The Beloved and the Devil: Selected Russian Stories

This book takes you on a wide-ranging journey through the worlds of Russian literature, where human destinies intersect and existential questions intertwine in a narrative alive with emotion and thought. Within its pages stand the voices of the great masters of the short story who shaped world literature: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky, Zamyatin, and others who made the written word a mirror of the soul and a stage for the human conscience. Here we hear Pushkin’s storms echo in the depths of the self, witness Gogol’s strangeness mingled with satire and symbol, and plunge into Dostoevsky’s dark explorations of guilt and redemption. We encounter Tolstoy’s wisdom and reflections on faith and destiny, pause before Chekhov’s subtle details that pulse with the meaning of life, and then move to Gorky’s honest realism and Zamyatin’s philosophical intuition touching the essence of freedom and rebellion. Though the stories vary between tragedy and contemplation, love and solitude, cruelty and mercy, they share a profound vision of humanity confronting its frailty and seeking to understand the world. These are timeless human tableaux, reminding us that the Russian short story is not merely national literature, but a universal experience in which humanity listens to its own voice at its most sincere.