of the bookbinder's personality has rubbed off on the scholar, and vice versa so that their identities become blurred and superimposed on one another.
|
|
1924
| Babel, Isaak E.
| Death of Dolgushov
(
Smert Dolgushova
)
A disembowled Red Army soldier begs the narrator-intellectual to shoot him, thereby ending his misery and keeping him out of the hands of the Poles, who would probably torture him. The intellectual, concerned only with keeping his own hands clean, refuses. ( Click here for complete text of story in English.)
|
|
1924
| Babel, Isaak E.
| Lyubka the Cossack
(
Liubka Kazak
)
The head of a smuggling ring is off galavanting all day arranging deals while her infant son lies at home, crying for his mother's milk. A non-paying customer, temporarily imprisoned at Lyubka's inn, weans the child to the bottle. For this, the customer is rewarded and given a job.
|
|
1924
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Fatal Eggs
(
Rokoviye Yaitsa
)
A scientist discovers an amazing new light ray which greatly accelerates growth in primitive organisms. Bureaucratic bungling leads to the wrong batch of eggs getting exposed to the ray. The result: giant, monster snakes, crocodiles, and ostriches roaming the countryside near Smolensk, terrifying and devouring the citizens. The army of monster creatures then marches on Moscow. The capital is saved, however, by an unusually early frost. But it's too late for the discoverer of the ray, who is done away with by a frenzied mob.
|
|
1924
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| White Guard
(
Belaya gvardiya
)
A family of White Guardists and their friends are forced to accept defeat as their side loses to Petlyura's Ukrainian nationalists in Kiev in December 1918. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1924
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Grabber
(
Rvach
)
A Social-Revolutionary flees Moscow after his party's anti-Bolshevik revolt fails in 1918. He survives the Civil War and makes his way back to Moscow as the NEP is in full swing. But he no longer understands society's rules, gets arrested because of links to a currency speculator, and commits suicide in jail.
|
|
1924
| Fedin, Konstantin
| Cities and Years
(
Goroda i Godi
)
A spineless Russian intellectual is interred in Germany at the start of World War I. He falls in love with a German girl, Mari, who helps him in an escape attempt. Once back in Russia after the war, he struggles to find his place in Revolutionary society. Forgetting his promises to send for Mari, he gets another girl pregnant. He also helps a personal acquaintance, now a counterrevolutionary, escape Soviet justice. For this betrayal of the Soviet cause, his best friend kills him. Told in a disjointed, non-sequential narrative with frequent lyrical digressions. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1924
| Gladkov, Fyodor V.
| Cement
(
Tsement
)
True Communists fight White Guards, bandits, lust and corruption as they struggle to bring a cement factory and the Soviet economy back to life in post-Civil War days. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1924
| Gorky, Maksim
| Sky-Blue Life
(
Golubaya zhizn'
)
xxx
|
|
1924
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| How Burial Mounds Are Made
(
Kak sozdaiutsya kurgany
)
In Siberia during the Civil War, 8,000 corpses lie stacked waiting for burial in the frozen ground. It is difficult, but a grave is carved in the ground, the bodies dumped in, and dirt thrown on top in the shape of an ancient Sythian burial mound.3
|
|
1924
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Cask
(
Bochka
)
In his will, a mathematician reveals the location of a "treasure". A group of crooks race the mathematician's father, who's also a mathematician, to the spot. The "treasure" turns out to be the discover that the entire city of London and its outlying districts are on the inside of a giant wine cask which is rolling along on some hard surface. The location revealed in the will is the spot where people can assess the wall of the cask. The crooks and the old mathematician blow a hole in the side of the cask, but as they step out into the extra-cask world, the cask rolls over on them and crushes them.
|
|
1924
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Clockmakers of Kutum
(
Kutumskiye Chasovshchiki
)
In a provincial Ukrainian town during the NEP, a crook, pretending to be a foreign watch-company representative, gets local clock makers to buy and pay in advance for nonexistent clocks.
|
|
1924
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Forty-First
(
Sorok-Pervii
)
The daughter of a Volga fisherman becomes a sniper with a Red partisan detachment. She misses her 41st vicitim (a White officer), then winds up stranded with him on a desert island, where they fall in love. However, the White's essentially selfish, bourgeois nature becomes apparent and she shoots him, fulfilling her mission and her class destiny. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1924
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Story of a Simple Thing
(
Rasskaz o Prostoi Veshchi
)
An old Bolshevik and member of the Cheka, carries on underground work in a town occupied by the Whites. After some breath-taking adventures, he is captured and shot.
|
|
1924
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Wind
(
Veter
)
A sailor, turned into a class-conscious revolutionary, engages in peaceful civilian activity. He grows bored and returns to the adventurous life at the front, where he dies.
|
|
1924
| Olesha, Yuri K.
| Three Fat Men
(
Tri Tolstyaka
)
A fantastic fairy tale of revolution. A tightrope walker, balloons, very large pastries and a brave little girl help topple the dictatorship of some very fat men. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1924
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Nenashin Side
(
Storona nenashinskaya
)
In a provincial town, a land-office foreman accidentally discovers trunks filled with church valuables hidden in a monestary cellar. He connives with some NEPmen to sell off the treasures. Quarrels and bribery ensue. Arrests and executions inevitably follow.5
|
|
1924
| Seifullina, Lidia N.
