“Who are you anyway, Reiner? Not a German, although – the whole Germany! Not a Czech, although he was born in the Czech Republic (NB! in a country that didn’t exist yet - that’s appropriate!), not an Austrian, because Austria was, and you will be! Well, isn't it wonderful? You have no homeland!” – Marina Tsvetaeva wrote to Rainer Maria Rilke. But the poet still had a homeland: not only that ineffable and eternal region of existence, to the knowledge of which poetry has been striving since ancient times, but also the fading old Europe, in which “all the color, all the rottenness of Empires” converged. In love with Russia, tender, broken and passionate, Rainer Maria Rilke became one of the most important poets of the 20th century. The collection “German Classics in Translations by Vladimir Letuchy” opens with a collection of Rilke’s brilliant prose - from the novel “Notes of Malte Laurids Brigge” to prose poems and “Stories about the Beloved God” reminiscent of sad parables.