Modern experts in the field of literature define the story as an epic genre, which is something between a short story and a novel. Often the plot of such works is uncomplicated. In such creations, we can talk about a rather long period of the life of the protagonist, but often the stories are devoid of intrigue.

Some historians study ancient Russian literary creations of the 11th-17th centuries with great enthusiasm, because thanks to such finds, contemporaries discover the peculiarities of perception of artistic genres of distant times and certain historical facts. After reviewing the results of the research, specialists can follow the development of the literary field and draw important conclusions.

Since the 1820s, works of this genre have become especially popular among Russian writers. The first creations were perceived quite cordially by the readers themselves, and over time, critics appreciated all the features of the works. As a result, both stories about love and the emotional state of the hero, as well as social topics, begin to appear.

Today, many authors are working in this direction, realizing all the benefits of their choice. First, they can describe a series of interesting events that will appeal to the reader and can have a certain impact on him. Secondly, the volume of the story allows you to embody your thoughts as much as possible. Often we are talking about one or several hundred pages of printed text. Thirdly, many readers prefer to get acquainted with small literary visions, because not everyone has the patience to perceive novels in several volumes.

At the moment, absolutely various directions of stories are relevant. The fair sex prefers to read books with erotic themes, while men prefer stories about military affairs and adventure creations. In any case, modern authors with enviable constancy delight their fans with excellent works that only increase interest in the book world.

Thanks to the progressive development of the technological sphere, today everyone can read online or download for free without registration the story they like on their device. Downloads are available in epub, fb2, pdf, rtf and txt formats. Our portal allows you to find the most suitable books for yourself and enjoy artistic stories anywhere and anytime.

The Kniguru Prize is the largest and most influential Russian award given in the field of teen literature. This year it will be awarded for the 6th time. 15 books by contemporary Russian writers reached the final. These are stories from school life, stories about the conflict of a growing child with family and loved ones, fantasy, historical texts, fairy tales and pseudo-textbooks. Lenta.ru columnist Natalya Kochetkova read the texts of the shortlist.

About the world around

Stanislav Vostokov "Krivolapych" (for readers from 10 years old)

Stanislav Vostokov - our Konstantin Paustovsky and Gerald Durrell rolled into one. Because now only he knows how to write about the village in such a way that even bored teenagers are interested, and talk about animals in such a way that even when the animals “thought” something and “decided” something, they still did it like animals, not like people. Which is not surprising - Vostokov worked in various zoos around the world, and this is an invaluable experience (he was an employee of the Moscow Zoo, worked at the International Training Center for Nature Conservation on the Island of Jersey, at a rehabilitation center for gibbons rescued from poachers in Cambodia). His story about the raccoon Krivolapych reached the finale of Kniguru, in which accurate information about the life of animals ironically coexists with discussions about philosophy and the modern world order.

Oleg Bundur "The Royal Sea" (for readers from 10 years old)

“The icebreaker cuts huge waves with its nose, the spray, picked up by the wind, even reaches the windows of the bridge and freezes on the windows. You have to turn on the hot glass washing. It's 10 degrees below zero outside, that's why the drops freeze. Well, the Barents Sea itself does not freeze in winter from the warm current of the Gulf Stream - you know that. It is warm and cozy on the bridge, and neither the icy waves, nor the icy wind, nor the spray seem to be at all terrible. I imagined myself now on the open deck and cringed - brrr!” This is how calmly and in detail the author talks about everything that he sees and fixes during his voyage on the Taimyr icebreaker: about seagulls, whales and sharks, about the key that opens any door, about how fresh water is obtained, how they rustle and ice floes crash against the side of the ship. A bit in the spirit of "What I saw" by Boris Zhitkov, only the experience of the narrator is much more extreme.

