[2 volumes] Shelf: On the Main Books of Russian Literature

This book includes articles written and compiled as part of the project «Shelf». Established in 2017, the project aimed to identify the most important works of Russian literature. For this purpose, a large community of experts formed a list of 108 works that left a mark in history, expanded the possibilities of literature, influenced the development of language, thought, and society, revealed something new about the world and humanity, and entered the Russian literary canon. These are novels, novellas, short stories, plays, poems, literary memoirs — from «The Tale of Igor's Campaign» to the novel «Chapayev and Void». About each of these works, the authors tried to write clearly and accessibly, based on extensive scientific and critical literature, placing each in a larger literary context and discussing other texts that influenced it and were influenced by it.

The first two volumes of this publication include 60 articles — on Russian literature from Ancient Rus to 1917.