| Virineya
(
Virineya
)
A peasant woman--a mindless rustic--develops into a Bolshevik activist and ends up dying as a martyr to the cause.3
|
|
1924
| Serafimovich, Aleksandr
| Iron Flood
(
Zheleznii potok
)
During the Civil War, a rag-tag army and thousands of tag-along refugees start out squabbling, undisciplined, and disorganized as they attempt to flee from some pursing Cossacks and join up with the main Red Army units. They escape annihilation only by finally uniting and submitting to the iron will of their newly elected commander, who promises death as punishment for the slightest insubordination. (Remind you of anyone?) It depicts mass action, mass mentality and the class essence of the Civil War. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1924
| Shishkov, Vyacheslav Ya.
| Gang, The
(
Vataga
)
Peasants in Siberia rise up against Kolchak.
|
|
1924
| Stonov, Dmitri
| Bolsheviks
(
Bolsheviki
)
A local Party boss initiates a campaign to expropriate the property of the town bourgeoise, who have grown fat and sleek at the expense of the workers during the NEP. Unfortunately, his own wife and mother are bourgeoise, scorn his politics, and press him to exempt them from revolutionary justice.3
|
|
1924
| Trenyov, K.
| Pugachev Era: A Folk Tragedey
(
Pugachovshchina, Narodnaya tragediya
)
Historical fiction on the Pugachev Rebellion during the time of Catherine the Great.3
|
|
1924
| Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Bathhouse
(
Banya
)
The travails arising from a trip to the bathhouse, such as what does a naked man do with receipts for his clothing, battles over wash basins, losing your soap, and getting or not getting your proper clothing back. Just remember, you're not in a theatre.
|
|
1924 pub. 1925
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Damp Mother Earth
(
Mat' syra-zemlya
)
A Party worker in the Volga area tries to keep peasants from ravaging the forest. He is almost killed by the rebellious local village council. A young woman revolutionary tries to restart a tanning works in the region. She adopts a young wolf pup, but as it grows up it becomes more vicious and attacks its benefactress.5
|
|
1924 pub. 1925
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Machines and Wolves
(
Mashini i volki
)
"A galaxy of narrative voices, points of view, mannequin characters, Russian cultural milieus, perspectives on life, ruminations on the spirit of the changing times, and artistic styles." Basic thesis is that the old "wolf" Russia (countryside, simplicity, spontaneity, freedom, poverty, ignorance, and unreliability) must be replaced by the new "machine" Russia (city, complexity, order, control, wealth, intelligence, and dependability).5
|
|
1924 pub. 1926
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Spilled Time
(
Rasplesnutoye vremya
)
"The human mind, like a pitcher of water, just be guarded lest thoughts spill out.: Autobiographical story describing Pilnyaka's "important" literary work and two seeminstly "insignificant" episodes, which nevertheless inspire the writer.5
|
|
1925
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Baptism by Rotation
(
Kreshcheniye Povorotom
)
A woman at a country hospital is having a difficult labor. The baby is presenting in a transverse position. The inexperienced doctor is nervous and tries to delay any action. Finally, he has to reach in and turn the baby around by the foot. The procedure is successful and the child is born healthy. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
|
|
1925
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Darkness of Egypt
(
Tma Egipetskaya
)
The village where a young country doctor works is plunged in darkness: both a literal darkness, because of a lack of lanterns, and a figurative darkness--the darkness or ignorance of the peasants. As a result of this darnkess, some patients almost die by not taking medicine according to instructions. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
|
|
1925
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Heart of a Dog
(
Sobach'e serdtse
)
A scientist implants the testicles and pituitary gland of a dead criminal onto a dog, which then changes into a half-man, half-dog beast that goes by the name of Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharik. Poligraf turns the doctor's life into a nightmare, and the doctor is forced to reverse the process.
|
|
1925
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Steel Throat
(
Stalnoye Gorlye
)
A little girl suffering from diphtheria is brought to a rural hospital. She is having difficulty breathing. The young doctor sees that a tracheotomy is the only way to save the girl, but he is worried since he has never performed the procedure. The girl's mother at first objects to surgery, but then relents. The tracheotomy is successful and the child survives. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
|
|
1925
| Forsh, Olga D.
| Contemporaries
(
Sovremenniki
)
Historial fiction on Gogol and his times.3
|
|
1925
| Furmanov, Dmitri
| Revolt
(
Myatezh
)
A semidocumentary account of the Civil War in Central Asia.
|
|
1925
| Gorky, Maksim
| Artamonov Business, The
(
Delo Artamonovykh
)
Story of three generations of a self-made bourgeois family. In the end, after the Revolution, the family business is confiscated and the old owner left to die a natural death from hunger.
|
|
1925
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Khabu
(
Khabu
)
Short novel revolving around a building of a railroad in the trackless taiga. Nature is defeated, and the hero dies the moment his dream is realized.3
|
|
1925
| Karavaeva, Anna A.
