Top 5 Classic Russian Novels You Need to Read.
Russian literature is well-known for its vast collection of classic novels. Novelists like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nikolai Gogol are famous around the world for their phenomenal writing.
Top 5 Classic Russian Novels:
Here are the top 5 Classic Russian novels which will make your adrenaline pumping faster, and slowly but surely, you will fall in love with Russian literature.
- Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Crime and Punishment” is one of the greatest novels in Russian Literature. It pursues the life of Rodion Raskolnikov, who is thinking of committing an awful crime, commits the crime, and then goes crazy from the guilt followed by the crime. If you are confused about which Dostoevsky work you should read, Crime and Punishment should be at the top of your list.
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Russian Literature without “War and Peace” is like the earth without oxygen. This masterpiece by Tolstoy discards the barriers between what was a novel and what wasn’t, what was allowed and what wasn’t. Tolstoy’s story is set during and after the era of the Napoleonic War. The significance of this novel is that it has influenced almost every major novel since.
- Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
To understand Russian culture deeply, one might have to read Gogol’s Dead Souls. It follows the story of a government official in the Tsarist Era, who travels from estate to estate investigating Dead Surfs, which are still written in the record books. In Gogol’s masterpiece, there’s so much to understand about what was like in Russia before the Revolution.
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
You can understand the basic plot of this novel by reading the title. It follows the story of a Pedophile and the things he does to get the minor girl he nicknamed Lolita. It’s a disturbing story because we can imagine it happening in real life, but it also shows how Russia saw the rest of the world, especially America.
- A Hero Of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
Russia’s “first Psychological novel”, A hero of our time, follows the story of Pechorin, one of the greatest anti-heroes in Russian Literature. He is a young, charismatic womanizer without a reason, who has disturbed his readers for over a century and a half.