Image: Mary Evans Picture Library / Global Look

Non-educational textbooks

Alexander Kiselev "Litra" (for readers from 12 years old)

"Litra" is a school slang term for a subject that is traditionally called "literature" or "literature". Under the motto that “everyone needs to be spoken to in a language he understands,” Alexander Kiselev decided to talk with teenagers about the history and theory of Russian literature in terms they understand: to talk about “sms on birch bark” (birch bark letters), “PR in Old Russian” (Chronicles) and about "The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom" Yermolai-Erasmus as a bestseller. Pushkin’s poem “The Prophet”, in which all Church Slavonic words are replaced by Russian ones, began to sound like this in the transcription of the textbook author: “I was thirsty and dragged along the steppe one night, And then I completely blunted, And the Serpent Gorynych appeared to me ...” An attempt, what is called, counted, and reading this text is generally quite fun. Although from time to time a line from a poem by another author, also a hooligan and a postmodernist, but with impeccable taste, still comes to mind: “Filter the market, filter the market, baby.”

Artem Lyakhovich "The Battle of Nazi-Tutsi" (for readers aged 14 and over)

A brief guide to survival in the virtual world - this is how Artem Lyakhovich defined the genre of his opus. And indeed, the book is most of all like a long Platonic dialogue, from which all the student’s questions were thrown out, so it turned into a lengthy teacher’s monologue, in which, on the one hand, it seems to be explained on the fingers how reality can be constructed in different ways, presenting it in a certain way. information to its consumer, on the other hand, the author does not forget to insert "simulacrum" and Baudrillard into the text. The idea of ​​educating teenagers about media manipulation and juggling of facts is worthy of praise in itself. But how many 14-year-olds have enough intellectual strength and patience to carefully read to the end and think about what they read - it is difficult to predict in advance. The genre itself is too unusual for teenage literature.

Image: Mary Evans Picture Library / Global Look

About growing up

Nina Dashevskaya "I am not a brake" (for readers from 10 years old)

A very lively and dynamic (not only in terms of plot, but also in language) story by Nina Dashevskaya about a boy who is in a hurry to live and feel. Ignat Volkov was even nicknamed "The Hare", because he does absolutely everything in this life faster than other people: he walks, eats, moves around the city on roller skates and a scooter, thinks. But this speed does not prevent him from noticing the main thing: emotional changes in loved ones, for example, or an outsider who needs help.

Larisa Romanovskaya "The Youngest" (for readers over 13 years old)

The conflict is already spelled out in the title: the youngest girl in the family, Polina, is eight years old, she is in the second grade, she has a rich imagination and she is bored because everyone is busy. All members of her large family - grandparents, mothers, fathers, older sisters and brothers - have more important things to do than little Polina. But Polina has a friend who is always with her - Tolik. Tolik is her grandfather in childhood. He is the way Polina imagined him to be. The story shows the world of adults, seen through the eyes of a small child. The technique itself, of course, is not new, but the text does not lose its charm from this.

Denis Martynov "Look what our networks have brought" (for readers from 13 years old)

The story of a rebellious 14-year-old teenager, against the background of changes in the family (namely, it often happens at the age of 14), decides to run away from his parental home and go to another city, is told in such an even, faded and inexpressive language that it takes a long time to convince himself that we are really talking about prickly teenagers, and not about pupils of the boarding school of noble maidens, seen through the eyes of their mentors. Parents and librarians of the old style will certainly like the text, teenagers - hardly.

Image: Mary Evans Picture Library / Global Look

About school

Ilga Ponornitskaya "Adolescent Ashim" (for readers from 13 years old)

Two newcomers come to the gymnasium class. One is rather a humanitarian from a poor and incomplete family. The second is a "nerd" with pronounced mathematical abilities from a family with many children (and also not rich). They find themselves among unfamiliar, alien, hostile and, most importantly, much more financially secure classmates. For the author, this “social” component, the division into “poor/rich” in the story, is the most important thing. The psychological line of adaptation of two teenagers to the conditions of school life, which are unusual for them, is barely distinguishable against the background of the conflict “how the poor live among the majors”.

