I decided to write about something that I would be interested to learn myself. In this book I show what preparation for a game by a 2650 player looks like. In chess, we only see the game on the stage, and can only guess at what is hidden behind the scenes. Top players can't reveal this, nor can their seconds, so I decided - who, if not me? I show my preparation for games, accompanied by analyses that I consider enough to apply the opening line. I show how I outplay opponents, not with powerful opening preparation, but by leading them into positions that are pleasant for me or unpleasant for them. I explain things that many players do not pay attention to in terms of opening preparation and preparation for an opponent. Aleksandr Rakhmanov, May 2021.

This helpful chess handbook discusses how to build an opening repertoire and produce opening novelties. Additionally, it explores the connection between the opening and the later stages of the middlegame and the endgame.

Stanislavski’s ‘system’ has dominated actor-training in the West since his writings were first translated into English in the 1920s and 30s. His systematic attempt to outline a psycho-physical technique for acting single-handedly revolutionized standards of acting in the theatre. Until now, readers and students have had to contend with inaccurate, misleading and difficult-to-read English-language versions. Some of the mistranslations have resulted in profound distortions in the way his system has been interpreted and taught. At last, Jean Benedetti has succeeded in translating Stanislavski’s huge manual into a lively, fascinating and accurate text in English. He has remained faithful to the author's original intentions, putting the two books previously known as An Actor Prepares and Building A Character back together into one volume, and in a colloquial and readable style for today's actors. The result is a major contribution to the theatre, and a service to one of the great innovators of the twentieth century. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by the director Richard Eyre.

Under Stalin’s totalitarian leadership of the USSR, Soviet national identities with historical narratives were constructed. These constructions envisaged how nationalities should see their imaginary common past, and millions of people defined themselves according to them. This book explains how and by whom these national histories were constructed and focuses on the crucial episode in the construction of national identities of Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan from 1936 and 1945. A unique comparative study of three different case studies, this book reveals different aims and methods of nation construction, despite the existence of one-party rule and a single overarching official ideology. The study is based on work in the often overlooked archives in the Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan. By looking at different examples within the Soviet context, the author contributes to and often challenges current scholarship on Soviet nationality policies and Stalinist nation-building projects. He also brings a new viewpoint to the debate on whether the Soviet period was a project of developmentalist modernization or merely a renewed ‘Russian empire’. The book concludes that the local agents in the countries concerned had a sincere belief in socialism—especially as a project of modernism and development—and, at the same time, were strongly attached to their national identities. Claiming that local communist party officials and historians played a leading role in the construction of national narratives, this book will be of interest to historians and political scientists interested in the history of the Soviet Union and contemporary Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Building a Character is one of the three volumes that make up Stanislavski’s The Acting Trilogy. An Actor Prepares explores the inner preparation an actor must undergo in order to explore a role to the full. In this volume, Sir John Gielgud said, this great director “found time to explain a thousand things that have always troubled actors and fascinated students.” Building a Character discusses the external techniques of acting: the use of the body, movement, diction, singing, expression, and control. Creating a Role describes the preparation that precedes actual performance, with extensive discussions of Gogol’s The Inspector General and Shakespeare’s Othello. Sir Paul Scofield called Creating a Role “immeasurably important” for the actor. These three volumes belong on any actor’s short shelf of essential books.

To Stalin -Top Secret Summaries of the Most important testimonies of those arrested