In order to understand Russian history and culture, you must read these best Russian short stories.

This present book is the most complete anthology of Russian short stories in English.

Conceive the joy of a lover of nature who, leaving the art galleries, wanders out among the trees and wild flowers and birds that the pictures of the galleries have sentimentalized. It is some such joy that the man who truly loves the noblest in letters feels when tasting for the first time the simple delights of the Golden age of Russian literature. In this context of conflict, all the nations would do well to get beyond their ideological differences and follow the example of generations of readers, who in troubled times have turned to Russian literary masterpieces for consolation, insight, and inspiration. A democratic spirit is reflected, breathing a broad humanity, a true universality, an unstudied generosity that proceed not from the intellectual conviction that to understand all is to forgive all, but from an instinctive feeling that no man has the right to set himself up as a judge over another, that one can only observe and record.