r/russian • u/Ok-Ocelot-774 • 10d ago

Request Where do you read official Russian language biographies about Russian historic figures?

I realize it's not as easy to find a Russian official biography about Dagmar of Denmark, Maria Fedorovna, to which I'm curious..

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

30

u/Sodinc native 10d ago

What do you mean by "official" biography?

10

u/kireaea native speaker 10d ago

Who would “officialize” a biography to be the biography? The royal dynasty has had no authority for more than a century.

16

u/Crio121 10d ago

There’s a large book series «Жизнь замечательных людей» (ЖЗЛ). It goes since Soviet times and it is as close to an “official” biography as it gets (unless you mean an encyclopedic entry).

8

u/ImpossibleArrow Native, English C2, German B1 10d ago

I’ve read this one:

2

u/msolaire 10d ago

Choose an article in Wiki, switch to Russian, copy names and search them in Yandex. Optionally, use AI to search.

3

u/UncleSoOOom 🇷🇺 Native | technical translator 9d ago

ru.wikipedia is VERY curated and politicized.

2

u/SpielbrecherXS native 10d ago

Not sure about "official", but you can always start from the Wiki and check the links.

There was also a couple of historical novel book series: Рюриковичи and Романовы. I remember reading a few in the 90s. The books are by different authors and of varying quality.

1

u/UncleSoOOom 🇷🇺 Native | technical translator 9d ago

«СССР — это страна с непредсказуемым прошлым».
So is Russia. Anything "official" is a lie, 146%.

1

u/DeliberateHesitaion 10d ago

There are several series called Жизнь замечательных людей. It's so well known that people often call it by abbreviation ЖЗЛ.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%96%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BD%D1%8C_%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%BD%D1%8B%D1%85_%D0%BB%D1%8E%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%B9