Svetlana Volkova "No more clues" (for readers aged 14 and over)

Much more advantageous against the background of the story "Adolescent Ashim" is the text of Svetlana Volkova "There are no more hints." At first glance, it's on the same topic: a new kid comes to class. But if in "Ashima" the driving force of the plot mechanism is teenagers' ideas about their parent's wallet, then Volkova focused precisely on the psychological aspects of the teenager's getting used to an unusual environment. The protagonist is constantly thinking about what and how he should do in order to defend his authority in the eyes of his classmates. At least as a practical guide for anyone new to the class, the book is extremely useful.

About history

Maria Ponomarenko "Secrets of the Blau's Globe" (for readers from 10 years old)

The book, where everything revolves around one copper ball, is the subtitle of the text by Maria Ponomarenko. It tells the story of the famous Blaeu globe, which was made in the early 1690s by the heirs of the famous Amsterdam cartographer Willem Blaeu for the Swedish king Charles XI. Charles XII refused to buy the globe in connection with the costs of the Great Northern War. As a result, at the beginning of the 18th century, Peter I bought the globe. He visited the Lefortovo Palace, the Sukharev Tower, the Kunstkamera, the Rumyantsev Museum, until finally in 1912 he stopped at the Historical Museum, where he remains to this day. The globe is notable for many things. Australia is labeled as New Holland. Kamchatka, Alaska and Sakhalin do not exist at all, while Korea and California are marked as islands. But the book is not only the history of the globe. This is a story of travel and cartography, inventions and discoveries. Such a real non-fiction in the spirit of Peter Ackroyd for a very young reader.

Stanislav Rosovetsky "At Drkars and Buffoons" (for readers from 12 years old)

A historical story from the life of a Moscow teenager of the 17th century named Vaska, who, after a fire, was left an orphan and was taken as an assistant by uncle Gavrila, the sovereign of the Printing House, as a carver. True, he soon ran away from the uncle with buffoons to see the world and show himself. The patriotic motif of the opposition of the Orthodox "panam-polyakhs" is not in last place in this text.

Image: Mary Evans Picture Library / Global Look

Fairy tales/fantasy

Anastasia Strokina "The whale is swimming north" (for readers from 10 years old)

Young Anastasia Strokina has already managed to visit and live a lot of places. And she was born in the Far North, and for her this place is associated with childhood and with a fairy tale. This is probably why the action of the story "The Whale Swims North" takes place there. Islands are scattered in the cold ocean waters. Each island should have its own guardian - the animal mamoru. Each mamoru is prepared to recognize his island, settle on it and take care of it. And so the young mamoru swims on the back of a whale and thinks about how to find his island, whether he is ready to become a keeper, what he missed at school and how he should be now. A fairy tale, beautiful and transparent, like a thin piece of ice, solves several problems at once: it gave the author the opportunity to immerse himself in the study (and inventing) of the Aleutian folklore, the reader - to think about what he would like to do in life and how ready he is for it.

Maya Toboeva "The Maiden of the Mountains" (for readers aged 13 and over)

Either a fairy tale, or a parable, or an epic about the ancient coastal people, a family curse and a girl whom her parents wanted to save from her fate. As the example of the girl Eika showed (and before her, the corpus of texts of ancient authors), fighting rock is a stupid exercise. But to understand and accept your destiny is the only way to remain human.

Vladimir Arenev "Gunpowder from dragon bones" (for readers from 14 years old)

The world after the apocalypse. Everything is not the same as before. The person may suddenly die. Or get sick. Or fall asleep, and wake up after a long period of time. Or change your appearance. The main character Martha has an outstanding gift: she knows how to neutralize ancient dragon bones found in the ground. He speaks them, deprives them of evil magic. This is worth a lot, not only figuratively, but also in the literal sense. The girl wants to earn money for education. And where there is big money, it simply does not happen there. And it soon becomes clear that Martha is involved in a rather dangerous and confusing story.

Eduard Verkin "Prologue" (for readers from 14 years old)

Again, a post-apocalyptic text about what life was like after a terrible war. The war lasted only 17 minutes, but its consequences were terrible and devastating. Even after several decades, people continue to live like savages. Nothing remained of civilization, all books perished. And only after a person was found who was able to write a book, life began to return to its previous course.

