<p>Sberbank of Russia was transformed from the old-school institution with outlived Soviet practices into a decent member of the world's financial elite and one of the richest brands on the planet. But the transformation didn't happen overnight. In fact, Sberbank reform was an unprecedented event in the history of Russian business. Never before was such a large post-Soviet establishment subjected to such a radical and total make-over. German Gref, ex-minister and well-known liberal thinker whose ambitious plan was to turn this huge, unwieldy institution into an advanced financial company, initiated the reform in 2007. Subsequently, his team essentially answered the key question of Russian business: can the Russians perform on the same level as Western workers? Russian journalist Evgeny Karasyuk conducted dozens of interviews with employees of Sberbank on different levels. The result is a breathtaking economic thriller telling a remarkable story of how progressive management techniques were implemented in post-Soviet reality and resulted in formation of a new business model for Russian financial institutions.</p>

Sberbank: The Rebirth of Russia’s Financial Giant

Evgeny Karasyuk

Glagoslav Publications

The Exile: A novel about Taras Shevchenko

Zinaida Tulub's novel The Exile is one of the most brilliant works in the canon of fiction about Taras Shevchenko, the outstanding Ukrainian poet and artist. The idea of writing about Taras Shevchenko first occurred to her when she was in her thirties, during a period spent living in exile in Kazakhstan (1947-1956). Initially, Tulub worked on the screenplay for a film called Kobzar and Yakin, which can be seen as an early prototype for the novel. She was only able to start work on the latter after her return to Kiev in 1956, when she was granted access to archival material and memoirs. She completed the novel in 1962. Tulub's primary goal in the novel was to celebrate Taras Shevchenko's indomitable will and his burning desire to fight for the liberation of the nation, even when he was in exile. Armed with a wealth of detailed biographical information about Shevchenko, Zinaida Tulub created a thrilling portrait of the poet that is both historically accurate and artistically convincing. Depicting the first period of Shevchenko's exile in a detailed, comprehensive manner, Zinaida Tulub adheres strictly to the historical timeline, tracing step by step the path that fate had in store for the exiled poet. She doesn't leave out a single detail from Shevchenko's life, adding light and shade to every important moment or turning point along that treacherous path.

Zinaida Tulub

The religious philosopher and poet Hryhory Skovoroda (1722-1794) is described by many as the Ukrainian Socrates and was one of the most learned men of his time. He was a polyglot who knew the Bible virtually by heart, as well as the writings of the Church Fathers and the literature of Greek and Roman antiquity. The eminent literary critic Ivan Dziuba considers Skovoroda the greatest Ukrainian mind ever.  And Yuri Andrukhovych, one of the most prominent Ukrainian writers of today, calls him "the first Ukrainian hippie" on account of his itinerant lifestyle and rejection of worldly life. The impact of Skovoroda's life and works has been well documented on major writers in future generations, such as Leo Tolstoy, Andrei Bely and Pavlo Tychyna, to name but a few.  None of Skovoroda's works appeared during his lifetime - they were first published in 1837 in Moscow. The texts of Skovoroda's writings were preserved mostly by Skovoroda's lifelong friend Mykhailo Kovalynsky, to whom he had given the manuscripts. Skovoroda's extant writings consist of a collection of thirty poems entitled The Garden of Divine Songs along with other occasional poems, a collection of fables entitled Kharkiv Fables, which was published in 1990, and seventeen philosophical treatises. Most of the treatises were composed during the latter part of his life.  The letters of Skovoroda are appearing in their entirety here in English for the first time, accompanied by a guest introduction by Leonid Rudnytzky. ***  Skovoroda was born on December 3, 1722 to a poor Cossack family in the village of Chornukhy in Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire. He studied at the famed Kyiv-Mohyla Academy at various times in his life, but never completed his studies in theology. From 1741-1744 he lived in Moscow and Petersburg, serving in the imperial choir of the Russian Empress Elizabeth I. He spent the period 1745-1750 living in Tokai, Hungary, where he was musical director of a Russian mission.  After returning to Kyiv in 1750, he taught poetics in Pereyaslav. For a large part of 1753-1759 he worked as a tutor for the son of the landowner Stepan Tomara. After that, he taught poetics, syntax, Greek, and ethics at the Kharkiv Collegium for ten years, but left the position after personal attacks on his teachings. After undergoing a spiritual crisis, he decided to devote his life entirely to God and to a life of poverty.  For the rest of his days, he lived the life of a wandering religious hermit, traveling with just a Bible in his knapsack and few other worldly possessions. He stayed with various friends, often giving lessons in exchange for food and lodging. Three days before his death, in 1794, he began digging his own grave and requested that the following epitaph be inscribed on his tombstone: "The world tried to catch me but never could," meaning that the material aspects of earthly life were never able to seduce him.

