Skip to content
ApplyDonate

Completed

Readings in Russian Short Stories

Through short stories, students explored how writers dealt with beauty and human destiny, and found a shared language for the conflicts of their region.

Online · Eight weeks, spring 2025

This course has ended. See what is open now

In the room

poetry

About this course

Through short stories, we explored how writers of the shared tradition dealt universal human themes of death, beauty, and war. The participants from the conflict-torn region of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine could unite for several hours to discuss a great expression of human spirit while re-discovering each other's humanity.

What we read, watched, and listened to

  1. Gusev

    Anton Chekhov · Russia · 1890

    Two soldiers, two diseases, one ship. Both encounter different ends, and we glean a bit about their past lives from the meager interactions they share.

    Text

  2. The House with the Mezzanine

    Anton Chekhov · Russia · 1896

    A beautifully sad love story, along with a large question Chekhov poses: how should we live our lives, in leisure or in strenuous works?

    Text

  3. The Building Manager Before Death

    Yuri Mamleev · Russia · 1980

    An ordinary Soviet clerk encountering his death, evoking deep philosophical questions about human life and its limits,

    Text

  4. Immortality

    Andrei Platonov · Soviet Union · 1936

    A communist railroad worker is captivated by becoming immortal through electricity, while failing to fall asleep at nights.

    Text

Open now