The monolith of classic Russian literature can be daunting and perhaps a tad depressing to look at, as under the wrong light it can seem grey and harsh. The stereotype of Russian literature may have a serious countenance to an outsider, but when you get to reading them, holding the books under the lamp of curiosity, you will find that these books do have a great sense of the absurd, a quotidian humour and a litany of unique characters.

You may wonder how to start, and that’s what I’m here for. These short novels and collected stories will gently guide you into the world of Russian literature. You do not need to be the perfect reader for these books; in fact, it is better to be imperfect, to understand these foil-riddled characters. 

About Love by Anton Chekhov

Starting with Chekhov is unfair to you and to me. When you read Chekhov, you’ll wonder why we all don’t just pack up and go home. Why does anyone write at all when Chekhov exists? He is truly the master.

These stories present some of Chekhov’s greatest and most accessible work that you can read in a couple of hours. If you end up finishing these, have a look at the short story The Bishop or the novel The Shooting Party – you will be in for a treat, they are some of my favourite reads. 

“You've never understood what kind of person I am, nor will you in a million years . . . You just think I'm a mad person who has thrown his life away . . . Once the free spirit has taken hold of a man, there's no way of getting it out of him.”
― Anton Chekhov, About Love

Notes from the Underground by Fydor Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky has been getting a bit of an alpha male PR makeover at the moment online, but don’t be fooled; Dostoevsky is sensitive, darkly humorous and for those that pursue beauty. This does not mean his books are nascently beautiful, but beauty is earnt through despair.

Notes from the Underground is a wonderful novella from a bitter, unnamed narrator who argues against determinist values. It is philosophically dense and generative. 

“To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes From The Underground

There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband, And He Hanged Himself: Love Stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Women within the conversation around classics tend to be remanded within the confines of perceived mediocrity. Petrushevskaya is (and will remain) one of my closely held favourites and an absolute nut (the best kind of writer).

This book is dark but accessibly rendered, detailing the shadowed sides of love and obsession.  

“Love likes secrecy and playfulness; it flees too much devotion and heavy emotional debt.”
― Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, And He Hanged Himself

The Death of Ivan Illyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy 

This is a great book to dip in and out of – that's the great beauty of short fiction. These stories were a reaction of Tolstoy’s supposed meeting with Death themself, which adds a level of drama and spiritual panic that one cannot help but be drawn into.

I read this at a very vital point in my life and the apotheosis of this collection will never leave me. 

“He sought his former accustomed fear of death and did not find it. "Where is it? What death?" There was no fear because there was no death. In place of death there was light.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Autobiography Of A Corpse by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky

A lesser-known modernist classic, I’m a big fan of Krzhizhanovsky’s stories, especially The Unbitten Elbow, a discombobulating Sisyphean story about (surprisingly) the confines of human consciousness and ideological rebellion.

Krzhizhanovsky was published only a few times during his life, as he was constantly at odds with Soviet censors. He has an acerbic sense of humour and deserves to be more widely read – hopefully you can be the one!

“The Lord God himself,” he said, “cannot arrange things so that two and two do not equal four, so that a man can bite his own elbow, and thought can go beyond the bounds of the boundary concept.” 
― Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Autobiography Of A Corpse