| Golden Beak
(
Zolotoi Kliuv
)
Story of runaway Siberian peasants and workers in a state mine under Catherine II.
|
|
1925
| Kataev, Valentin P.
| Struggle to the Death
(
xxx
)
The struggle against bureaucracy gets bogged down in bureaucracy as the director--acting both as director and as deputized deputy of his deputy who is on vacation--gets involved in intense bureaucratic in-fighting with himself.
|
|
1925
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| End of a Gang
(
Konetz Khazy
)
A gang of robbers plan to break into the safe of a state bank. They need a steel specialist, but kidnap the wrong one. Needing a stenographer, they kidnap one with whom the chief of the gang happens to be in love. The stenographer's former boyfriend, whom she jilted earlier, is a political prisoner. He escapes jail and, learning that she is missing, tracks her down. He enlists the aide of a prostitute to rescue the stenographer. Just as the stenographer is rescued, the prostitute's jealous boyfriend intends to kill the prostitute but, in a case of mistaken identity, kills the stenographer instead. The gang is arrested, and the stenographer's boyfriend is sent back to prison.
|
|
1925
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Great Game, The
(
Bolshaya Igra
)
Russian and British intelligence agents battle each other in a cloak-and-dagger game over a prize of international imperialism--the testament of the Emperor of Ethiopia.
|
|
1925
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Nine-tenths of Fate
(
Devyat Desyatikh Sudby
)
In 1915, an ensign in the tsarist army named Shakhov is court-martialed for his revolutionary activities. To save his life, he betrays a comrade. Guilt-ridden, he exiles himself to Siberia, refusing to answer the letters of his girlfriend, Galya. Finally, he returns to Petrograd just in time for the Bolshevik uprising, in which he participates. During the assault on the Winter Palace he shoots and wounds an anti-Bolshevik officer, who turns out to be Galya. She recovers, but is alienated from him. Shakhov fights honorably during the Civil War, and finally he and Galya are reunited. But then the secret of his pre-Revolutionary disgrace is revealed. He is arrested and about to be given the death sentence when the comrade he betrayed suddenly appears. He had managed to escape exection back in 1915 and now pleads for Shakhov's acquittal. Shakhov is released and, along with Galya lives, happily ever after in a new life of dedication to the Revolution.
|
|
1925
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Revolt
(
Myatezh
)
A play concerning an attempted counterrevolutionary uprising in Turkestan.
|
|
1925
| Leonov, Leonid M.
| Badgers
(
Barsuki
)
Two brothers from a village grow up in a merchant quarter of pre-revolutionary Moscow. Later, one runs off to join the proletariat as a factory worker. The other returns to his home village and leads a peasant revolt, which is eventually crushed by his brother, now a commissar.
|
|
1925
| Libedinsky, Yuri N.
| Commissars
(
Kommisari
)
As the transition to NEP begins, Red Army Political Commisars gather in a provincial town for a refresher course. The different social origins and attitudes of the Party members are highlighted. Some are confused and bewildered by the new economic policy. Some, essentially bourgeois in nature, must be purged. Good insight to Party life of the time.
|
|
1925
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Antonovka
(
Antonovka
)
Short Story.
|
|
1925
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| At the Waystation
(
Na peregone
)
Short Story.
|
|
1925
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Daughter of the Land
(
Doch' zemli
)
Short story.
|
|
1925
| Nikiforov, Georgi
| Ivan Brynda
(
Ivan Brynda
)
A worker--Ivan Brynda--in a provincial factory is happy until the NEP comes. The factory shuts down and 12,000 men are put out of work. Brynda goes to Moscow looking for a factory job, but things are no better there. He winds up working for a small shopkeeper. Friends acquire a lust for money, take to drink, or become criminals. Brynda remains steadfast and returns to his hometown as the factories begin to reopen.3
|
|
1925
| Ognyov, Nikolai
| Visions
(
Videniya
)
Historical fiction on the poet A.I. Polezhaev [1804-1838].3
|
|
1925
| Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Sea Sketches
(
Morskiye nabroski
)
Paustovsky's first collection of stories.
|
|
1925
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Swindlers
(
Zhuliki
)
A young agronomist goes to Moscow to finalize her divorce. Along the way she meets nothing but petty and grotesque swindlers, robbing her of her optimism and her faith in mankind.
|
|
1925
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Zavoloche
(
Zavoloche
)
A scientific expedition to the Arctic suffers shipwreck, starvation, scurvy, insanity, and murder. The magnitude of nature, love, and scientific obsession are examined.
|
|
1925
| Savich, Ovady
| In the Mountains
(
V gorakh
)
Saga of love and war in Central Asia. Characters include an impulsive, vodka-swilling Red commander; a sensitive, but resolute and calculating political commissar; an impotent intellectual unable to grasp the harsh terms of revolutionary necessity; and a satanic White officer.3
|
|
1925
| Smirnov, A.
