Hint: 5 Russian books to read

According to the top lists of best books in the world (The New York Public Library's Center for the Humanities, the Project '100 best books', data of 'Daily telegraph') , here are 5 books that you should read in order to be 'well-bred person' 






1. Leo Tolstoi 'War and Peace'/ "Война и мир"

The work is published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as Tolstoy's finest literary achievement, along with his other work Anna Karenina (1873–1877). War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events leading up to the French invasion of Russia, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families. 

Detailed retelling in wiki

Full text here (English)  

2. Boris Pasternak 'Doctor Zhivago'/"Доктор Живаго"

The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a physician and poet. It tells the story of Zhivago's life and how it is affected by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Russian Civil War.

Zhivago's poems from the novel here

3. Michael Bulgakov 'Master and Marguerite' / "Мастер и Маргарита"

THe books is a novel, woven around the premise of a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consider the book to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and one of the foremost Soviet satires, directed against a suffocatingly bureaucratic social order.

Full text here (English)

4. Fyodor Dostoevsky 'Crime and Punishment'/ "Преступление и наказание" 

rime and Punishment focuses on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, an impoverished ex-student in St. Petersburg who formulates and executes a plan to kill an unscrupulous pawnbroker for her money. Raskolnikov argues that with the pawnbroker's money he can perform good deeds to counterbalance the crime, while ridding the world of a worthless parasite. He also commits this murder to test his own hypothesis that some people are naturally capable of, and even have the right to do, such things. Several times throughout the novel, Raskolnikov justifies his actions by connecting himself mentally with Napoleon Bonaparte, believing that murder is permissible in pursuit of a higher purpose.

Plot, characters, structure etc in wiki

Text here (English)

5. Anton Chekhov 'Three sisters' /  "Три сестры"

Three Sisters is a naturalistic play about the decay of the privileged class in Russia and the search for meaning in the modern world. It describes the lives and aspirations of the Prozorov family, the three sisters (Olga, Masha, and Irina) and their brother Andrei. They are a family dissatisfied and frustrated with their present existence. The sisters are refined and cultured young women who grew up in urban Moscow; however for the past eleven years they have been living in a small provincial town.

About characters here

Full text here