A Family Chronicle

A Family Chronicle (1856) is Sergei Aksakov's blend of memoir and fiction that tells the story of one Russian family relocating from the city to Russia's eastern frontier in the steppes of Bashkiria. It is an attempt to record oral tradition in writing and occupies a unique place in the history of the nineteenth-century Russian narrative.

Aksakov has been called a "genius of reminiscences." This work is unmatched for its meticulous and realistic description of the everyday life of the Russian nobility and was well received by the literary greats of nineteenth-century Russian literature. It has also been said to contain a remarkably honest depiction of human psychology. With this edition of A Family Chronicle, the acclaimed translator Michael R. Katz improves upon the two earlier English versions (both now out of print).

Michael R. Katz is C. V. Starr Professor Emeritus at Middlebury College, where he retired from full-time teaching in 2010. He has written two monographs and translated more than twenty novels from Russian into English. Previously he also taught at Williams College and the University of Texas at Austin.

Marcus C. Levitt is Professor Emeritus of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Southern California. His book, The Visual Dominant in Eighteenth-Century Russia, was awarded the 2012 Marc Raeff Book Prize, from the Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies Association.

A Family Chronicle is essential and sensational reading.

Rebecca Mitchell, author of Nietzsche's Orphans:

This book admirably succeeds in offering a clear and readable new translation that will be accessible to contemporary English-language audiences. The translation flows well and masterfully captures the style of the original prose.

William Mills Todd III, author of Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin:

This is the best introduced and translated edition of A Family Chronicle I have ever encountered in fifty-three years of teaching the book. The translation surpasses others in accuracy and accessibility.