A Chronological History – The Complete Edition Alexander Pushkin to Isaac Babel

Read by Richard Mitchley, Mark Rice-Oxley, David Shaw-Parker(Unabridged: 16hrs 28mins)

Featuring stories by Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Leo Tolstoy & many more

The Russian novel has a reputation that is immense, both in narrative and in length. Unquestionably though the ideas, themes and characters make many novels rightly revered as world class, as icons of literature.

Perhaps an easier way to enjoy a wider selection of the Russian heritage, with its varied and glorious literary talents, is with the short story. These gems sparkle and beguile the mind with their characters and narrative, exploring facets of society and the human condition that more Western authors somehow find more difficult to navigate, or to explore, explain and relate to.

The Russian short story is, in many respects, in a genre of its own. It is at its captivating best whether it’s an exploration of real-life experiences, through fantasy and fables and on to total absurdity.

In a land so vast it is unsurprising that it is a world almost unto itself. Cultures and landscapes of differing hues are packed together bound only by the wilful bonds and force of Empire.

The stories in this collection traverse the decades where one might be a serf under an absolute monarch, and the reality of that was pretty near to slavery, into an emancipation of sorts in the fields, or towns under the despotic will of landowners and the rich into the upheavals of Empire and then the overthrow of the ruling class and its replacement by the communists, who promised equality for all and delivered a society where the down-trodden remained the lowest yet vital cog of the state machine and its will.

Whilst Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov are a given in any Russian collection we also explore and include Andreyev, Korolenko, Turgenev, Blavatsky and many others to create a world rich and dense across a sprawling landscape of diverse people, riddled with the class and unfairness in perhaps some of the most turbulent times that Russia has ever experienced.

01 - The Russian Short Story - The Complete Edition - An Introduction

02 - The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin

03 - The Stationmaster by Alexander Pushkin

04 - The Blizzard by Alexander Pushkin

05 - The Coffin Maker by Alexander Pushkin

06 - The Shot by Alexander Pushkin

07 - St Johns Eve by Nikolai Gogol

08 - The Cloak by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Overcoat'

09 - Old Fashioned Landowners by Nikolai Gogol

10 - The Nose by Nikolai Gogol

11 - Diary of a Madman by Nikolai Gogol

12 - Taman by Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov

13 - The Jew by Ivan Turgenev

14 - The Rendezvous by Ivan Turgenev

15 - A Strange Story by Ivan Turgenev

16 - Mumu by Ivan Turgenev

17 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev

18 - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

19 - The Beggar Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

20 - An Honest Thief by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

21 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 1 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

22 - The Crocodile. An Extraordinary Incident - Part 2 by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

23 - Bobok by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

24 - How a Muzhik Fed Two Officials by Nikolai Schedrin

25 - Diary of a Lunatic by Leo Tolstoy

26 - Aloysha the Pot by Leo Tolstoy

27 - How Much Land Does A Man Need by Leo Tolstoy

28 - The Snowstorm - Part 1 by Leo Tolstoy

29 - The Snowstorm - Part 2 by Leo Tolstoy

30 - God Sees The Truth But Waits by Leo Tolstoy

31 - The Sentry by Nikolai Lyeskov

32 - A Witch's Den by Helena Blavatsky

33 - The General's Will by Vera Jelihovsky

34 - The Old Bell Ringer by Vladimir Korolenko

35 - The Shades, A Phantasy by Vladimir Korolenko

36 - The Signal by Vsevolod Garshin

37 - Dethroned by I N Potapenko

38 - The Kiss by Anton Chekhov

39 - The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov

40 - The Bet by Anton Chekhov

41 - Gooseberries by Anton Chekhov

42 - About Love by Anton Chekhov

43 - Vanka by Anton Chekhov

44 - Hide And Seek or Pliatki by Fyodor Sologub

45 - In The Steppe by Maxim Gorky

46 - Chelkash - Part 1 by Maxim Gorky

47 - Chelkash - Part 2 by Maxim Gorky

48 - Chelkash - Part 3 by Maxim Gorky

49 - Twenty-Six Men and a Girl by Maxim Gorky

50 - One Autumn Night by Maxim Gorky

51 - Her Lover by Maxim Gorky

52 - The Servant by S T Semyonov

53 - Son by Ivan Bunin

54 - Kasimir Stanislavovitch by Ivan Bunin

55 - Gentle Breathing by Ivan Bunin

56 - The Outrage by Alexander Kuprin

57 - The Park of Kings by Alexander Kuprin

58 - Cain by Alexander Kuprin

59 - Anathema by Alexander Kuprin

60 - An Evening Guest by Alexander Kuprin

61 - Silence by Leonid Andreyev

62 - Lazarus by Leonid Andreyev

63 - The Lie by Leonid Andreyev

64 - The City by Leonid Andreyev

65 - The Republic of the Southern Cross by Valery Bryusov

66 - The Revolutionist by Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev

67 - Light by Achmed Abdullah

68 - Morphine by Mikhail Bulgakov

69 - The Murderer by Mikhail Bulgakov

70 - The Blind Ones by Isaac Babel