ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH DARGOMYZHSKY 1813-1869 In the history of Russian music, Dargomyzhsky entered as one of the founders of realistic art. Protest against social inequality, interest in the destinies of people from the people, social and accusatory orientation are the most important features of his creativity. His operas differ in the fineness of the embodiment of … Read more
Italy, 1943-1944 Cesir is thirty-five years old, she was born in Chocharia, a mountainous area lying to the south of Rome. A young girl she married a shopkeeper, moved to Rome, gave birth to a daughter and at first was very happy – until she did not discover the true face of her husband. But … Read more
March 1966; Thirty-four-year-old engineer Konstantin Platonovich Zorin remembers how he, a native of the village, was humiliated by city bureaucrats and how he once hated everything rural. And now he is pulling back into his native village, so he came here on leave for twenty-four days, and he wants to heat the sauna every day, … Read more
Long Daphnis and Chloe The action takes place on the well known Greek island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea, and not even on the whole island, but in the village alone on its outskirts. There lived two shepherds, one co-op, another sheep-breeder, one slave, another free. Once, he saw: a goat feeds his abandoned … Read more
This is a story about a small flower, which no one knew on earth, because he grew up alone in a vacant lot. Cows and goats did not go there, and children from the pioneer camp there never played. The grass did not grow on the vacant lot, but dead stones lay alone. The wind … Read more
LM Leonov Thief Moscow was quiet here, in a place called Blagusha. Firsov surveyed the surroundings and experienced a fine and desponding emptiness, familiar from experience, when here, just as before, for other books, a handful of human destinies ripened in him. And then Firsov saw how waking up that Nikolka Zavarikhin had come to … Read more
Walter Scott Ivanhoe It’s been almost a hundred and thirty years since the Norman Duke William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxon armies and captured England at the Battle of Hastings (1066). The English people are going through hard times. King Richard the Lionheart did not return from the last crusade, taken prisoner by the treacherous … Read more
Jules Verne Fifteen-year-old captain January 29, 1873, the schooner-brig “Pilgrim”, equipped for whaling, goes on a voyage from the port of Oakland, New Zealand. On board are the brave and experienced captain Gul, five experienced sailors, the fifteen-year-old sailor-sailor Dick Send, the ship Negro, and the wife of the owner of Pilgrim James Weldon, Mrs. … Read more
Arthur Hailey Airport The novel takes place in January 1967, Friday night from 18.30 to 1.30 at the International Airport. Lincoln in Illinois. Three days and three nights over the Mid-West states, the strongest storm is rampant, all airfield services are working with extreme strain. About a hundred planes of two dozen airlines did not … Read more
In a certain kingdom there lived a merchant. His wife died, and he remained with the only daughter Vasilisa the Beautiful, who was then 8 years old. Dying, the mother blessed her daughter and gave her a doll, saying: – Take care of the doll, and when you have some kind of grief, give her … Read more