Mikhail Zoshchenko, 1895-1958, was a great Soviet humorist. His works give a unique picture of Russian life in the Soviet period - a picture which, though satirically distorted and camouflaged by deliberate ambiguities, presents a shrewd commentary on the times. Lyudi first appeared in 1924. It is a long short story about the loss of gross illusions, about despair and decay, the struggle for existence, the animal in man. The hero is an emigre of the Tsarist period, who returns to Russia after the Revolution, has his illusions duly shattered, and sinks into a scarcely human existence. He is a parody of two stock figures: 'the repentant nobleman' and 'the superfluous man'. The language is a splendid mixture of colloquial speech, official jargon, and inflated style. There is an English introduction, notes on the linguistic difficulties and select vocabulary, while the text is in Russian.

Mikhail Zoshchenko's Sentimental Tales are satirical portraits of small-town characters on the fringes of Soviet society in the first decade of Bolshevik rule. The tales are narrated by one Kolenkorov, who is anything but a model Soviet author: not only is he still attached to the era of the old regime, he is also, quite simply, not a very good writer. Shaped by Zoshchenko's masterful hands-he takes credit for editing the tales in a series of comic prefaces-Kolenkorov's prose is beautifully mangled, full of stylistic infelicities, overloaded flights of metaphor, tortured cliche, and misused bureaucratese, in the tradition of Gogol. Yet beneath Kolenkorov's intrusive narration and sublime blathering, the stories are genuinely moving. They tell tales of unrequited love and amorous misadventures among down-on-their-luck musicians, provincial damsels, aspiring poets, and liberal aristocrats hopelessly out of place in the new Russia, against a backdrop of overcrowded apartments, scheming, and daydreaming. Zoshchenko's deadpan style and sly ventriloquy mask a biting critique of Soviet life-and perhaps life in general. An original perspective on Soviet society in the 1920s and simply uproariously funny, Sentimental Tales at last shows Anglophone readers why Zoshchenko is considered among the greatest humorists of the Soviet era.

Mikhail Zoshchenko's Sentimental Tales are satirical portraits of small-town characters on the fringes of Soviet society in the first decade of Bolshevik rule. The tales are narrated by one Kolenkorov, who is anything but a model Soviet author: not only is he still attached to the era of the old regime, he is also, quite simply, not a very good writer. Shaped by Zoshchenko's masterful hands-he takes credit for editing the tales in a series of comic prefaces-Kolenkorov's prose is beautifully mangled, full of stylistic infelicities, overloaded flights of metaphor, tortured cliche, and misused bureaucratese, in the tradition of Gogol. Yet beneath Kolenkorov's intrusive narration and sublime blathering, the stories are genuinely moving. They tell tales of unrequited love and amorous misadventures among down-on-their-luck musicians, provincial damsels, aspiring poets, and liberal aristocrats hopelessly out of place in the new Russia, against a backdrop of overcrowded apartments, scheming, and daydreaming. Zoshchenko's deadpan style and sly ventriloquy mask a biting critique of Soviet life-and perhaps life in general. An original perspective on Soviet society in the 1920s and simply uproariously funny, Sentimental Tales at last shows Anglophone readers why Zoshchenko is considered among the greatest humorists of the Soviet era.