Short Stories In Russian Pdf

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Onour website you can find a great number of Russian short stories to read, process and improve your Russian. They present contexts from different life situations and cases. While reading Russian stories you will learn the real Russian phrases in the meaning they should be expressed with. You will be introduced to the Russian idioms and slang as well.

Russian stories, which perfectly suit to a Russian learner, should be interesting, informative and contain widely used vocabulary and grammar structures. We stick to this concept when collecting the best Russian short stories for you, Russian learner.

On our website site you will find many authentic texts in Russian from the Internet and Russian text books (the sourse is always specified at the end of the story) as well as short stories in Russian which are written by our qualified teachers at www.pa-russki.com.

It is preferably that the level of the stories should correspond to your current level in Russian in order you would feel comfortable with reading them. The best story if at least 60% of vocabulary is familiar to you.

Here you will find short Russian stories intended for beginners, more complicated samples of Russian stories that should come in handy for intermediate students, adapted passages from original Russian literature as well as articles in Russian about things happening nowadays which certainly might be supportive for advanced students.

Each Russian story can have more than just one usage, you can read it certainly, translating words, you can analyze it by grammar part, you can retell it checking how new Russian words and phrases are fixed for the moment, and of course, you can try to discuss some interesting passages with your friends or with your Russian teacher.

Check out the list of the Russian short stories for beginners and intermediate level and start build and improve your Russian vocabulary. The number of stories constanly improves: we regulary add new stories, parables, extracts from novels. Ready to start?

With the strict censorship imposed on Russian writers, many of them whomight perhaps have contented themselves with expressing their opinions inessays, were driven to conceal their meaning under the guise of satire orallegory; which gave rise to a peculiar genre of literature, a sort ofeditorial or essay done into fiction, in which the satirist Saltykov, acontemporary of Turgenev and Dostoyevsky, who wrote under the pseudonym ofShchedrin, achieved the greatest success and popularity.

It was not however, until the concluding quarter of the last century thatwriters like Korolenko and Garshin arose, who devoted themselves chieflyto the cultivation of the short story. With Anton Chekhov the short storyassumed a position of importance alongside the larger works of the greatRussian masters. Gorky and Andreyev made the short story do the sameservice for the active revolutionary period in the last decade of thenineteenth century down to its temporary defeat in 1906 that Turgenevrendered in his series of larger novels for the period of preparation. Butvery different was the voice of Gorky, the man sprung from the people, theembodiment of all the accumulated wrath and indignation of centuries ofsocial wrong and oppression, from the gentlemanly tones of the culturedartist Turgenev. Like a mighty hammer his blows fell upon the decayingfabric of the old society. His was no longer a feeble, despairing protest.With the strength and confidence of victory he made onslaught upononslaught on the old institutions until they shook and almost tumbled. Andwhen reaction celebrated its short-lived triumph and gloom settled againupon his country and most of his co-fighters withdrew from the battle indespair, some returning to the old-time Russian mood of hopelessness,passivity and apathy, and some even backsliding into wild orgies ofliterary debauchery, Gorky never wavered, never lost his faith and hope,never for a moment was untrue to his principles. Now, with the revolutionvictorious, he has come into his right, one of the most respected, belovedand picturesque figures in the Russian democracy.

Kuprin, the most facile and talented short-story writer next to Chekhov,has, on the whole, kept well to the best literary traditions of Russia,though he has frequently wandered off to extravagant sex themes, for whichhe seems to display as great a fondness as Artzybashev. Semyonov is aunique character in Russian literature, a peasant who had scarcelymastered the most elementary mechanics of writing when he penned his firststory. But that story pleased Tolstoy, who befriended and encouraged him.His tales deal altogether with peasant life in country and city, and havea lifelikeness, an artlessness, a simplicity striking even in a Russianauthor.

