Old Moscow: A History of the Life of the Ancient Capital

34 hrs. 30 min.

Language Russian

Author Mikhail Pylyaev

Narrator Ilya Prudovsky

Description

The book “Old Moscow” by M. I. Pylyayev is printed in modern orthography with minor changes based on the A. S. Suvorin edition (St. Petersburg, 1891).
With this book, a new series “The Club of Lovers of the History of the Fatherland” begins.
“Old Moscow” tells about the ancient city, its everyday life, moral foundations, customs, spectacles, and entertainments of Muscovites of the 18th and early 19th centuries. It was unfairly assessed by contemporaries and carried the mark of rejection for a century. Meanwhile, the value and originality of this work by M. I. Pylyayev lies in the attempt to describe the biography of Moscow as a combination of personal biographies of the statesmen, military figures, writers, and artists who lived there—as well as of the Muscovites whose peculiarity and unusual character were preserved in the memory of generations. Such a task, in full, was not accomplished either before M. I. Pylyayev or after him. One would think that a modern reader will appreciate his book to the full.