Where should I start with Russian literature? Please no jokes

Where should I start with Russian literature? Please no jokes.

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Greeks > descartes > darwin > nietzsche > dostojevski

I already read greeks. Please don't talk about that in my thread.

The overcoat by Gogol, it's a novella. Another novella you could read is Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich.

I've read a bit of the history of Russian lit/philosophy, and it all depends where do you want to start and to what extent do you intend to delve into it. 19th century Russian literature revolves around the social problems that were unique to Russia, so you might want to learn a bit about the epoch. "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" by Radishchev is good start for that matter, iirc the author was imprisoned for it or something, or the book banned.

My diary desu.

Read the Bible. Then read The Idiot.

Sienkievich is a good start

It was banned and Rad was sentenced to death (though he was pardoned).
A pretty good rec, though, giving some context for the country which was quite removed from the cultural centres of Europe.

Everyone loves Dostoyevsky, and his Notes From the Underground and Crime and Punishment are his most popular works. He's a realist writer, but tackles existential problems in such an expressive, modern and polyphonic manner that basically all people will find him relatable and contemporary for centuries to come.
Other Russian realists, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Chekhov, are also great, but working in much subtler ways. Don't expect more Dosto in these writers (I did when I started reading Tolstoy, and I was very disappointed, even though today I find him greater than Dosto).
Outside of realism the problem of translation becomes quite noticeable, which is why foreigners care much less about Pushkin and Lermontov than Russians do, since a great part of their work is in verse. But if you want to get a good picture of Russian lit you should eventually read their novels, Eugene Onegin ("a novel in verse"; avoid Nabokov's prose translation) and A Hero of Our Time.
Then there's Gogol, who's a fascinating phase between romanticism and realism, that could easily pass for modernism in some of his works, mainly the Peterburg short stories. Quite wacky stuff, for that time.
Russia also had rich 20th century, but it's not that popular overall (again, lots of poetry). Kharms and Bulgakov are essential prosaics from that era.
Basically, go for Dosto because everyone knows and loves him, and then explore what seems interesting.

apart from what has been replied already, I'll add a few 'classic yet easy' russian works:
Pushkin, The Queen of Spades, The Tales of I. P. Belkyn
Turgenev, Fathers and Sons
Dostoevsky, The Gambler, The Eternal Husband
Tolstoy, Master and Man (less metaphysical than Ivan Ilych and a little more enjoyable imho), The Devil
Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (not that it's great, but you can't avoid it)

Dostoyevsky was a moron that bought into all the \pol\ memes about Jews. Which can be read in his “diary of a writer” He even has a stereotypical happy merchant character in his book “In the house of the dead” you should read someone who isn’t such a brainlet.

Learn Russian. All translations are a joke.

he was polak not ruski

Solzhenitsyn is another brainlet one should avoid. He talked about how the Bolshevik revolution was lead by Jews, how Jews had been slowly taking over Russia, how they were opposed to Russian interests, and he even denied many of the crimes committed by the Czar. Basically if he was alive today, he would be a Neo Nazi who denies the holocaust. This can be read in his books, the main one being 200 years together.

Redpills start to drop after Rozanov

Bro, have you even read The Protocols of The Learned Elders of Zion?

Stop lying to us user. You have to start with the Greeks.

Everybody forgets about Gogol

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That was proven to be a forgery

I agree but if OP wants to into russian lit, he still can't avoid it. Ivan Denissovich is short enough and it shows how Solzhenitsyn has nothing of value to tell.

I thought we all lived under his overcoat though?

Tbh both should probably be forgotten.

>he thinks it’s a fake

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>hasn't lived in Russia for at least twenty years to learn about the culture

You can start chronologically, and Pushkin would be the kind of father of it all

You can start with the big mainstream names, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and then work backwards and forwards

The only thing you need to know about Russian culture is krokodil and beating your wife and kids

So Russia is secretly a Southern state?

What's the point of living if you'll never be a 19th century Russian peasant?

Quietly Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov(the Nobel Prize in 1965)
Kolyma Tales by Varlam Shalamov

N.B.
Solzhenitsyn was a vengeful liar.
Rozanov was a genius on a par with Nietzsche and was married on Dostoevsky's
concubine

Krokodil is not an alligator user

Pretty accurate for a forgery.

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Start with Chekov and Gogol short stories.