RUSSIALINK: “Self-Help Lessons From the Russian Classics; In “Self Improvement Tolstoy-Style,” an English Russophile explores life and literature. [Viv Groskop]” – Moscow Times

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 18, 2019) Writer and comedian Viv Groskop has faced many rooms full of strangers expecting to be amused in her career as a stand-up. But what really scared her in the run-up to the publication of her latest book were the Russians. “I was terrified they would be offended,” Groskop said. She needn’t have […]

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Moscow theater performance of ‘Anna Karenina’ to play at a cinema near you

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Other major Moscow theater performances will follow suit later in the spring. Organizers see art and culture as a way to transcend politics. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – ALEXANDRA GUZEVA, RBTH – January 25, 2017) The Vakhtangov Theatre’s interpretation of Leo Tolstoy’s famous novel, Anna Karenina, is screened in cinemas across the U.S., UK, and Ireland. It’s a […]

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Russians’ Favorite Writer? The Winner is…

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 15, 2016) The Levada Center has recently published the results of a nationwide survey asking Russian citizens to name their favorite writer. Lev Tolstoy took first place with 45 percent of the vote, Fyodor Dostoevsky came in second with 23 percent and Anton Chekhov took third place with 18 percent. Russia is known worldwide […]

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Andrew Davies’ New ‘War and Peace’ Takes the Small Screen by Storm

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Des Brown – January 27, 2016) British screenwriter Andrew Davies is television’s best English literature lecturer. He introduced homicidal British Prime Minister Francis Urquhart to BBC viewers in the “House of Cards” trilogy between 1990 and 1995. Just over two decades ago, a wet-shirted Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy captured the national imagination in Davies’ […]

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How Russians react to BBC’s War and Peace

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RBTH’s pick of the best comments made by Tolstoy’s compatriots. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – NATALIA MASHINISTOVA, SPECIAL TO RBTH – January 26, 2016) Although BBC’s new War and Peace adaptation hasn’t aired on Russian television yet, the most curious Russians have found a way to check it out on the internet. Any foreign attempt to adapt what […]

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NEWSWATCH AP: “Russians Read Tolstoy’s War and Peace in 60-Hour TV Marathon”

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AP covers a televised reading of War and Peace. More than 1,300 Russians are reading Leo Tolstoy’s notoriously lengthy novel “War and Peace” aloud in a 60-hour marathon on national television. The public readings, pre-recorded at locations all over Russia, from the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg to remote Arctic islands, have been coordinated by Tolstoy’s great-great-granddaughter and feature Russians […]

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Online reading of Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ to be open to all; Any Russian speakers can apply to take part in December event

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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Oleg Krasnov, RBTH – October 12, 2015) Anyone on the planet who speaks Russian will be able to read a chapter from Russian writer Lev Tolstoy’s classic War and Peace directly online as part of an upcoming event The “War and Peace: Let’s Read The Novel” event will take place between Dec. 8 […]

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Tolstoy’s Canadian Doukhobors Return to Russia Over 100 Years After Fleeing

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – YASNAYA POLYANA, Tula Region – October 3, 2014) When they were in their 50s, Elaine and Alfred Podovinikoff packed up their lives in their native Canada and emigrated to a muddy, provincial Russian settlement with a single paved road and freely roaming chickens. The Podovinikoffs resettled just south of Tula – an […]

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Making sense of war: The perspective of five great Russian writers

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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Mikhail Butov, special to RBTH – July 23, 2014) The author is a writer and Russian Booker Prize winner. The current conflict in Ukraine is raising sensitive ethical questions, forcing us to consider the justifications and meaning of using military force, and whether it should be allowed at all. RBTH looks at what […]

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Tolstoy Museums Unite, Tolstoy Goes Online

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – D. Garrison Golubock – September 9, 2013) Leo Tolstoy, the world-famous author and doyen of Russia’s golden age of literature, is not a gentleman about whom one expects to hear breaking news. However, in a surprise announcement last Thursday, Russia’s two most prominent Tolstoy museums announced that they would be merging and appointing a new […]

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Tolstoy’s Entire Body of Work Goes Online, Descendant Says

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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, June 26, 2013) ­ Count Leo Tolstoy was a prolific author, rich and generous enough to bequeath his works to be published and distributed free of charge. His epics “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina” still top most of the lists of greatest novels of all time, and his controversial views on Christianity earned him excommunication […]

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Leo Tolstoy’s library of work goes online

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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alena Tveritina, RBTH – June 20, 2013) All Tolstoy in One Click [http://www.readingtolstoy.ru/]­ the Russian project, similar to the international humanitarian Project Guttenberg, begins digitizing the 90-volume collection of works by the great Russian writer. The project was announced by the Leo Tolstoy State Museum and ABBYY. The multi-volume collection of works by […]

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New ‘Anna Karenina’ Irks Russian Traditionalists

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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Lena Smirnova – January 16, 2013) Loudly and menacingly, the train on the large screen of a darkened cinema raced toward the audience in a foreshadowing that the lead character, just a few years deeper into the plot, would commit suicide by throwing herself on the railroad tracks. The expected response would have been gasps […]

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