Soothe My Sorrow... Novels about the Oleksiny Family

The works of Boris Vasilyev have become a classic of Russian literature, his works have been translated into many languages and have been adapted into films multiple times; among them are «The Dawns Here Are Quiet...», «Tomorrow Was War», «Do Not Shoot the White Swans», «Not Listed», as well as the duology «Gentlemen Officers», with which Vasilyev began his work on a kind of family saga that spans the lives of several generations of the noble Oleksiny family over two centuries. These works tell the story of the lineage of the writer himself, starting with the «notes» of his great-great-grandfather, Lieutenant of the Pskov Regiment Alexander Alexeev, who was a friend of Pushkin, who became one of the heroes of the novel. Boris Vasilyev considered these works to be the most significant effort in his creativity. «I paid tribute not to my ancestors,— wrote Vasilyev,— but to the best representatives of the great Russian intelligentsia.» And the story of the noble Oleksiny family «turned into a story of bravery, honor, and dignity of faithful sons and daughters of Russia, which has long since passed into oblivion.» The current edition includes the novels «The Gambler and the Braggart, the Player and the Duelist», «Soothe My Sorrow...», «And There Was Evening, and There Was Morning», «The House That Grandfather Built», «Greetings from Grandma Lera».