| On the Shoal
(
Na perekate
)
Story of the vague yearings evoked in a fisher boy by passing ships and by the perfume of a beautiful lady who appears mysteriously out of the night.3
|
|
1925
| Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Azure Cities
(
Golubiye goroda
)
Utopian socialism clashes with everyday reality, leading to murder. A passionate tale of a tormenting, impatient, and feverish imagination. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1925
| Tolstoy, Aleksei, N.
| Engineer Garin's Hyperboloid
(
xxx
)
Story of a power-hungry engineer who, with the help of a concentrated heat ray, uncovers a vast deposit of gold in the earth's core. Threatening the world with ecological disaster, he becomes dictator. But he is eventually foiled by by a good Soviet Chekist.
|
|
1925
| Yarovoi, Pavel
| Searchlight
(
xxx
)
Short story.
|
|
1925
| Zavadovsky, Leonid
| On the White Lake
(
Na belom ozere
)
xxx
|
|
1926
| Alekseev, G.
| Apartment House
(
Zhiloi dom
)
Communal life as a menagerie of social types.3
|
|
1926
| Babel, Isaak E.
| Church at Novograd
(
Kostel v Novograde
)
Red Army soldiers search a Catholic Church in Poland. They find hidden army uniforms and hoards of gold, banknotes, and jewels.
|
|
1926
| Babel, Isaak E.
| Crossing the Zbruch
(
Perekhod cherez Zbruch
)
A Red Army soldier is billeted with a Jewish family. On the floor is the corpse of an old man whose throat was slashed recently by the Poles right in front of the man's distraught pregnant daughter.
|
|
1926
| Babel, Isaak E.
| Sun of Italy
(
Solntse Italii
)
A Red Army soldier, wounded and unable to fight, is bored and dreams of being sent to Italy, where, perhaps, he can assassinate the Italian king
|
|
1926
| Budantsev, Sergei F.
| Japanese Duel
(
Yaponskaya Duel
)
An eccentric bibliographer cannot find his way in the new revolutionary society, so he gets his revenge by burning his life's work--a bibliographic collection of translations of western European poets into Russian.
|
|
1926
| Budantsev, Sergei F.
| Wife
(
Zhena
)
The story of the four wives of a rich Uzbek in a remote village. The senior wife is dedicated to her husband and cruel toward the other wives, all of whom live a hard life with no rights. One of the younger wives, pregnant, dies as a result of her strenuous labor. Another wife is drawn to the new life and new people symbolized by the railroad which is being built through the area. Her attempt at flight is stymied, but there remains hope for her future.
|
|
1926
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Lost Eye
(
Propavshii Glaz
)
A country doctor treats a gunshot wound. He makes a few minor mistakes, which, fortunately, do not lead to any tragic consquences. But the doctor humbly recognizes that he has to study more. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
|
|
1926
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Snowstorm
(
Viuiga
)
A country doctor travels through a snowstorm to treat a young bride, who suffered a skull fracture before her wedding. The doctor is unable to save her. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
|
|
1926
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Starry Rash
(
Zvezdnaya Syp
)
A country doctor fights venereal disease, which is rampant in the area. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
|
|
1926
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Towel With an Embroidered Rooster
(
Polotenste s petukhom
)
A young doctor, fraught with anxiety over his inexperience, arrives at a country hospital. His first patient is a young girl, mangled in a flax-threshing machine. No one expects her to survive, yet the doctor feels compelled to try to save her, despite his ignorance. He amputates a leg, the girl hangs on and eventually recovers. In gratitude, the girl presents the doctor with an embroidered towel. From Notes of a Young Doctor.
|
|
1926
| Chapygin, Aleksei P.
| Stepan Razin
(
Razin Stepan
)
Grand epic concerning the 17th-century rebel leader. One thousand pages long.
|
|
1926
| Evdokimov, I.
| Bells
(
Kolokola
)
Historical fiction on the Bolshevik underground.3
|
|
1926
| Fedin, Konstantin
| Transvaal
(
Transvaal
)
A tough Estonian of Boer extraction comes to wield almost dictatorial ecomonic power over the peasants of his village.
|
|
1926
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Fecundity
(
Plodorodie
)
Short story.
|
|
1926
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Life of Timofei Smokotinin
(
Zhizn' Timofeiya Smokotinina
)
Short story.
|
|
1926
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Night
(
Noch
)
Short story.
|
|
1926
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Water Patch
(
Polyn'ya
)
Short story.
|
|
1926
| Kataev, Valentin P.
| Embezzlers
(
Rastratchiki
)
Two employees of a Moscow trust embezzle some money and go on a merry romp in search of "high society". Plenty of amusing adventures and interesting types are met before justice eventually catches up with them.
|
|
1926
| Kataev, Valentin P.
| Rodion Zhukov
(
Rodion Zhukov
)
A sailor deserts from the Battelship Potemkin in Rumania and makes his way through formidable obstacles back to Russia in response to the pull of the soil.3
|
|
1926
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Inspector General
(
Revizor
)
A mental patient escapes from the asylum and hides in a public bath. There he takes over the personality, job, and life of a finance inspector, who gets shipped off to the asylum. In the end, however, things revert to the original situation and the patient is back in his cell at the asylum.
|
|
1926
| Kozakov, Mikhail E.
