A Soviet Sampler

ART

MIKHAIL NESTEROV, Central Exhibition Hall, Moscow. Works of art -- some never before exhibited -- by Russian master Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942), from the Tretyakov Gallery and Moscow private collections. Included is his Russia, the Soul of the People, symbolic of Russia's historical spiritual quest, depicting the religious philosopher Vladimir Solovyov and Leo Tolstoy walking along the banks of the Volga among multitudes of Russian people of different epochs.

PYOTR BELOV, Tverskoi Boulevard 11, Moscow. Twenty-two allegorical works about Stalin's reign of terror, by the theater artist Pyotr Belov (1929-88). Among the most damning: one portraying antlike columns of Gulag prisoners emerging from a pack of Belomor cigarettes -- a reference to the forced labor that built the Belomor canal -- and another showing Stalin up to his boots in a sea of dandelions imprinted with the faces of his victims.

MOVIES

LONELY WOMAN SEARCHING FOR A LIFE COMPANION. Preferably a single Moscow male, but not this one: he insults, robs, then leeches on the lonely 43-year-old who placed the ad. Director Vyacheslav Krishtofovich locates Soviet malaise in this wry fable of a modern Soviet woman desperately seeking Comrade Right.

PAIN. Director Sergei Lukyanchikov's critical documentary on the Afghanistan war. In one of the most striking scenes, a veteran who lost an arm asks, "If ((the Afghans)) came here to help us 'build socialism,' how would we react?" Answering his own question, he admits, "They hated us."

CONFESSION. A CHRONICLE OF ALIENATION. A shocking and realistic documentary by director Georgi Gavrilov about a young high school dropout and drug addict, the grandson of a labor-camp officer, who searches for identity in an apathetic society.

NOSTALGHIA. A Russian writer seeks a cure that will end the pain of his nostalgia, with tragic results, in the film by director Andrei Tarkovsky starring Oleg Yankovsky. A Soviet-Italian co-production.

BOOKS

LIFE AND DESTINY by Vasili Grossman (Knizhnaya Palata, 1988). An epic novel about the Battle of Stalingrad that some call the 20th century's War and Peace. Completed in the 1960s, the book was suppressed during Khrushchev's regime for daring to agonize over the conflict between personal freedom and Communism.

THE NIGHT WATCH by Mikhail Kurayev (Novy Mir, No. 2, 1989). A fascinating journey inside the mind of a fictional secret policeman, Comrade Polubolotov, who helped carry out the murderous Stalinist purges of the 1930s but insists he was merely "a soldier."

ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell (Rodnik, Riga, Nos. 3-6, 1989). The famous 1945 critique of totalitarianism sold out immediately.

STORIES by Oleg Yermakov (Znamya, No. 3, 1989). Two short stories by a 28- year-old veteran of the Afghan conflict sketch a vivid and unromanticized picture of war that is reminiscent of Michael Herr's Dispatches, a book about American G.I.s in Viet Nam.

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE edited by Yuri Afanasayev (Progress Publishers, 1988). The definitive, argument-provoking collection of essays by such high priests of perestroika as Andrei Sakharov, economist Tatyana Zaslavskaya and Novy Mir editor in chief Sergei Zalygin.

TELEVISION

JUST A COUPLE OF WORDS IN HONOR OF MR. DE MOLIERE. First produced 16 years ago by Anatoli Efros, this program based on Mikhail Bulgakov's works fell into disfavor because Culture Ministry bureaucrats disapproved of director Efros' and leading actor Yuri Lyubimov's liberal views.

TELEVISION ACQUAINTANCE. Backstage squabbling at the Bolshoi: intrepid Estonian journalist Urmas Ott gets to the bottom of it during a revealing 90- minute interview with prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya.

PLENUM INFORMATION BROADCAST. What goes on behind closed doors when the ! Communist Party Central Committee holds its plenary sessions? A realistic, if edited, glimpse of glasnost in action.

THEATER

THE MAIDS, Satirikon Theater, Moscow. In drag and wearing extravagant eye makeup, Konstantin Raikin stars in a rare Russian version of Jean Genet's sadomasochistic melodrama, directed by Roman Viktyuk.

STARS IN THE MORNING SKY, Contemporary Theater, Moscow. Galina Volchek directs a superbly acted indictment of the Brezhnev years, a play depicting how drunks, prostitutes and madmen were swept off the streets of Moscow and into exile as Soviet authorities polished up the capital on the eve of the 1980 Olympic Games.

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, Moscow Theater for Young Spectators. Soviet audiences are no longer shocked by Dostoyevsky's long-banned philosophical ramble or, for that matter, by the full frontal nudity staged by director Kama Ginkas.