Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. A few words can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?

The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories, which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme. Throughout the volume our authors, whether of instant recognition or new to you, are all leviathans of literature.

Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made. If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces, then we have all gained something.

The Russian Literary Tradition has justly earned a magnificent reputation. The Russian Empire of the Czars was a huge and disparate patchwork of peoples ruled by an overbearing elite that employed a middle-class bureaucracy to keep the working class firmly underfoot. Within its vaulted ranks are a role call of many of the greatest literary talents of the ages.

01 - The Top 10 - The Russian Men - An Introduction

02 - The Revolutionist by Mikhail Petrovich Artzybashev

03 - The Bet by Anton Chekhov

04 - The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostovesky

05 - The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol also known as 'The Cloak'

06 - Twenty-Six Men and a Girl by Maxim Gorky

07 - Silence by Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev

08 - The Shot by Alexander Pushkin

09 - Hide And Seek or Pliatki by Fyodor Sologub

10 - How Much Land Does A Man Need by Leo Tolstoy

11 - The District Doctor by Ivan Turgenev