We recommend the following books, poems, plays, and materials for a deeper understanding of the realities of Imperial/Tsarist Russia at the end of the XIX - beginning of the XX centuries, its people, culture, attitudes, problems and hopes. We hope that they will serve as a source of inspiration for you when working on or choosing your characters.

Andrei Bely “Petersburg”

Aleksandr Blok “Twelve”

Fyodor Dostoevsky “Demons/ The Possessed”, “Teenager/ The Adolescent”

Vladislav Khodasevich “Necropolis” (memoirs)

Maksim Gorky “The Mother”; “The Lower Depths”; “Untimely Thoughts: Essays on Revolution, Culture and the Bolsheviks, 1917-1918”

Anton Chekhov – any short stories; among his plays - especially “The Three Sisters” and “Uncle Vanya”

Leo Tolstoy “Patriotism and Government”

Boris Akunin “The Diamond Chariot”, “The State Counselor”, “The Coronation”

Aleksandr Kuprin “Junior Captain Rybnikov”

The memoirs of Count Witte