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The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry is an enchanting anthology of the very best of Russian poetry, edited by the renowned translator, Robert Chandler, together with the poets Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski. Summary of the Book In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, poetry's excellence in Russia was undisputed with Pushkin and his contemporaries marking the beginning of the Golden Age of Russian literature. Although prose briefly gained more prominence in the second half of the nineteenth century, poetry became pre-eminent in the 'Silver Age' (the early twentieth century) again, when faith in reason and development resulted in a more magical view of the world. During the Soviet era, poetry was looked upon as a dangerous, revolutionary activity. But poets like Osip Mandelstam and Anna Akhmatova continued not to conform to the censors. This anthology charts the progress of Russian poetry from its Golden Age to the modern era. It contains poetic works by many great poets - Georgy Ivanov and Varlam Shalamov among them - in alluring modern translations by Robert Chandler and others. This edition also includes a general introduction, chronology and individual introductions to each poet. About the Editors Robert Chandler is a renowned poet and translator. His numerous translations from Russian include works by Aleksandr Pushkin, Nikolai Leskov, Vasily Grossman and Andrey Platonov. His other works, Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida and Russian Magic Tales, are both published by Penguin Classics. Irina Mashinski is a bilingual poet. She is the co-founder of the StoSvet literary project. Her most recent collection is Ophelia i masterok [Ophelia and the Trowel]. Boris Dralyuk is a Lecturer in Russian at the University of St. Andrews. He is the translator of several books from Russian, including the most recent work, Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry.