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Vrajitoarea si alte nuvele [Olesya, and Other Stories]
Alexander Kuprin (1870-1938), one of fin de siècle Russia's most popular writers, is sadly neglected in the English-speaking world. His stories have captivated generations of readers with their vivid realism and lyrical beauty. This translation presents some of his most enduring works. The jewel of the collection is Olesya, an enchanting love story told with beauty and realism. Also included are The Garnet Bracelet, where a glittering duchess comes in contact with the unhappy depths of unrequited love, Sulamith, Kuprin's retelling of the Song of Solomon, as well as the short stories On a Moonlit Night, The Last Debut and The Bog. Ranging from dark psychological exploration to innocent naturalism, Kuprin's deft hand runs the gamut of human experience. This is a true classic which should not be neglected by readers of Russian literature.
- GenresRussian Literature
306 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
About the author
Aleksandr Kuprin
908 books166 followersAleksandr Kuprin (Russian: Александр Иванович Куприн; 7 September 1870 in the village of Narovchat in the Penza Oblast - August 25, 1938 in Leningrad) was a Russian writer, pilot, explorer and adventurer who is perhaps best known for his story The Duel (1905). Other well-known works include Moloch (1896), Olesya (1898), Junior Captain Rybnikov (1906), Emerald (1907), and The Garnet Bracelet (1911) (which was made into a 1965 movie). Vladimir Nabokov styled him the Russian Kipling for his stories about pathetic adventure-seekers, who are often "neurotic and vulnerable."
Kuprin was a son of Ivan Ivanovich Kuprin, a minor government official who died of cholera during 1871 at the age of thirty-seven years. His mother, Liubov' Alekseevna Kuprina, Tatar princess (of the Kulunchakovs), like many other nobles in Russia, had lost most of her wealth during the 19th century. Kuprin attended the Razumovsky boarding school during 1876, and during 1880 finished his education in the Second Moscow Military High School (Cadet Corps) and Alexander Military School, spending a total of ten years in these elite military institutions. His first short story, The Last Debut, was published during 1889 in a satirical periodical. "In February 1902, Kuprin and Maria Karlovna Davydova were married, their daughter Lidia born in 1903." Kuprin's mother died during 1910.
Kuprin ended military service during 1894, after which he tried many types of job, including provincial journalism, dental care, land surveying, acting, circus performer, church singer, doctor, hunter, fisher, etc. Reportedly, "all of these were subsequently reflected in his fiction." His first essays were published in Kiev in two collections. Reportedly, "although he lived in an age when writers were carried away by literary experiments, Kuprin did not seek innovation and wrote only about the things he himself had experienced and his heroes are the next generation after Chekhov's pessimists."
Although the 1896 short story Moloch first made his name known as a writer, it was his novel The Duel (1905) which made him famous. "Kuprin was highly praised by fellow writers including Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreyev, Nobel Prize-winning Ivan Bunin" and Leo Tolstoy who acclaimed him a true successor to Chekhov. After publication of The Duel he paid less and less interest to fancy literature and began to spend time in pubs and brothels. His sensationalist novel about the lurid life of prostitutes, The Pit (1915), was accused by Russian critics of excessive Naturalism.
Although not a conservative, he did not agree with Bolshevism. While working for a brief time with Maxim Gorky at the World Literature publishing company, he criticized the Soviet regime. During spring 1919, from Gatchina near Petrograd, Kuprin left the country for France. He lived in Paris for most of the next 17 years, succumbing to alcoholism. He wrote about this in much of his work. He eventually returned to Moscow on May 31, 1937, just a year before his death, at the height of the Great Purge. His return earned publication of his works within the Soviet Union.
Kuprin died during the spring of 1938 in Leningrad and is interred near his fellow writers at the Literaturskiye Mostki in the Volkovo Cemetery (Volkovskoye Memorial Cemetery) in Leningrad. A minor planet 3618 Kuprin, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1979 is named after him.
Reportedly, "even today, Alexander Kuprin remains one of the widest read classics in Russian literature", with many films based on his works, "which are also read over the radio", partly due to "his vivid stories of the lives of ordinary people and unhappy love, his descriptions of the military and brothels, making him a writer for all times and places."
Kuprin was a son of Ivan Ivanovich Kuprin, a minor government official who died of cholera during 1871 at the age of thirty-seven years. His mother, Liubov' Alekseevna Kuprina, Tatar princess (of the Kulunchakovs), like many other nobles in Russia, had lost most of her wealth during the 19th century. Kuprin attended the Razumovsky boarding school during 1876, and during 1880 finished his education in the Second Moscow Military High School (Cadet Corps) and Alexander Military School, spending a total of ten years in these elite military institutions. His first short story, The Last Debut, was published during 1889 in a satirical periodical. "In February 1902, Kuprin and Maria Karlovna Davydova were married, their daughter Lidia born in 1903." Kuprin's mother died during 1910.
