The Library of Congress transliteration system has been used throughout with some modifications. The apostrophe (’) has been omitted except where its absence may alter the meaning: for example, pust (empty) and pust’ (let it be) or byt (everyday life) and byt’ (to be). After soft and hard signs as well as after vowels and at the beginning of a word y not i is used for transliteration of ya/ia, yu/iu (e.g., antologiya, but Znamia; Yunost, but liubov). In the same positions the letters e and yo are transliterated without y (e.g., Evgeny Evtushenko, Elena, Soldatenkov, with an exception made for Semyon). Some exceptions are made for nouns ending in a soft sign and e or i (such as Poberezhye, Primorye, podmasterye) since without the y they become unrecognizable. In view of the fact that some personal names are given in the most common form (e.g., Brodsky), we decided to transliterate all surnames ending with -skii as -sky (e.g., Kublanovsky, Voznesensky, and Gorky). All surnames ending -aeva and -eeva are transliterated without a y (e.g., Nikolaeva, Matveeva, and Tsvetaeva). At the end of personal names ii with a short i is transliterated as y (e.g., Dmitry, Yury, and Nikolay).