| Abram Nasatyr, the Innkeeper
(
xxx
)
A hard-hearted innkeeper in the NEP period gets rich as the result of a murder he inspired his brother to commit. When his position is threatened, he then kills this same brother.
|
|
1926
| Kozakov, Mikhail E.
| Philistine Adameiko
(
Meshchanin Adameiko
)
The Raskolnikov-like Adameiko plots the murder of a userer because, as he sees it, the parasites who survived the Revolution must be eliminated. Unlike Raskolnikov, he plans to manipulate someone else into doing the actual killing.
|
|
1926
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Count Puzyrkin
(
Graf Puzyrin
)
During the Civil War in Ukraine, a Red Army regiment picks up a countess, who was lying wounded on the side of the road. The regiment's uneducated peasant cook, Puzyrkin, falls in love with the countess, and--dreaming of raising educated children-- he proposes to her. The countess, offended, rejects him and ends up running off with some snooty adjutant. Unable to endure the shattering of his dreams, Puzyrkin kills himself. Years later, this same ex-countess is seen haughtily doing the foxtrot in a fashionable restaurant.
|
|
1926
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Fall of the Republic of Itl
(
Krusheniye Respubliki Itl
)
A satire describing a fictional foreign intervention in southern Russia and the establishment there of a so-called democratic republic with the help of "Nautilia", an obvious reference to England.
|
|
1926
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Sky-blue Cap
(
Nebesny Kartuz
)
A distinguished professor buys an absurd cap, and immediately his life changes. Valuable watches, golden cigarette cases, expensive earrings, etc., begin appearing in his coat pockets mysteriously. Is he an unconscious kleptomaniac? Are supernatural phenomena or political enemies at work? The answer only comes when he appeals to the chief prosecutor, who sets a pipe-smoking, Sherlock-Holmes-type detective on the case. A very amusing satire.
|
|
1926
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Thalassa
(
xxx
)
Ordinary, meek Soviet citizen gets involved in a smuggling expedition along the Black Sea coast.
|
|
1926
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Bronze Helmet
(
Mednaya kaska
)
Short Story.
|
|
1926
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Inheritance
(
Nasledstvo
)
Short Story
|
|
1926
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Only Shirt, The
(
Edinstvennaya rubashka
)
Short Story
|
|
1926
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Sun Under Hand
(
Solntse pod rukoi
)
Short Story.
|
|
1926
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Boy From Trally
(
Mal
)
Chronicles the author's adventure near Constantinople as she seeks and finds a boy identical in appearance to the sculptor Miron's 1500-year-old statue.5
|
|
1926
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Story of Springs and Clay
(
Rasskaz o kluchakh i gline
)
Story telling of the return of exiles to the Palestinian homeland.3
|
|
1926
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Tale of the Unextinguished Moon
(
Povest' nepogashennoi luny
)
Tale of the politically motivated murder of a prominent Communist on the operating table. Although Pilnyak denied it, everyone assumed it was a commentary on the death of Frunze under similar circumstances, with a finger pointed directly at Stalin.
|
|
1926
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Without a Name
(
Beznazvaniya
)
Set in 1906, a revolutionary couple are assigned to kill a traitor to the cause. They carry out the assignment, true to their ideals, but also end up killing their love.5
|
|
1926
| Savich, Ovady
| Von Offenberg Pension
(
Pension fon-Offenberg
)
Menagerie of emigre types.3
|
|
1926
| Serafimovich, Aleksandr
| Two Deaths
(
Dve smerti
)
Street fighting rages in Moscow following the Revolution. A Red-sympathizer gets a job working as a nurse for the Whites so that she can spy on them. The Whites find out about it and shoot her. (Click here for detailed summary.)
|
|
1926
| Sytin, Aleksandr
| Herds of Allah
(
xxx
)
xxx
|
|
1926
| Zhitkov, Boris
| Elchan-Kaiya
(
Elchan-Kaiya
)
Story of a stone ship, gold, Greeks and Turks.3
|
|
1926
| Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Galosh
(
Galosha
)
One man's struggle to retrieve a galosh lost on the tram. It takes a week getting the proper forms filled out, etc., but the galosh is recovered. In the meantime, however, the other galosh is lost. But no matter, the recovery of the first one proves that the system works. Let that galosh stand as an inspiration to future generations.
|
|
1926
| Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Insulted Man
(
Cheloveka obideli
)
On a crowded train, a man is insulting and being bossy to an old woman, who is overburdened with packages and bags. Thinking that the woman is a servant, the train passengers berate the man for violating labor laws. But the woman is really the man's mother. So the passengers, loathe to intervene in family matters, apologize.
|
|
1926 pub. 1927
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Big Heart
(
Bol'shoye serdtse
)
English capitalists try to subdue the "savage" Mongols. But a "primitive" chieftain terrifies them into fleeing.5
|
|
1926?