Especially for you, we have selected 8 new collections of short stories from bright contemporary prose writers. Sad and funny, serious and ironic, but all equally beautiful, they will not leave you indifferent.

Alexander Snegirev

The winner of last year's Russian Booker, Alexander Snegirev, knows how to notice in the surrounding life that important thing that eludes the layman's eyes. That is why we ourselves, our friends or colleagues, or just random neighbors at the bar counter are so well recognizable in the heroes of his stories. So different and so similar citizens. As the hero of the story that gave the name to the entire collection. He dreamed of happiness. And everything promised him: and buckets of daffodils on the bar, and the sharp smell of charm, arrogance, vulnerability, spilled in the club, and a couple of Long Islands, and a feeling of confidence that he loves and is loved by the one who is now far away . He dreamed... But only April was not in his heart. As there was no feeling that he was still young. As there was no faith that love is real. To drown out the acute pain of the unfulfilled and lost, he decided that he just wanted to have a good time this evening...

Dilyara Tasbulatova

Strictly speaking, "Who has more in Russia?" - not a collection of stories, but a collection of tales. But what! According to the author, a well-known film critic and brilliant storyteller Dilyara Tasbulatova, it is her third book that seems to her stronger than the first two. At the same time, it has everything for which the writers managed to fall in love with the author - comical life stories, topicality, witty dialogues that make you laugh out loud. As critic Denis Dragunsky noted: “The whole crazy batch that is now gurgling and bubbling in the heads of 99% of Russians is shown in this book with deadly accuracy, but without the slightest admixture of cold analysis, intellectual arrogance, and even more condemnation. The heroes of the book are simple people, not particularly educated, not very smart - but certainly alive and real. Not shy in thoughts and expressions. The author lives among them and argues with them in their language.

Igor Saveliev

The new collection of Igor Savelyev includes two stories, united by the motives of the road and hitchhiking. The author's road is a movement to which there is no end and edge, it is a meeting place, a crossroads of different destinies. At one point of the endless road - the trucker Vova, who set off on his first flight. A simple driver, he knows little about the complexities of the track. At another point - an experienced hitchhiker Vadim. For him, hitchhiking is loyalty to the spirit of freedom, readiness for trials, interest in the world. Both guys are adventurous. But when the road that united them confronts a crossroads, when danger requires a choice, each of them behaves unexpectedly.

Roman Senchin

The winner of the Big Book and a frequenter of the short and long lists of prestigious literary awards, Roman Senchin, in the collection of short stories Straight Forward, is nostalgic for his youth, for himself. Longing for lost ideals, the inability to resist circumstances are the leitmotifs of this collection, which unites the stories of different people with a common Soviet past. The main question of each story is “Why did this happen?”: why are cheap trifles from the past so expensive, why did an honest path lead to a trap, why did love deceive, why, in order to stay afloat, you need to betray yourself daily?

Alexander Melikhov

The new book by Alexander Melikhov "The Resurrection of Lilith", which includes new works and previously written ones, is a deep reflection of the writer about a woman, her archetypes, about the divine nature of love and the human nature of vulgarity. "So I want love!" - constantly repeats the heroine of one of the stories of A. Melikhov - Lorelei of Moscow bottling. "So I want love!" - other characters echo her. It doesn't matter if they are Lucretia or Medea. After all, both terrible crimes and simpler sins are committed by them solely because of love - for its sake or for its lack. “And it’s so pitiful for everyone,” Dina Rubina writes about the heroes of the stories, “that the heart is simply torn with pity!”

Irina Muravieva

“Infant Experiences of a Woman” is a new work by the recognized master of modern prose, Irina Muravyova. This small, but jewelry item can be safely put on a par with V. Nabokov's "Other Shores", because it contains the fragrant shores of childhood, starting from which, the writer floats into Great Literature. The world of first feelings: love, jealousy, fear, pity, shame - is given in a full-sounding, full-bodied, impressionistically accurate way. And it turns out that a second of ultimate happiness can be taken in hand, like a chick with a tender, furiously pounding heart. “Infant Experiences of a Woman” is a book about the development of femininity, poetry, and fate.

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