Kuprin ended military service during 1894, after which he tried many types of job, including provincial journalism, dental care, land surveying, acting, circus performer, church singer, doctor, hunter, fisher, etc. Reportedly, "all of these were subsequently reflected in his fiction." His first essays were published in Kiev in two collections. Reportedly, "although he lived in an age when writers were carried away by literary experiments, Kuprin did not seek innovation and wrote only about the things he himself had experienced and his heroes are the next generation after Chekhov's pessimists."
Although the 1896 short story Moloch first made his name known as a writer, it was his novel The Duel (1905) which made him famous. "Kuprin was highly praised by fellow writers including Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreyev, Nobel Prize-winning Ivan Bunin" and Leo Tolstoy who acclaimed him a true successor to Chekhov. After publication of The Duel he paid less and less interest to fancy literature and began to spend time in pubs and brothels. His sensationalist novel about the lurid life of prostitutes, The Pit (1915), was accused by Russian critics of excessive Naturalism.
Although not a conservative, he did not agree with Bolshevism. While working for a brief time with Maxim Gorky at the World Literature publishing company, he criticized the Soviet regime. During spring 1919, from Gatchina near Petrograd, Kuprin left the country for France. He lived in Paris for most of the next 17 years, succumbing to alcoholism. He wrote about this in much of his work. He eventually returned to Moscow on May 31, 1937, just a year before his death, at the height of the Great Purge. His return earned publication of his works within the Soviet Union.
Kuprin died during the spring of 1938 in Leningrad and is interred near his fellow writers at the Literaturskiye Mostki in the Volkovo Cemetery (Volkovskoye Memorial Cemetery) in Leningrad. A minor planet 3618 Kuprin, discovered by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh in 1979 is named after him.
Reportedly, "even today, Alexander Kuprin remains one of the widest read classics in Russian literature", with many films based on his works, "which are also read over the radio", partly due to "his vivid stories of the lives of ordinary people and unhappy love, his descriptions of the military and brothels, making him a writer for all times and places."
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 8, 2009
This edition contains 3 novels: Olesya, The Garnet Bracelet and Shulammite.
Olesya. The action of the novel takes place in an isolated village where the people's life is strongly influenced by ancient superstitions which supposes witches and spells. Under this conditions unravels a love story that is pure and almost holy (because of its mystic aura), in a fairy-tale landscape of a classical romanticism: in the middle of the forest and under the moon. Olesya predicts the future of the two lovers - they will brake up. Even if she insists that they cannot escape their destiny and that what is meant to be will be, even if Ivan has a tenebrous premonition and almost goes after her, even if evil happens and love is broken, I remained with the feeling that all these are transmitting a powerful message that everything could have happened in another way if the two would have fought together. You can make your own destiny, you can write your own story.
My favorite two quotes:
"Why kill birds or, say, hares? They do nobody any harm, and they want to live as much as you and I do. I love them — they're so small and silly."
"We stood silently facing each other, holding each others hands, gazing happily into each others eyes. I consider those few silent seconds the happiest in my life; never before had I felt, nor have I felt ever since, so pure, so complete and all-absorbing an ecstasy. And the things I read in Olesya's big dark eyes—the emotion over the meeting, the reproach for my long absence, the passionate confession of love! I felt that, along with that gaze, she was joyfully giving me her whole being, without any conditions, without wavering."
Garnet bracelet. This is a short novel about an obsessive love, which in a world where true love is scarce and women become more emancipated because men don not know how to love them - as the old general views it - might pass as a genuine and great love. A poor man falls in love with a young girl and send her love letters, but she is engaged and eventually gets married. She never sees the man who is madly in love with her, but after his death. The story presents two antithetical worlds: in the first - the easy life of the high society that is presented with all the comfort and beauty. The second is a world of misery and bareness; in this world the young man finds his divine destiny in the love he is granted to have for the beautiful girl.
Shulammithe. This is the story of King Solomon and his Shulammite. Any attempt to write something about this amazing love and about this fabulous love poem that is the Song of Song is destined to be paled. The author sees this coming so he does not use a great deal of imagination, but rather writes his story using a lot of passages from the Bible. The thing I liked most was the part about all the precious stones given by Solomon to his lover: they are described along with the ancient believes about their powers. Another impressive thing is about the many pagan gods that Solomon has allowed to be worshiped in the country of the only true God. The horrible pagan practices must have really upset the Almighty as we also read in the Bible that Solomon is to loose his faith at the near end of his life.