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Baby, The
(
xxx
)
Red partisan peasants in Mongolia discover an unweaned Russian baby. To feed the baby, they kidnap a young Kirghiz woman. When they discover that the woman is feeding her own baby more than the Russian baby, they abandon the Kirghiz baby in the wild so that the Russian baby can grow up fat and healthy.
|
|
1926?
| Lyashko, N.N.
| Song of the Chains
(
xxx
)
A political prisoner in tsarist times manages to keep his shackles when released from prison. He sends them back to his home town, where they become an important symbol and inspiration for his family and workers at the local factory throughout the Revolution and Civil War.
|
|
1927
| Arosev, A.
| On the Earth Beneath the Sun
(
Na zemle nod solntsem
)
A Cheka official named Obryvov turns himself over to his comrades as a "traitor" because years before one of his best friends had been killed by an anti-Red mob, which thought it was killing Obryvov, while the victim made no effort to correct the mistake. Obryvov failed to act not because he was more valuable to the Party than his friend, but simply because he wanted to live. The Party tells Obryvov he's being overly scrupulous and returns him to work in the Cheka.3
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|
1927
| Budantsev, Sergei F.
| Locusts
(
Sarancha
)
A remote area of southern Azerbaijan is threatened with an imminent attack of ravenous locusts. A local factory director tries to prepare the region for the attack, but swindlers and saboteurs--both in and out of official positions--defraud the government, leaving the region without resources or equipment with which to battle the locusts. Natural disaster ensues. The innocent are arrested, but the guilty are punished. (Click here for detailed summary.)
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1927
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Flight
(
Beg
)
Play.
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|
1927
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Morphine
(
Morfiy
)
A country doctor gives himself an injection of morphine to relieve abdominal pain. It also relieves his despair over a lost love and feeling of loneliness. He becomes addicted, and all attempts to end the habit fail. So, in the end, the doctor commits suicide. From Notes of a Young Doctor (with some scholarly dispute on this subject).
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|
1927
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| On Portochnoi Lane (aka "A Street In Moscow")
(
V Portochnoi Pereulke
)
Graphic and often sordid account of daily life in a Moscow working class area during the mid-1920s, as characters come to terms with changes brought by the Revolution.
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1927
| Fadeev, Aleksandr A.
| Rout, The
(
Razgrom
)
Red Army partisans flee from pursuing Cossacks and Japanese interventionist forces in Russia's Far East. (Click here for detailed summary.)
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|
1927
| Forsh, Olga D.
| Dressed in Stone
(
Odety Kamnem
)
A 19th-century revolutionary becomes a "secret prisoner", locked by the tsar in solitary confinement for 20 years.
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|
1927
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| God Matvei
(
Bog Matvei
)
A peasant in a Red Army regiment, claims that he is God and orders the fighting to stop. He "miraculously" dodges bullets for a time, but in the end his mortality is proved. After his burial, the Reds march on to victory.3
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|
1927
| Kataev, Valentin P.
| Squaring The Circle
(
Kvadrature Kruga
)
Comedy play based on the housing shortage in Moscow during the 1920s. Two young couples who share a room try to resolve inter-marital conflicts under the new morality of a new regime.
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|
1927
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Friend of the Mikado
(
Drug Mikado
)
A Japanese samurai-diplomat in a Western capital receives word that the Mikado has died and that it is now his duty to disembowel himself. However, life in the West has had an influence on the samurai-diplomat and he no longers wants to kill himself just because the emperor has died. So he resigns his post and starts to leave the embassy. The samurai-diplomat's secretary is about to shoot him for this betrayal when the secretary suddenly remembers that he himself has just gambled away the embassy's documents and papers and is in plenty of hot water unless he disappears along with his boss.
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|
1927
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Short Summer Night
(
Vorobinaya Noch
)
A cashier gambles away all his money as well as the money of the cooperative for which he works. Thus shamed, he hits the road, looking for a life of adventure. He ends up naked in a provincial town, fleeing from a stone-throwing mob. He commits suicide by jumping from a bridge.
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|
1927
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Sky-Blue Sun
(
Goluboye Solntse
)
An old colonel in the Chinese National Army is dying. He speaks with his ward, the grown son of a long-dead revolutionary leader. The ward has always been a disappointing good-for-nothing. In a final test to probe this ward's moral fiber, the colonel falsely confesses to having been a British spy for many years. The ward seems totally unconcerned about this confession of treason and leaves. The colonel is in despair, feeling that the revolution has failed if this apathetic young opium smoker is its successor. However, the colonel is then overjoyed when the ward returns with a knife and tries to kill him.
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|
1927
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| This Morning
(
Sevodnya Utrom
)
A man apparently kills his wife in a jealous rage, then goes to a gambling house, where he loses everything. He is mistaken for a thief and runs. He manages to jump aboard an ambulance which is transporting his wife's lover, whom he accidentally shot when he was aiming at his wife. The lover mistakes the husband for someone to whom he owns money, so he gives him some cash. The man takes the money back to the gambling house and, this time, wins everything. He has a change of heart then and sends all his winnings to the dead man's mother just before he is arrested.
