5 Excellent Novels About Russia and the Former Soviet Union

Soviet Green Future

5 Excellent Novels About Russia and the Former Soviet Union

Soviet Green Future


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Rather than produce yet another list of classic Russian novels (that you probably already know about), we thought it would be more interesting to recommend some books that you may not have heard of.  Here is a selection of our favourite fiction about Russia and the former Soviet Union that will give you a new perspective on this fascinating part of the world.

Ali Khan Shirvanshir is a Muslim nobleman, Nino Kipiani is a Georgian Christian princess – despite their cultural differences, they have been in love since childhood.

Widely considered to be Azerbaijan’s national novel, Ali and Nino is the epic tale of these star-crossed lovers, set in the palaces, bazaars, harems, deserts, and mountains of the Caucasus during the twilight years of the Russian empire.

But Ali and Nino is far more than a novel: it can be read as a comprehensive encyclopaedia of the entire region in which it is set. As well as the blood feuds and car chases that drive the action, the reader learns about topics as diverse as: religious rituals, ancient customs, Persian poetry, legends and superstitions, inter-ethnic relations, and the varying status of women.

As the inevitable wave of modernity rapidly overturns the status quo of the old ways, it is only their love for one another that can hold Ali and Nino together.

Ali Khan Shirvanshir is a Muslim nobleman, Nino Kipiani is a Georgian Christian princess – despite their cultural differences, they have been in love since childhood.

Widely considered to be Azerbaijan’s national novel, Ali and Nino is the epic tale of these star-crossed lovers, set in the palaces, bazaars, harems, deserts, and mountains of the Caucasus during the twilight years of the Russian empire.

But Ali and Nino is far more than a novel: it can be read as a comprehensive encyclopaedia of the entire region in which it is set. As well as the blood feuds and car chases that drive the action, the reader learns about topics as diverse as: religious rituals, ancient customs, Persian poetry, legends and superstitions, inter-ethnic relations, and the varying status of women.

As the inevitable wave of modernity rapidly overturns the status quo of the old ways, it is only their love for one another that can hold Ali and Nino together.

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Set against the backdrop of Kyrgyzstan during the Second World War, Chingiz Aitmatov’s masterpiece tells the love story of the newly-married Jamilia and Daniyar, a stranger to the village.

Although the isolated village is protected from the carnage ensuing in the west, it also remains steeped in the ancient, patriarchal traditions of the Kyrgyz people. Both Jamilia and Daniyar know that their romance is forbidden but are drawn to each other nonetheless. It is only when Jamilia’s husband returns home from the front that events begin to unravel.

Jamilia is Aitmatov’s ode to the land and the people that he loves.

Set against the backdrop of Kyrgyzstan during the Second World War, Chingiz Aitmatov’s masterpiece tells the love story of the newly-married Jamilia and Daniyar, a stranger to the village.

Although the isolated village is protected from the carnage ensuing in the west, it also remains steeped in the ancient, patriarchal traditions of the Kyrgyz people. Both Jamilia and Daniyar know that their romance is forbidden but are drawn to each other nonetheless. It is only when Jamilia’s husband returns home from the front that events begin to unravel.

Jamilia is Aitmatov’s ode to the land and the people that he loves.

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“I am Moscow’s underground son, the result of one too many nights on the town.”

So begins Hamid Ismailov’s tragic tale of Mbobo, an Afro-Russian boy struggling to survive in Moscow during the painful transition from the Soviet Union to modern day Russia. Constantly confronted with racism, domestic violence, and neglect, Mbobo spends his days wandering around the subterranean labyrinth of the Moscow metro, looking for meaning and belonging.

The Underground is a sad indictment of society that has itself suffered so much that it can no longer feel empathy for even its most vulnerable members.

“I am Moscow’s underground son, the result of one too many nights on the town.”

So begins Hamid Ismailov’s tragic tale of Mbobo, an Afro-Russian boy struggling to survive in Moscow during the painful transition from the Soviet Union to modern day Russia.  Constantly confronted with racism, domestic violence, and neglect, Mbobo spends his days wandering around the subterranean labyrinth of the Moscow metro, looking for meaning and belonging.

The Underground is a sad indictment of society that has itself suffered so much that it can no longer feel empathy for even its most vulnerable members.

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A precursor to George Orwells’s 1984, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We is widely considered to be the original dystopian novel.

Set in a sterile, futuristic world in which people, known only as numbers, live lives empty of emotion and individuality. Rule over by the mysterious Benefactor, the colossal glass city, One State, is controlled by mass surveillance, centrally assigned relationships, and strict laws of logic.

However, one day one of its citizens makes a monumental and profoundly fateful discovery: he has a soul.

We is a frightening prophesy of the suppression of individual freedom that would take place in Soviet Russia.

Unsurprisingly, it was banned for decades and only appeared in Russia in 1988.

A precursor to George Orwells’s 1984, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We is widely considered to be the original dystopian novel.

Set in a sterile, futuristic world in which people, known only as numbers, live lives empty of emotion and individuality. Rule over by the mysterious Benefactor, the colossal glass city, One State, is controlled by mass surveillance, centrally assigned relationships, and strict laws of logic.

However, one day one of its citizens makes a monumental and profoundly fateful discovery: he has a soul.

We is a frightening prophesy of the suppression of individual freedom that would take place in Soviet Russia.

Unsurprisingly, it was banned for decades and only appeared in Russia in 1988.

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Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov is one of the most beloved novels in all of Russian literature, yet remains relatively unknown in the West.

The unlikely hero of this hilarious satire of the Russian gentry and their ruinous idleness is the loveable nobleman, Oblomov. Crippled by nostalgia for an idyllic rural life that is rapidly disappearing, Oblomov struggles to make even the most minor of decisions – he spends the first fifty pages of the book wondering whether he should even get out of bed,

The rest of the novel describes his hilarious interactions with his manservant Zakhar, his friend Stolz, and his fiancée Olga, as they struggle to shake him of his torpor.

Oblomov was Tolstoy’s favourite novel and would provide a symbol that Lenin would hark back to time and time again in his condemnation of Russian inertia and backwardness.

Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov is one of the most beloved novels in all of Russian literature, yet remains relatively unknown in the West.

The unlikely hero of this hilarious satire of the Russian gentry and their ruinous idleness is the loveable nobleman, Oblomov. Crippled by nostalgia for an idyllic rural life that is rapidly disappearing, Oblomov struggles to make even the most minor of decisions – he spends the first fifty pages of the book wondering whether he should even get out of bed,

The rest of the novel describes his hilarious interactions with his manservant Zakhar, his friend Stolz, and his fiancée Olga, as they struggle to shake him of his torpor.

Oblomov was Tolstoy’s favourite novel and would provide a symbol that Lenin would hark back to time and time again in his condemnation of Russian inertia and backwardness.

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