The Complete Correspondence of Hryhory Skovoroda: Philosopher And Poet

Hryhory Skovoroda

The Fantastic Worlds Of Yuri Vynnychuk

Vynnychuk, Yuri

Time of the Octopus: Based on the true story of whistleblower Edward Snowden

Kucherena, Anatoly

The Selected Lyric Poetry Of Maksym Rylsky

Maksym Rylsky (1895-1964) is one of the most outstanding Ukrainian poets of the the 20th century and master of the genres of the modern sonnet and the long narrative poem. He was closely associated with the Neoclassicist group of Ukrainian poets, who employed traditional poetic forms with rhyme and meter, wrote in a clear and accessible contemporary idiom, and often referenced Ancient Greek and Roman mythology as well as numerous other authors from world literature in their poetry. Rylsky was also a prolific translator from English, French, German, and Polish as well as a folklore and literary scholar, who worked most of the earlier part of his life as a teacher of philology. He published his first book of poetry at the precocious age of fifteen—On White Islands in 1910. His other early books of poetry include The Edge of the Forest: Idylls (1918), Under Autumn Stars (1918), The Blue Distance (1922), Long Poems (1924), Through a Storm and Snow (1925), Beneath Autumn Stars (1926), Thirteenth Spring (1926), Where Roads Meet (1929), and Echo and Re-echo (1929). Rylsky gained considerable popularity among the Ukrainian reading public for his neo-romantic contemplative musings and intimate lyrical poetry that focused on love, life and nature. While his poetry was completely apolitical, at the end of the Ukrainian cultural renaissance in the 1920s that was crushed by Stalin, Rylsky was sternly rebuked in the state-controlled press for focusing on the personal and not writing in service to the state. In 1931 the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, arrested and publicly humiliated him. He was released in 1932 after he agreed to write in the style of socialist realism and was one of the few prominent Ukrainian writers to survive the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. During the wartime period he wrote two masterful long poems that deviated from socialist realism—“Thirst” (1942) and “Journey to Youth” (1941-4), for which he was again publicly chastised. In 1942 he became Director of the Institute of Fine Arts, Folklore and Ethnography in Kyiv, a post that he held until his death in 1964. The Institute now bears his name. He published some 30 collections of original poetry during his lifetime as well as numerous translations and scholarly works. By 1974 almost five million copies of his works in the original or in translation had appeared in the USSR. In his last two books—In the Shadow of the Lark (1961) and Winter Notes (1964) published during The Thaw, a period of relaxed censorship during the reign of Nikita Khrushchev, Rylsky’s poetic voice returned to the stature of his early poetry. This selected works edition includes poetry from virtually all of Rylsky’s early collections of poetry, with selection primarily based on esthetic principles; the powerful long poem “Thirst,” penned during the darkest days of World War II for Ukraine; and other poems from various periods of his life.

Maksym Rylsky

Знедолені

Віктор Гюго

Скандал у Богемії

Artur Konan Dojl

Історія грошей

Володимир Дмитренко

Приголомшливі пригоди просто поруч

Марина та Сергій Дяченки

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