Published to great acclaim and fierce controversy in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment has left an indelible mark on global literature and our modern world, and is still known worldwide as the quintessential Russian novel. Readers of all backgrounds have debated its historical, cultural, and spiritual dimensions, probing the moral and ethical dilemmas that Dostoevsky so brilliantly stages throughout his narrative. Yet, at its heart, this...

Conrad's novel of political treachery and oppression begins with a bomb that kills a hated Russian minister of police, along with innocent bystanders. A young student named Razumov hides the perpetrator, then betrays him and becomes a spy among his exiled comrades. He faces a moral dilemma from which there is no escape.

Marina Makarova is a woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life. Swept up on the tides of the Russian Revolution, Marina joins the marches for workers' rights, falls in love with a radical young poet, and betrays everything she holds dear, before being betrayed in turn. As her country goes through tremendous upheaval, Marina's own coming-of-age unfolds, marked by deep passion, devastating loss, and the private...

Masha dreams of becoming one of the great European auteurs. But first she must escape the drudgery of her daily existence: a father who drinks, a dull and empty city, the fear of getting stuck in a life she doesn't want. So as soon as she is old enough she heads to the big city to claim her spot alongside the great filmmakers of the day. But she is unprepared for the sacrifices she must make to succeed. Lovers come and go - the college teacher, the...

In 1952 Leningrad, Andrei, a young doctor, and Anna, a nursery school teacher, are forging a life together in the postwar, post-siege wreckage. Like millions of Russians, their happiness depends on avoiding the claws of Stalin's merciless Ministry of State Security. When Andrei is forced to treat the seriously ill child of a senior secret police officer, his every move is scrutinized, and it becomes painfully clear that his fate, and that of his family,...