Russian books are short

Not the long ones.  I know that.  But in general.  The idea that Russian literature is characterized by long books is a misconception.  When I mentioned this to Stefanie of So Many Books, she said (I paraphrase slightly) “Oh yeah – prove it, buster!”

So, a list of short Russian books.  The rules are: short = less than 300 pages, acknowledging that “page” is itself vague.  The 19th century only, although the results are no different for 20th century Russian literature.  Lyric poetry (short!) omitted, narrative poetry included.  Most importantly, only the really good stuff, the best, so no second-stringers like Vladimir Odoevsky (whose books are short).

Please correct and amend.  I’m sure I’ve forgotten something.

Alexander Pushkin: The greatest Russian poet, the wellspring of Russian literature, wrote short books, exclusively.  Essential reading: the tragedy Boris Godunov (1825), the short stories in The Tales of Belkin (1831), “The Queen of Spades” (1834), the short historical novel The Captain’s Daughter (1837), the novel in verse Eugene Onegin (begun in 1823), and a sheath of narrative poems and verse plays. Mozart and Salieri (1830) and The Stone Guest (1830), a version of the Don Juan story, are my favorites, but it’s a rich list.  All short.

Mikhail Lermontov: Only short books.  The semi-novel A Hero of Our Time (1840) and a number of narrative poems as good as Pushkin’s.  “The Demon” (also 1840?) is better.

Nikolai Gogol:  Extraordinary short stories, especially “The Nose”(1836) and “The Overcoat” (1842).  A play of similar quality, The Government Inspector (1836).  I love that play.  And then the Greatest Novel of the First Half of the 19th Century, in any language, Dead Souls (1842).  I see a complication here – the Penguin Classics edition is over 400 pages, Not Short, although Not Long.  Does it include the unfinished Part II?  Forget Part II.  Ignore it.  Part I is complete (and short).

Keen observers may object, at this point, that I am basically just listing every great work of Russian literature.  Yes!  Because they’re short.  We’re halfway through the 19th century now.

Ivan Turgenev: He specialized in novellas.  Almost everything he wrote is short.  The Chekhovian play A Month in the Country (1850), the novels and stories Rudin (1855), The Home of the Gentry (1859), On the Eve (1860), First Love (1860), Fathers and Sons (1862), Smoke (1867), Spring Torrents (1867).  The novel Virgin Soil is Not Short, and the collection of stories A Sportsmen’s Sketches (it has many other, similar translated titles) verges on Long.  Still, a huge amount of first-rate, short Turgenev.

Sergei Aksakov is still read for three marvelous volumes of memoirs: the 200 page A Russian Gentleman (1856), the 300 page Years of Childhood (1858), and the 150 page A Russian Schoolboy (1856).

Alexander Ostrovsky was a playwright.  Plays are short.  The Storm or The Thunderstorm (1860) seems to be the best known.

I want to skip Tolstoy and Dostoevsky for a minute, and sweep together the rest of the latter part of the century:  Nikolai Leskov, Anton Chekhov, Leonid Andreyev, and Ivan Bunin. All are known, almost exclusively known, for short stories or plays or both.  Those so-called short stories often extend to 100 pages.  Still: short.

Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote immensely long novels.  They also wrote short books that are just as good as their longer work.  I could simply refer interested readers to The Great Short Works of Leo Tolstoy and The Great Short Works of Dostoevsky, essential, accurately titled collections.  More specifically: Notes from the Underground (1864) is not inferior Dostoevsky, or starter Dostoevsky.  It is central, great, and so on. Not to be missed by the reader serious about Dostoevsky, no more or less than Crime and Punishment.  Similarly, The Death of Ivan Ilych (1886) and Hadji Murad (1904!) are as important, as well-written as War and Peace or Anna Karenina. Maybe not as complex; nowhere near as long.

The long, the really long Russian books, amount to: three Tolstoy novels, five Dostoevsky novels, and Alexander Herzen’s My Past and Thoughts.  Add in the substantially shorter, but Not Short, Oblomov of Goncharov, and we’re up to ten long books.  Please compare this count to the major French or English literature of the century.  Not to the Germans – this was the age of the novella, so their literature will average out even shorter.

All right, that’s off my chest. Please let me know where I’m wrong. Here’s Rebecca Reid, with a long collection of short Russian literature.