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|
1927
| Kharms, Daniil
| Elizaveta Bam
(
Elizaveta Bam
)
An absurdist play in which Elizaveta Bam is pursued by two police agents determined to arrest her for a crime no one can name. Absurdist antics and banter ensue. ("When buying a bird, first examine its teeth." "My feet are like cucumbers.") Ms. Bam's father undertakes a battle of the bogatyrs, a war of words with one of the police agents and kills him. Absurdly, the agent returns to life and, dressed as a fire fighter, comes to arrest Elizaveta for his murder.
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|
1927
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Commendant Pushkin
(
xxx
)
A sailor named Aleksandr Semyonovich Pushkin is placed in charge of the defense of Detskoye Selo, where, of course, the great poet Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin spent much of his time. Commendant Pushkin, just barely literate, knows nothing of the great poet, but others teach him and he comes to love the poet and his poetry. He successfuly defends the town against a White onslaught, but is shot and killed in battle. He dies, quoting the poet.
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|
1927
| Lavrenyov, Boris A.
| Seventh Satellite
(
Sedmoi Sputnik
)
An old White General is arrested in 1918 and eventually released, reduced to taking a job as a laundryman. His sympathies change and he joins the Red Army. He is captured by Whites and shot.
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1927
| Leonov, Leonid M.
| Thief, The
(
Vor
)
A prominent Red Commisar suffers a crisis after murdering a White officer. He is also disallusioned by the NEP. He changes and becomes ringleader of a gang of burglars. In the end, he gives up his life of crime and retires to seclusion in the countryside. Contains a novel-within-a-novel.
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|
1927
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| In the Wilds
(
V glushi
)
Short Story.
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|
1927
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Steppe Herds
(
Stepnye tabuni
)
Povest.
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|
1927
| Malyshkin, Aleksandr G.
| February Snow
(
Fevral'slii sneg
)
Historical fiction on the Februrary Revolution.3
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|
1927
| Muguev, Khadzhi-Murat
| Death of Nikola Bunchuk
(
Smert' Nikoly Bunchuka
)
A young Cossack--Nikola Bunchuk--in service to the Whites is assigned to a firing squad executing Red prisoners. Bunchuk's best friend in the squad lowers his rifle and refuses to fire. He is arrested, and Bunchuk is assigned to guard him. Instead, Bunchuk frees his friend, and the two of them flee. Then, trapped between Red and White lines, Bunchuk is shot and killed. Which side fired the deadly bullet is not known.3
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|
1927
| Ognyov, Nikolai
| Diary of Kostya Ryabtsev
(
Dnevnik Kosti Ryabtseva
)
The diary of a school boy, showing the goings-on at a Soviet high school of the time. It's like a miniature revolutionary republic with the students in charge.
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|
1927
| Olesha, Yuri K.
| Envy
(
Zavist
)
Andrei Babichev, a respected and successful hero of the Soviet food industry, takes in Nikolai Kavalerov, an aimless drifter, and tries to help him. Kavalerov--irresponsible, self-centered and deluded about his own worth--dreams of personal glory and soon comes to envy and despise his host. Kavalerov joins up with Andrei's brother, Ivan, who claims to have created an "Ophelia machine" to annihilate his enemies. Together, Kavalerov and Ivan cook up a "conspiracy of feelings" to spit in the face of the new era. Kavalerov even plots the murder of Babichev. It all comes to nothing and, in the end, Ivan and Kavalerov settle into a life of indifference, sharing the bed and embraces of the same fat, middle-aged widow. (Click here for detailed summary.)
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|
1927
| Olesha, Yuri K.
| Liompa
(
Liompa
)
As an old man lies dying, things, no longer necessary to him, desert him, leaving behind only their names to pester his brain. Meanwhile, children wander around exploring all sorts of new things which roll to them, their names unknown. The old man knows that he will die when he can find the name of the rat that is scurrying around in the kitchen, and that name is "Liompa".
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1927
| Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Minetoza
(
Minetoza
)
xxx.
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|
1927
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Ivan Moscow
(
Ivan Moskva
)
The director of a radium factory in distant Komi descends into delirium and insanity, poisoned both by syphilis and the radioactive mineral he works with daily. He dies in a plane crash, but nevertheless leaves a positive legacy in the improvements he made in the life of the Komi.5
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|
1927
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Nizhegorod Slope
(
Nizhegorodskii otkos
)
Story portraying and subtly defending sexual love between a mother and her 16-year-old son.5
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|
1927
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Roots of the Japanese Sun
(
Korni yaponskogo solntsa
)
Account of the author's visit to Japan in 1926. Criticized in Pravda for harmful errors, ignoring the class struggle, and playing into the hands of imperialists.5
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|
1927
| Semyonov, Sergei A.
| Natalya Tarpova
(
Natalya Tarpova
)
A woman Party member deals with Party life, marriage, cultural work, ideology, and so on. Set in the period of NEP.
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|
1927
| Sverchkov, D.
| Case No. 3576
(
Delo No. 3576
)
Describes tensions that build up in a marriage from the pull of the new emancipated sex mores against the old.3
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|
1927
| Zoshchenko, Mikhail
| Pushkin
(
Pushkin
)
A demobilized soldier has a hard time finding a place to live. When he finally does find one, he is kicked out because it turns out that Pushkin once slept there and they can't have messy ordinary people tarnishing the great poet's reputation by living there.
