Leo Tolstoy is quite simply one of the greatest writers to ever set pen to paper. Immortalized by such epic novels as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy's genius was also readily apparent in his short fiction. The Death of Ivan Ilych follows the career of the unremarkable title character, who does not question his desire to live an "easy, agreeable, gay and always decorous" life until he is lying on his death bed.

A famous legend surrounding the creation of Anna Karenina tells us that Tolstoy began writing a cautionary tale about adultery and ended up by falling in love with his magnificent heroine. It is rare to find a reader of the book who doesn't experience the same kind of emotional upheaval: Anna Karenina is filled with major and minor characters who exist in their own right and fully embody their mid-nineteenth-century Russian milieu, but it still belongs...

Provides in-depth analysis of the life, works, career, and critical importance of Leo Tolstoy.

Provides in-depth analysis of the literary work The Death of Ivan Ilich, as well as its importance and critical reception. Includes a chronology of the life and works of the author.

In Tolstoy's timeless epic of love and loss, a circle of aristocrats finds their glittering world crumbling as war threatens imperial Russia. Set during the years of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, War and Peace follows the changing fortunes of brooding hero Prince Andrej, his bookish friend Pierre, and the spirited but naive Natasha. As Napoleon's armies menace their privileged lives, the horrors of the battlefield reach into the elegant ballrooms...

Set in Russia during the Napoleonic era, this epic novel follows the fortunes of five aristocratic Russian families over the course of the French invasion. Tolstoy's timeless portrayal of the fates of families set against the backdrop of war is ultimately optimistic and life-affirming, with the educated, but socially awkward Count Pierre Bezukhov often giving voice to Tolstoy's own beliefs.

"In his ruthlessly clear-eyed final film, French master Robert Bresson pushed his unique blend of spiritual rumination and formal rigor to a new astringency. Transposing a Tolstoy novella to contemporary Paris, L'argent follows a counterfeit bill as it originates in a schoolboy prank, then circulates like a virus among the corrupt and the virtuous alike before landing with a young truck driver, leading him to incarceration and violence"--Container....

The fates of three souls-- the blundering, good-hearted Pierre; the heroically tragic Prince Andrei; and the radiant, tempestuous Natasha-- collide amid the tumult of the Napoleonic Wars in Russia. The film conjures a sweeping vision of grand balls that glitter with rococo beauty and epic breathtaking battles.

Thirty six lectures by Irwin Weil, of Northwestern University, exploring the history of Russian literature from its origins through the twentieth century.

With the writers of the Golden Age as her guides--Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Turgenev, among others--Sara Wheeler searches for a Russia not in the news, traveling from rinsed northwestern beet fields and the Far Eastern Arctic tundra to the cauldron of nationƯalities, religions, and languages in the Caucasus. Bypassing major cities as much as possible, she goes instead to the places associated with the country's literary masters. With her, we see...