#russia

This particular May morning begins with the appearance of a procession on the corner of Pancake and Rosa Luxemburg Streets. The procession is evidently religious: it consists of eight clerical personages, well known to the entire town. But instead of censers, the clerical personages are swinging brooms, which transfers the entire action from the plane of religion to the plane of revolution. These personages are now simply unproductive elements of society performing their labor duty for the benefit of the people. Instead of prayers, golden clouds of dust rise to the heavens. ("X") ↗

— Yevgeny Zamyatin

#priest #russian-revolution #religion

In front of me 327 pages of the manuscript [Master and Margarita] (about 22 chapters). The most important remains - editing, and it's going to be hard. I will have to pay close attention to details. Maybe even re-write some things... 'What's its future?' you ask? I don't know. Possibly, you will store the manuscript in one of the drawers, next to my 'killed' plays, and occasionally it will be in your thoughts. Then again, you don't know the future. My own judgement of the book is already made and I think it truly deserves being hidden away in the darkness of some chest. [Bulgakov from Moscow to his wife on June 15 1938] ↗

— Mikhail Bulgakov

#letter #master-and-margarita #russia #samizdat #writing

Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial, has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation of the active, efficient and practical man. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#nihilism #russia #originality

She's like snow in Russian," said Anna. "Snow in the evening when the sun sets and it looks like Alpengluhen, you know? And if snow had a scent it would smell like that [the rose].... ↗

— Eva Ibbotson

#eva-ibbotson #roses #russia #snow

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. ↗

— Woody Allen

#i #involves #minutes #peace #read

Knowing what I knew about Russia, as much as I loved the music and was fascinated by the songs and the whole idea of it, I knew it would be a very lengthy and frustrating process. ↗

— Marc Almond

#fascinated #frustrating #i #idea #knew

In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies. ↗

— Christiane Amanpour

#basis #civil #civil society #democracies #emerging

My dad was born in Chicago in 1908... his parents came from Russia. They settled in Chicago, where they lived in a little tiny grocery store with eight or nine children - in the backroom all together - and my grandmother got the idea to go into the movie business. ↗

— Bob Balaban

#business #came #chicago #children #dad

He was a natural, and in the Russian way, tragically above these benalities ↗

— Boris Pasternak

#nature

I didn't choose Russia but Russia chose me. I had been fascinated from an early age by the culture, the language, the literature and the history to the place. ↗

— Helen Dunmore

#been #choose #chose #culture #early