New Reformatted Edition A compilation of classic short stories by 5 great Russian writers: Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Ivan Turgenev. Though not necessarily representative of the authors’ complete works, the stories have been carefully chosen to showcase their versatility and skill as storytellers. The collection covers an extraordinary range of themes, styles and settings, allowing the reader to get a glimpse of another world gone by. Even though these stories seem timeless, the characters in them show the same foibles, fears and hopes as people in the brave new world of the 21st century.

An illuminating account of Russia’s attempts—and failures—to achieve great power status in Asia. Since Peter the Great, Russian leaders have been lured by opportunity to the East. Under the tsars, Russians colonized Alaska, California, and Hawaii. The Trans-Siberian Railway linked Moscow to Vladivostok. And Stalin looked to Asia as a sphere of influence, hospitable to the spread of Soviet Communism. In Asia and the Pacific lay territory, markets, security, and glory. But all these expansionist dreams amounted to little. In We Shall Be Masters, Chris Miller explores why, arguing that Russia’s ambitions have repeatedly outstripped its capacity. With the core of the nation concentrated thousands of miles away in the European borderlands, Russia’s would-be pioneers have always struggled to project power into Asia and to maintain public and elite interest in their far-flung pursuits. Even when the wider population professed faith in Asia’s promise, few Russians were willing to pay the steep price. Among leaders, too, dreams of empire have always been tempered by fears of cost. Most of Russia’s pivots to Asia have therefore been halfhearted and fleeting. Today the Kremlin talks up the importance of “strategic partnership” with Xi Jinping’s China, and Vladimir Putin’s government is at pains to emphasize Russian activities across Eurasia. But while distance is covered with relative ease in the age of air travel and digital communication, the East remains far off in the ways that matter most. Miller finds that Russia’s Asian dreams are still restrained by the country’s firm rooting in Europe.

The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is the most up-to-date body of musical knowledge ever gathered together. The New Grove composer biographies have been selected from the dictionary to bring the finest of the biographies to a wider audience. Each has been expanded and updated for book publication and contains a comprehensive work-list, index, and fully revised bibliography, in addition to the definitive view of the subject's life and works. The great traditions of Russian music began in the mid-19th century with Mikhail Glinka—the father figure for the next generations of Russian composers. His direct heirs were 'The Five,' or 'The Mighty Handful,' drawn together by Mily Balakirev, the teacher of two leading figures in the group: Alexander Borodin, creator of Prince Igor and quartets of an unmistakably Russian flavor, and Modest Musorgsky, creator of the greatest Russian epics of the lyric stage. Slightly apart from this group because of his more cosmopolitan approach to his art stands the most-loved of all Russian composers, the ever-appealing Tchaikovsky.

Satan comes to Soviet Moscow in this critically acclaimed translation of one of the most important and best-loved modern classics in world literature. The Master and Margarita has been captivating readers around the world ever since its first publication in 1967. Written during Stalin’s time in power but suppressed in the Soviet Union for decades, Bulgakov’s masterpiece is an ironic parable on power and its corruption, on good and evil, and on human frailty and the strength of love. In The Master and Margarita, the Devil himself pays a visit to Soviet Moscow. Accompanied by a retinue that includes the fast-talking, vodka-drinking, giant tomcat Behemoth, he sets about creating a whirlwind of chaos that soon involves the beautiful Margarita and her beloved, a distraught writer known only as the Master, and even Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate. The Master and Margarita combines fable, fantasy, political satire, and slapstick comedy to create a wildly entertaining and unforgettable tale that is commonly considered the greatest novel to come out of the Soviet Union. It appears in this edition in a translation by Mirra Ginsburg that was judged “brilliant” by Publishers Weekly. Praise for The Master and Margarita “A wild surrealistic romp. . . . Brilliantly flamboyant and outrageous.” —Joyce Carol Oates, The Detroit News “Fine, funny, imaginative. . . . The Master and Margarita stands squarely in the great Gogolesque tradition of satiric narrative.” —Saul Maloff, Newsweek “A rich, funny, moving and bitter novel. . . . Vast and boisterous entertainment.” —The New York Times “The book is by turns hilarious, mysterious, contemplative and poignant. . . . A great work.” —Chicago Tribune “Funny, devilish, brilliant satire. . . . It’s literature of the highest order and . . . it will deliver a full measure of enjoyment and enlightenment.” —Publishers Weekly

Billington describes the contentious discussion occurring all over Russia and across the political spectrum. He finds conflicts raging among individuals as much as between organized groups and finds a deep underlying tension between the Russians' attempts to legitimize their new, nominally democratic identity, and their efforts to craft a new version of their old authoritarian tradition. After showing how the problem of Russian identity was framed in the past, Billington asks whether Russians will now look more to the West for a place in the common European home, or to the East for a new, Eurasian identity.