Pietro Zveteremich Books

Written in the 1830s and early 1840s, these comic stories tackle life behind the cold and elegant façade of the Imperial capital from the viewpoints of various characters, such as a collegiate assessor who one day finds that his nose has detached itself from his face and risen the ranks to become a state councillor (‘The Nose’), a painter and a lieutenant whose romantic pursuits meet with contrasting degrees of success (‘Nevsky Prospect’) and a lowly civil servant whose existence desperately unravels when he loses his prized new coat (‘The Overcoat’). Also including the ‘Diary of Madman’, these Petersburg Tales paint a critical yet hilarious portrait of a city riddled with pomposity and self-importance, masterfully juxtaposing nineteenth-century realism with madcap surrealism, and combining absurdist farce with biting satire.

This modern classic by Boris Pasternak follows the events of the Russian Revolution and of life in the young Soviet Union up to about 1939. The story is a personal account, illustrated mostly by the effects of the Revolution on the main character in the novel, Yury Zhivago. We follow the changes in Zhivago's life, and the lives of those whom he comes in contact. So it is more than a historical report - it is a very human novel.