I’ve read such a small amount of Russian literature that it may even be possible to list them all. “We”, some Gogol stories, “Crime and Punishment”, “Anna Karenina”. I shamefully can’t think of anything else. There must be something… Ahh, “The Cherry Orchard”!
Questions
In which novella does the narrator argue against the ‘crystal palace’ utopia depicted in Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s “What is to be Done?”, suggesting that suffering is essential for us to be able to love?
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND
Georgian born author Boris Akunin is known for creating which 19th century detective, with the first novel in the series being adapted into a 2002 Russian television movie called “Azazel”?
ERAST FANDORIN
The setting of the country being changed from that used in the original play, who directed a 1957 film based on Maxim Gorky’s “The Lower Depths”, the title being “Donzoko” in their native language?
AKIRA KUROSAWA
Being shot on the banks of the Seine, who directed a 1936 film version of Maxim Gorky’s play “The Lower Depths”?
JEAN RENOIR
Following a stray dog who is given the name Sharik and their subsequent transformation, the 1925 novella “Heart of a Dog” was written by which Russian author?
MIKHAIL BULGAKOV
Mikhail Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog” is set during the period of which Russian system introduced by Vladimir Lenin in 1921, this also being known by a three-letter acronym? It was replaced in 1928 by Joseph Stalin’s Great Break.
NEP / NEW ECONOMIC POLICY
Its publication initially prohibited in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Bulgakov’s “Heart of a Dog” was circulated as what ‘self-publishing’ dissident activity designed to avoid Soviet censorship before being officially released in 1987?
SAMIZDAT
A huge seller that follows Pavel Korchagin around the time of the Russian Civil War, “How the Steel was Tempered” is a work by which socialist realist writer? His name was included in a 2015 list issued by Ukraine that banned over 500 communist figures from being commemorated in public place names, with others including Karl Marx, Valentina Tereshkova and the aforementioned fictional character Pavel Korchagin.
NIKOLAI OSTROVSKY
Executed in 1940, Isaac Babel is known for which collection of short stories that take place during the Polish-Soviet War that followed World War I, them being based on his first hand experience of the horrors of war?
RED CAVALRY
Adapted into the silent film “Benya Krik”, that title coming from the name of a character in the collection, which group of four stories by Isaac Babel takes its name from the city in which a group of Jewish undesirables live? The setting is around the time of the Russian Revolution.
ODESSA STORIES
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