What if the people of the United States held a vote on the greatest American and Charles Manson were the leading vote getter? Cathy Young has a disturbing piece on an Internet vote called "Name of Russia" sponsored by Russian state television on the greatest Russian. In first place is a man who was neither great nor Russian: Joseph Stalin. Whereas an outraged German recently swiped the head off a wax figurine of Adolf Hitler, Russians continue to lionize their mass murderer. This says less about Russian history than it says about Russia today. Tchaikovsky? Solzhenitzen? Gagarin? Dostoevsky?

Consider approximately 70 years of a population living in a world of Communist indoctrination and murderous terror. Now change that environment and how long will it take for these people to come out of the darkness?

I suppose Stalin's crimes against the Russian people are not mentioned -- or glossed over -- and he is presented as a great Russian patriot who saved his country from the Nazis. But then great butchers have a way of being heroes to their people. I'm sure Genghis Khan is still held in almost divine reverence by the Mongolian people today.

... Chekhov? Stravinsky? (whom some of us prefer to Tchaikovsky)

Alexander II emancipated the serfs. Of course he was blown in two by a bomb thrown by a leftist less than 20 years later.

Tolstoy and Chekhov would be my lit picks.

Pavel Chekov?

Wasn't he the navigator on the Starship Enterprise?

Great call on Tolstoy, Webster. Of course, I think Dan called it with Dostoevsky, as far as novels go, but Tolstoy is definitely a contender.

But, Anton Chekhov is considered by many to be the inventor of the modern play. (While I think the non-Russian Ibsen gives him competition for mastery.)

I gotta go with Dostoevsky. He is my favorite author of fiction.