Classics of Russian Literature

Overview

Dive into the soul-searching depths of Russia’s greatest novels, plays, and poems in this 36-lecture journey through two centuries of literary genius.

Course No. 2830

From Pushkin’s poetic brilliance to Solzhenitsyn’s dissident courage, explore over 40 masterpieces with a professor who brings the original Russian texts to life through dramatic readings.

Course Content

Golden Age Titans

1. Pushkin: Russia’s Shakespeare (30 min)
   • Eugene Onegin and the birth of modern Russian literature

2. Gogol’s Grotesque Vision (31 min)
   • Dead Souls and The Overcoat’s absurdist satire

3. Dostoevsky’s Tormented Genius (30 min)
   • Crime and Punishment’s psychological depths

4. Tolstoy’s Epic Canvas (30 min)
   • War and Peace and Anna Karenina’s timeless drama

Realists & Revolutionaries

5. Turgenev’s Generational Clash (30 min)
   • Fathers and Sons and Russia’s social upheaval

6. Chekhov’s Subtle Tragedies (30 min)
   • The Seagull and the art of subtext

7. Gorky’s Revolutionary Voice (30 min)
   • Autobiographical sketches of pre-Soviet life

Soviet Era Voices

8. Pasternak’s Forbidden Masterpiece (30 min)
   • Doctor Zhivago and poetic resistance

9. Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Truth (30 min)
   • One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

10. Zoshchenko’s Biting Satire (30 min)
    • Laughing through Soviet absurdities