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|
1928
| Beliayev, Aleksandr R.
| The Struggle in Space
(
Borba v Efire
)
Rocket-airships, radio-controlled tanks, and Death Rays. Evil Americans try to destroy the socialist paradise of the future, but the Soviets counterattack and win. Remnant capitalists flee to an underground base near Antartica, planning to escape into outer space. Socialism on one planet! (Click here for detailed summary.)
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|
1928
| Bulgakov, Mikhail A.
| Crimson Island
(
Bagrovii ostrov
)
Satirical play.
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|
1928
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Conspiracy of Equals
(
Zagavor Ravnikh
)
Historical novel concerning the Babeuf movement in Revolutionary France, which rejected terror and advocated an egalitarian democracy. Dismissed by Stalin as "pulp literature" suitable for "a real bourgeois chamber theater."
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|
1928
| Ehrenburg, Ilya G.
| Stormy Life of Lasik Roitschwantz
(
Burnaya Zhizn' Lazika Roitshvantsa
)
A simple, good-natured Jew from Belorussia wanders to Moscow, Warsaw, Germany, France, England and Palestine, suffering beatings, jailings, and indignities of all sorts wherever he goes.
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|
1928
| Fedin, Konstantin
| Brothers
(
Bratya
)
A musician and composer attempts to claim an expemption from Revolutionary service in pursuit of his individual artistic expression. He argues with his brother, a Bolshevik who goes off to die in battle. In the end, the musician takes up his brother's cause and believes, therefore, that he has overcome the contradiction between art and Revolutionary activity. However, his view of art as essentially tragic, born in solitude, remains unchanged.
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|
1928
| Gorbatov, Boris L.
| Cell, The
(
Yacheika
)
Story of life of the Komsomols in the 1920s.
|
|
1928
| Ilf, Ilya & Petrov, Evgeny
| Twelve Chairs
(
Dvenadtsat stulev
)
Con-man Ostap Bender travels far and wide in an attempt to find diamonds hidden in one of a set of twelve chairs which have been dispersed throughout the USSR. Hilarious hijinks ensue. Includes the greatest piece of chess humor ever written. (Click here for complete chapter "Interplanetary Chess Congress.")
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|
1928
| Ivanov, Vsevolod
| Cotton
(
Khlopok
)
An English secret agent and a Red commissar discover that the common struggle for survival dissipates their class hatred.3
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|
1928
| Karavaeva, Anna A.
| Sawmill
(
Lesozavod
)
Depiction of the industrialization of a Soviet village.
|
|
1928
| Kataev, Ivan Ivanovich
| Bus
(
Avtobus
)
Description of a happy bus ride from the countryside dachas back to the city--the people, the scenery, the best place to sit, etc. Also gives lyrical tribute to the calm and dedicated driver, who so deftly avoids an accident that the passengers never even notice the danger.
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|
1928
| Kataev, Valentin P.
| Father
(
Otets
)
A quiet schoolmaster in a southern Russian town devotes himself to his son, who is arrested as a counterrevolutionary. When the son is released, he scorns his father, gets a cushy job and moves to Moscow, leaving his father to die a lonely death.
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|
1928
| Kaverin, Veniamin A.
| Troublemaker
(
Skandalist
)
Damning portrayal of old-fashioned, inflexible attitudes among the older academics in Leningrad. Formalism is parodied. One character possibly modeled on Viktor Shklovsky.
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|
1928
| Kharms, Daniil
| Ivan Ivanych Samovar
(
Ivan Ivanych Samovar
)
A friendly samovar dispenses tea. Late risers, however, are in for a surprise. A children's poem. (Click here for complete text.)
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|
1928
| Lidin, Vladimir
| Renegade, The
(
Otstupnik
)
A student is involved in a murder and passes through a series of moral trials. In the end, when he decides to confess his part, he realizes the beauty of life, toil, and love.
|
|
1928
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Indeterminate Height above Sea Level
(
Neopredelennaya vysota nad urovnem morya
)
Short Story.
|
|
1928
| Loginov-Lesnyak, P. S.
| Wild Field
(
Dikoye pole
)
Novel.
|
|
1928
| Paustovsky, Konstantin
| Crossing Ships
(
xxx
)
Short story.
|
|
1928
| Pilnyak, Boris
| Earth on Her Hands
(
Zemlya na rukakh
)
A woman must choose between her loving husband and her first husband, thought dead for 13 years, who suddenly shows up.5
|
|
1928
| Savich, Ovady
| Imaginary Interlocutor
(
Voobrazhaemy sobesednik
)
An ordinary employee of a Soviet trust makes a transition from his meaningless, boring, estranged life to his death with the help of an imaginary interlocutor, who sometimes appears as his double, and sometimes as a mysterious young dancer.
|
|
1928
| Tynyanov, Yuri N.
| The Death of The Vizier Mukhtara
(
Smert Vazira-Mukhtara
)
Historical novel about Russian playwrite A.S. Griboedov, who was killed in Tehran by an angry mob while on a diplomatic mission.
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|
1928
|
