Aleksandr Vampilov wrote only a handful of plays, but they defined his era sufficiently that "Vampilovian theater" and "the Vampilov hero" became standard phrases. In his life and his writing he expressed the hopes and frustrations of a generation that came to maturity during the "Thaw" that followed the death of Joseph Stalin. In drawing on traditional classics--critics often compare him to Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Nikolai Vasil'evich Gogol, Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, and Fyodor Dostoevsky--Vampilov was at the same time innovative for the theater of his day. He chose subjects that were not monumental or conventionally significant but, rather, that focused sharply on the irony, absurdity, and illogical "trifles" of inner life and the immense moral choices of day-to-day existence. Like Chekhov, Vampilov started his publishing career with humorous short stories, and they, like all his subsequent work, show a tolerance for, and even delight in, individual idiosyncrasies. He...