'the Steppe and other Stories'', a collection is among the first of Chekhov's works to be published in a serious literary journal. The majority of tales in this collection focus on the issues faced by privileged class. The narration shows that the author never left his roots, being the son of an unsuccessful provincial grocer greatly influenced his writings. Interesting!

Nineteen traditional folktales reflecting the way of life of the Kazakhs, a Turko-Mongol nomadic people whose chief domain is the second largest republic of the Soviet Union. Includes glossary.

Exiled to Siberia In June 1942, the Rudomin family is arrested by the Russians. They are "capitalists -- enemies of the people." Forced from their home and friends in Vilna, Poland, they are herded into crowded cattle cars. Their destination: the endless steppe of Siberia. For five years, Ester and her family live in exile, weeding potato fields and working in the mines, struggling for enough food and clothing to stay alive. Only the strength of family sustains them and gives them hope for the future.

The Hungry Steppe examines one of the most heinous crimes of the Stalinist regime, the Kazakh famine of 1930–33. More than 1.5 million people perished in this famine, a quarter of Kazakhstan's population, and the crisis transformed a territory the size of continental Europe. Yet the story of this famine has remained mostly hidden from view. Drawing upon state and Communist party documents, as well as oral history and memoir accounts in Russian and in Kazakh, Sarah Cameron reveals this brutal story and its devastating consequences for Kazakh society. Through the most violent of means the Kazakh famine created Soviet Kazakhstan, a stable territory with clearly delineated boundaries that was an integral part of the Soviet economic system; and it forged a new Kazakh national identity. But this state-driven modernization project was uneven. Ultimately, Cameron finds, neither Kazakhstan nor Kazakhs themselves were integrated into the Soviet system in precisely the ways that Moscow had originally hoped. The experience of the famine scarred the republic for the remainder of the Soviet era and shaped its transformation into an independent nation in 1991. Cameron uses her history of the Kazakh famine to overturn several assumptions about violence, modernization, and nation-making under Stalin, highlighting, in particular, the creation of a new Kazakh national identity, and how environmental factors shaped Soviet development. Ultimately, The Hungry Steppe depicts the Soviet regime and its disastrous policies in a new and unusual light.

Featuring first-time translations of numerous examples of modern Kazakh literature for publication in the USA, this anthology provides excellent examples of literary life in both Soviet and post-Soviet Kazakhstan, and introduces readers to the rich literary traditions of the region. The materials introduce the rich literary heritage of Kazakhstan, which is a part of the unique prose and poetry traditions of the Central Asia steppes and Eurasia. The selected readings will enhance the understanding of unique nomadic culture and Central Asian universe of the great Eurasia Steppe, which, in the words of British Chancellor George Curzon, has ""charms for the historian, the archeologist, the man of science ...."" The Stories of the Great Steppe was designed as an a supplementary reader and textbook for students and general public studying 20th century Eastern European, Russian, and Central Asian literature, culture, and intellectual history. It can be used in courses on Slavic literature, Russian and Soviet literature, Russian cultural history, World History, and the History of World Civilizations.

Excerpt from Stories of the Steppe Maxim Gorki, the Bitter Voice of Russia, can tell fairy tales whose coloring has all the richness of oriental twilights and whose cadences are garlands woven of sea-spray and wind-blossoms. His stories of the steppe are not propagandistic, and with the exception of the powerful tale Because of Monotony, they are not sordid pictures of realistic misery, but they are sweet fairy lullabies that the gods must sing to the baby angels when they are sad and weary with their contemplation of human sorrows. These tales are filled with longing, and throughout that longing there is a thread of red fire that at times bursts forth into a flaming prophecy of hope. Perhaps Gorki, in writing those strange, wonderfully magical fairy tales, was unconsciously rehearsing that strangest and most wonderful fairy tale of them all, - the great Russian Revolution. He who has no love for music had better leave these stories alone, as they will have no charm for him. He who prefers society to sunsets will find these stories dull and colorless, - as colorless as the clouds at the close of the day are to a blind man. But those who have the capacity for enjoying the silent music of the night, the barely audible purling of sea-waves in the distance, the soft pit-a-pat of the wind-dance on the prairie, will be charmed by these stories as they have rarely been charmed in their waking hours. For these stories of the steppe have all the magic of dreams; their atmosphere envelopes you and permeates your every pore, sinking deep into your heart through every one of your five senses, and through a sixth sense, too, - a sense whose very indefinable vagueness makes if the most vivid of them all. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Daniel Metcalfe journeys through the five 'stans, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and brings to life the brilliant human tapestry they comprise - uniquely shaped by the immigrants, deportees and conquerors that have settled there. Revealing a Central Asia that is far removed from the home of Borat or the land of international terrorism, Metcalfe unlocks the secrets of this troubled region, glorying in its diversity and also lamenting the economic and cultural changes that threaten to eradicate some of its peoples...