Olesya. The action of the novel takes place in an isolated village where the people's life is strongly influenced by ancient superstitions which supposes witches and spells. Under this conditions unravels a love story that is pure and almost holy (because of its mystic aura), in a fairy-tale landscape of a classical romanticism: in the middle of the forest and under the moon. Olesya predicts the future of the two lovers - they will brake up. Even if she insists that they cannot escape their destiny and that what is meant to be will be, even if Ivan has a tenebrous premonition and almost goes after her, even if evil happens and love is broken, I remained with the feeling that all these are transmitting a powerful message that everything could have happened in another way if the two would have fought together. You can make your own destiny, you can write your own story.
My favorite two quotes:
"Why kill birds or, say, hares? They do nobody any harm, and they want to live as much as you and I do. I love them — they're so small and silly."
"We stood silently facing each other, holding each others hands, gazing happily into each others eyes. I consider those few silent seconds the happiest in my life; never before had I felt, nor have I felt ever since, so pure, so complete and all-absorbing an ecstasy. And the things I read in Olesya's big dark eyes—the emotion over the meeting, the reproach for my long absence, the passionate confession of love! I felt that, along with that gaze, she was joyfully giving me her whole being, without any conditions, without wavering."
Garnet bracelet. This is a short novel about an obsessive love, which in a world where true love is scarce and women become more emancipated because men don not know how to love them - as the old general views it - might pass as a genuine and great love. A poor man falls in love with a young girl and send her love letters, but she is engaged and eventually gets married. She never sees the man who is madly in love with her, but after his death. The story presents two antithetical worlds: in the first - the easy life of the high society that is presented with all the comfort and beauty. The second is a world of misery and bareness; in this world the young man finds his divine destiny in the love he is granted to have for the beautiful girl.
Shulammithe. This is the story of King Solomon and his Shulammite. Any attempt to write something about this amazing love and about this fabulous love poem that is the Song of Song is destined to be paled. The author sees this coming so he does not use a great deal of imagination, but rather writes his story using a lot of passages from the Bible. The thing I liked most was the part about all the precious stones given by Solomon to his lover: they are described along with the ancient believes about their powers. Another impressive thing is about the many pagan gods that Solomon has allowed to be worshiped in the country of the only true God. The horrible pagan practices must have really upset the Almighty as we also read in the Bible that Solomon is to loose his faith at the near end of his life.
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September 28, 2026Sulamita
Vrajitoarea (Olesia)
Brățara cu granate
Vrajitoarea (Olesia)
Brățara cu granate
March 23, 2022
Probably my favorite romantic short novel ever!!!
Some of my favorite quotes from Olesya:
“I was overwhelmed by the quiet magic of that solemn, cold silence, and I thought I could feel time slipping noiselessly past me.”
“Her staring eyes with the dilated pupils reflected some dark terror, an involuntary submission to the mysterious powers and supernatural knowledge that had descended on her soul.”
“I feel such a longing for the woods I could throw up everything and run away. Id never consent to live in a city.”
"You think God won't accept you?" I went on, with mounting passion. "You
think he won't have mercy enough for you? He who, while commanding millions of angels, descended upon the earth and died a terrible, an ignominious death for the salvation of all men? He who didn't disdain the repentance of the lowest woman and promised a robber and murderer that he would join him in paradise that same day?"
Some of my favorite quotes from Olesya:
“I was overwhelmed by the quiet magic of that solemn, cold silence, and I thought I could feel time slipping noiselessly past me.”
“Her staring eyes with the dilated pupils reflected some dark terror, an involuntary submission to the mysterious powers and supernatural knowledge that had descended on her soul.”
“I feel such a longing for the woods I could throw up everything and run away. Id never consent to live in a city.”
"You think God won't accept you?" I went on, with mounting passion. "You
think he won't have mercy enough for you? He who, while commanding millions of angels, descended upon the earth and died a terrible, an ignominious death for the salvation of all men? He who didn't disdain the repentance of the lowest woman and promised a robber and murderer that he would join him in paradise that same day?"
September 21, 2021
Olesya is the best romantic novel I read in my life. You can feel through the emotions!
August 3, 2023
I don’t know why I read this book. I felt like there was no point. The story did not interest me.
Want to Read
October 13, 2024The Sorceress (1956)
September 25, 2009
My favourite novell collection all times.A unfairly forgotten/not apperciated author
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews