The Old Woman. An Annotated Russian Reader with Exercises on Verbs of Motion (B1-B2)

The reader introduces an important literary work to students of Russian literature and culture, and serves as an excellent text for Russian language learners. The exercises in the reader focus on verbs of motion and verbs of position - a major topic in learning Russian! The Old Woman is a uniquely strange and multifaceted work that will engage the reader in many respects. On one level, it is absurdist literature used to great humorous effect. Its illogical, nonsensical, and fantastical situations recall the surreal humor in the works of Lewis Carroll. On another level, the story, completed in 1939 following Stalin's purges and the Great Terror, can be read as political allegory, obliquely conveying the repressions, violence, and brutality of Soviet Russia of the time. The Old Woman is an innovative imaginative work that is at once disturbing, darkly funny, and thought provoking.