Arts and Humanities Commons^™

We, Eugnen Zamiatin

OER Main

A seminal work of dystopian fiction that foreshadowed the worst excesses of Soviet Russia, Yevgeny Zamyatin's "We" is a powerfully inventive vision that has influenced writers from George Orwell to Ayn Rand.

In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful 'Benefactor', the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity - until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, "We" is the classic dystopian novel and was the forerunner of works such as George …

The Nose, Nikolai Gogol

OER Main

“The Nose” is a satirical short story of an official in St. Petersburg Russia whose nose leaves his face. This edition of “The Nose” was translated by Claud Field and originally published in 1916.

The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky

OER Main

The murder of brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov changes the lives of his sons irrevocably: Mitya, the sensualist, whose bitter rivalry with his father immediately places him under suspicion for parricide; Ivan the intellectual, whose mental tortures drive him to breakdown; the spiritual Alyosha, who tries to heal the family's rifts; and the shadowy figure of their bastard half-brother, Smerdyakov. As the ensuing investigation and trial reveal the true identity of the murder, Dostoyevsky's dark masterwork evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur, and everyone's faith in humanity is tested.

Translated from the Russian …

The Lower Depths, Maxim Gorky

OER Main

"The Lower Depths" is considered one of Maxim Gorky's most masterful plays, and an exemplar of Russian social realism. The play first premiered in 1902 at the Moscow Arts Theatre, and focuses on a set of impoverished Russians living in a shelter and struggling to handle the harsh realities of their lives.