Rich as Russia has become in the short story, Anton Chekhov still standsout as the supreme master, one of the greatest short-story writers of theworld. He was born in Taganarok, in the Ukraine, in 1860, the son of apeasant serf who succeeded in buying his freedom. Anton Chekhov studiedmedicine, but devoted himself largely to writing, in which, heacknowledged, his scientific training was of great service. Though helived only forty-four years, dying of tuberculosis in 1904, his collectedworks consist of sixteen fair-sized volumes of short stories, and severaldramas besides. A few volumes of his works have already appeared inEnglish translation.

Critics, among them Tolstoy, have often compared Chekhov to Maupassant. Ifind it hard to discover the resemblance. Maupassant holds a supremeposition as a short-story writer; so does Chekhov. But there, it seems tome, the likeness ends.

I have used the word inventiveness for lack of a better name. It expressesbut lamely the peculiar faculty that distinguishes Chekhov. Chekhov doesnot really invent. He reveals. He reveals things that no author before himhas revealed. It is as though he possessed a special organ which enabledhim to see, hear and feel things of which we other mortals did not evendream the existence. Yet when he lays them bare we know that they are notfictitious, not invented, but as real as the ordinary familiar facts oflife. This faculty of his playing on all conceivable objects, allconceivable emotions, no matter how microscopic, endows them with life anda soul. By virtue of this power The Steppe, an uneventful record ofpeasants travelling day after day through flat, monotonous fields, becomesinstinct with dramatic interest, and its 125 pages seem all too short. Andby virtue of the same attribute we follow with breathless suspense theminute description of the declining days of a great scientist, who feelshis physical and mental faculties gradually ebbing away. A TiresomeStory, Chekhov calls it; and so it would be without the vitalityconjured into it by the magic touch of this strange genius.

The young lady raised her head and made a sign to the young officer. Hethen remembered that the old Countess was never to be informed of thedeath of any of her contemporaries, and he bit his lips. But the oldCountess heard the news with the greatest indifference.

Lizaveta Ivanovna was left alone: she laid aside her work and began tolook out of the window. A few moments afterwards, at a corner house on theother side of the street, a young officer appeared. A deep blush coveredher cheeks; she took up her work again and bent her head down over theframe. At the same moment the Countess returned completely dressed.

A couple of days afterwards, just as she was stepping into the carriagewith the Countess, she saw him again. He was standing close behind thedoor, with his face half-concealed by his fur collar, but his dark eyessparkled beneath his cap. Lizaveta felt alarmed, though she knew not why,and she trembled as she seated herself in the carriage.

From that time forward not a day passed without the young officer makinghis appearance under the window at the customary hour, and between him andher there was established a sort of mute acquaintance. Sitting in herplace at work, she used to feel his approach; and raising her head, shewould look at him longer and longer each day. The young man seemed to bevery grateful to her: she saw with the sharp eye of youth, how a suddenflush covered his pale cheeks each time that their glances met. Afterabout a week she commenced to smile at him...

Musing in this manner, he walked on until he found himself in one of theprincipal streets of St. Petersburg, in front of a house of antiquatedarchitecture. The street was blocked with equipages; carriages one afterthe other drew up in front of the brilliantly illuminated doorway. At onemoment there stepped out on to the pavement the well-shaped little foot ofsome young beauty, at another the heavy boot of a cavalry officer, andthen the silk stockings and shoes of a member of the diplomatic world.Furs and cloaks passed in rapid succession before the gigantic porter atthe entrance.

Lizaveta Ivanovna did not hear her. On returning home she ran to her room,and drew the letter out of her glove: it was not sealed. Lizaveta read it.The letter contained a declaration of love; it was tender, respectful, andcopied word for word from a German novel. But Lizaveta did not knowanything of the German language, and she was quite delighted.

She sat down at her little writing-table, took pen and paper, and began tothink. Several times she began her letter, and then tore it up: the wayshe had expressed herself seemed to her either too inviting or too coldand decisive. At last she succeeded in writing a few lines with which shefelt satisfied.

The next day, as soon as Hermann made his appearance, Lizaveta rose fromher embroidery, went into the drawing-room, opened the ventilator andthrew the letter into the street, trusting that the young officer wouldhave the perception to pick it up.

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