RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK 2019

May 20–24 in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC

RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK 2019 presents a series of conversations featuring Russia’s acclaimed new authors, famed translators of Russian fiction, and leading Russian literature scholars and critics.  RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK 2019 will take place May 20-24 in literary venues across New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC – and, as always, online.

MONDAY, MAY 20                                                                          New York City

Read Russia presents: Olga Slavnikova                                                         

A conversation between Olga Slavnikova, author; Marian Schwartz, translator; and Ian Dreiblatt, poet and translator

Sponsored by the Russian Library / Columbia University Press

VENUE:
Grolier Club                                                                                        6:30 PM
47 East 60^th Street
New York, NY 10022

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TUESDAY, MAY 21                                                                         Washington, DC

Guzel Yakhina presents Zuleika

VENUE:                                                                                              TIME TBD
Kennan Institute
Woodrow Wilson Center
1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, DC 20004

Olga Slavnikova presents The Man Who Couldn’t Die
With Marian Schwartz, translator 
Sponsored by the Russian Library / Columbia University Press

VENUE:                                                                                              6:30 PM
East City Books
645 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Washington, DC 20003

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WEDNESDAY, MAY 22                                                                   Philadelphia

Olga Slavnikova presents The Man Who Couldn’t Die

With Marian Schwartz, translator 

Sponsored by the Russian Library / Columbia University Press

 

VENUE:                                                                                              6:30 PM
Penn Book Center
130 S 34^th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

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THURSDAY, MAY 23                                                                      New York City

On Vassily Grossman’s Stalingrad: A discussion with New York Review Books

VENUE:                                                                                              6:30 PM
Grolier Club
47 East 60^th Street
New York, NY 10022

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FRIDAY, MAY 24                                                                             New York City

Russian Library Board Meeting                                                         10:00 AM

Invitation-only

Olga Slavnikova presents The Man Who Couldn’t Die 

Guzel Yakhina presents Zuleika

A conversation with Olga Slavnikova, author; Guzel Yakhina, author; Lisa C. Hayden, translator; and Ian Dreiblatt, poet and translator

Co-sponsored by the Russian Library / Columbia University Press

VENUE:                                                                                              6:30 PM
Book Culture
536 West 112^th Street
New York, NY 10025

The READ RUSSIA PRIZE Jury is pleased to announce the winner of the 2018 READ RUSSIA PRIZE for the best translation of Russian literature into English!

WINNER:

Teffi (Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya)
Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea
Translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, Anne Marie Jackson, and Irina Steinberg
New York Review Books / Pushkin Press (2016)

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SPECIAL MENTIONS:

Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to Yankovsky
Edited by Bryan Karetnyk
Translated by Maria Bloshteyn, Robert Chandler, Justin Doherty, Boris Dralyuk, Rose France, Bryan Karetnyk, Dmitri Nabokov, Donald Rayfield, Irina Steinberg, and Anastasia Tolstoy
Penguin (2017)

Iliazd (Ilia Zdanevich)
Rapture
Translated by Thomas J. Kitson
Columbia University Press (2017)

The awards ceremony for the 2018 READ RUSSIA PRIZE was held during the 2018 London Book Fair on Wednesday, April 11 at Waterstones Piccadilly (203 – 206 Piccadilly), London, UNITED KINGDOM. 

ABOUT THE READ RUSSIA PRIZE

The READ RUSSIA PRIZE is awarded for works of Russian literature published in new English translations. All publishers of Russian literature in English translation may submit published works. Winners receive an award of up to $10,000, divided at the discretion of the Prize jury between the translator(s) of the work and the English-language publishing house. Previous winners include Oliver Ready, for his translation of the novel Before and During by Russian author Vladimir Sharov (Dedalus Books) and Joanna Turnbull and Nikolai Formozov for their translation of Autobiography of a Corpse, a collection of tales from Russian writer Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (New York Review Books). 

THE READ RUSSIA PRIZE JURY

Kevin M. F. Platt is Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania and a translator of Russian poetry.

Donald Rayfield is Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London, translator of Russian and Georgian works, and the author of, among other works, A Life of Anton Chekhov, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia, and Stalin and His Hangmen.

Anna Summers, a Moscow native, received her Ph.D. in Slavic Literatures from Harvard, has taught at Syracuse, Harvard, Boston College, Brown, and MIT, and has been translating Ludmila Petrushevskaya, Nikolai Gogol, Andrei Platonov, and other Russian authors for more than twenty years.

Jury Remarks on the Prize Winners

Teffi (Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya)
Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea

Like the memoirs of many other White Russian émigrés, Teffi’s travelogue is saturated with a melancholic nostalgia for a country and a way of life abandoned forever. At the same time, every page sparkles with irony and humor. This humor lifts the memoir beyond self-pity and fruitless mourning. Although Teffi’s brand of subtle humor – both self-deprecating and sly – tests the translator's skills, especially when, as here, it undergirds a great tragedy, Robert Chandler’s translation rises to this challenge, successfully negotiating the border between a gentle smile and a bitter tear without sounding either gruesome or overly jocular. Besides melancholy, an overwhelming terror permeates Teffi’s humorous vignettes. Early in the book, we meet the fearful Commissar H., a self-proclaimed lover of the arts and a particular fan of Teffi’s work, on whose good graces Teffi’s escape depends. He works for the Soviet secret police, the Cheka, and to mitigate the fear his figure inspires, Teffi employs synecdoche that reduces a gruesome executioner to “a nose in boots,” in Mr. Chandler’s wonderful translation, “a rhinopod.” The terror comes through at the end of the chapter, when the commissar accompanies Teffi home – a service she must accept; she notes that none of the nocturnal dangers appears “as frightening as the giant who was my guard.” This combination of humorous tropes with undiluted fear presents another stylistic challenge to a translator, and Mr. Chandler copes admirably. Thanks to a precise and inventive labor of translation, this important moment in history, more often depicted in the key of pretentious historical drama or elegiac lament, is now presented to English readers in all of its absurdity and irony – the hallmark features of Teffi’s inimitable prose style.

Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to Yankovsky
Edited by Bryan Karetnyk

Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to Yankovsky is a rich anthology of short stories by authors from the first wave of Russian emigration following the 1917 revolutions. This was a vast exodus, comprised largely of educated Russian elites who found themselves in Paris, Berlin, Shanghai, Harbin and other suddenly vibrant centers of diasporic Russian cultural life. Editor and lead translator Bryan Karetnyk has done a marvelous job of selecting authors and works in order to present a snapshot of the very large literary output of the emigration, including well-known figures such as Ivan Bunin and Vladimir Nabokov alongside others whose more recent rediscovery has led to a certain fame, such as Nina Berberova, as well as still other subtle and important authors whose legacies have been less fortunate, such as Irina Guadanini and Dovid Knut. The translations, most of which were commissioned for this volume or carried out by Karetnyk himself, maintain a high standard of literary quality and precision. Admirably equipped with biographical and explanatory notes, this anthology presents to the Anglophone reader, for the first time, a unified representation of the authors and disparate, yet interlinked cultural contexts of first-wave Russian emigration.

Iliazd (Ilia Zdanevich)
Rapture

Ilia Zdanevich’s Rapture is perhaps the only piece of Russian futurist or primitivist prose to win broad acclaim, and Thomas J. Kitson’s fine version is its first English translation, reprehensibly overdue after nearly 100 years. Ilia Zdanevich had a Georgian mother, lived mostly in Georgia, and effectively wrote on a typical Georgian theme, the vengeance of an outlawed and isolated bandit. The novel echoes Georgian folk epics, and yet is the climax of the Russian tradition of novels set in the lawless Caucasus. Although futuristic in its style (from abandoning punctuation to including unprintable words), the novel’s pagan narrative has the same hypnotizing effect on the reader as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Kitson does not put a foot wrong, in a translation so accurate and sensitive that it is unlikely to be superseded.

RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK 2017 presents a series of panels, screenings, and in-person conversations featuring some of Russia’s most acclaimed new authors, famed translators of Russian fiction, and several of the world’s leading Russian literature scholars and literary critics.

RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK 2017 will take place May 1-6 in literary venues across New York City including Book Culture, the Strand Bookstore, New York University, Columbia University, the Grolier Club, and the Russian Samovar restaurant – and, as always, online.

MONDAY – MAY 1

7:00 pm (doors open at 6:30 pm)
The Russian Literary Matrix: Contemporary Russian Writers Reflect on the Classics
Lisa Hayden, Vadim Levental, Marina Stepnova, Maya Kucherskaya, Pavel Basinsky, Andrei Gelasimov
The Grolier Club
47 E 60th St, New York, NY 10022

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Online film screening: The Black Monk by Anton Chekhov

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TUESDAY – MAY 2

4:30 pm
The Art of Translation: A Literary Roundtable
with Ruth Franklin, Antonina W. Bouis, Tom Kitson, Marian Schwartz, and Lisa Hayden
Co-sponsored by Columbia University Press, the Columbia University Slavic Department, and the Harriman Institute
Kellogg Center, Columbia University
420 W 118th St, New York, NY 10027

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7:00 pm (doors open at 6:30 pm)
Russian Writers in Conversation (in Russian)
Pavel Basinsky, Vadim Levental, Andrei Gelasimov, Marina Stepnova, Maya Kucherskaya
Saint-Petersburg Trade House, New York
261 5th Ave, New York, NY 10016

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6:00 pm
RUSSIAN LIBRARY Launch Party
Jennifer Crewe, Christine Dunbar, Caryl Emerson, Stephanie Sandler, Vsevolod Bagno, Vladimir Grigoriev, Peter B. Kaufman
Co-sponsored by Columbia University Press
Casa Italiana, Columbia University
1161 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027

Online film screening: The Black Monk by Anton Chekhov

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WEDNESDAY – MAY 3

7:00 pm (doors open at 6:30 pm)
Gender & Power in Russian Literature 
Ian Dreiblatt, Maya Kucherskaya, Marina Stepnova
The Strand Book Store
828 Broadway, New York, NY 10003

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7:00 pm (doors open at 6:30 pm)
New Works from Russia: A Literary Roundtable
Marian Schwartz, Andrei Gelasimov, Lisa Hayden, Vadim Levental, Pavel Basinsky, Anna Summers, Michael Wise
Book Culture
536 W 112th St, New York, NY 10025

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Online film screening: Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

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THURSDAY – MAY 4

5:00 pm
What is Old is New: On Iliazd’s RAPTURE, the Sensational 1930s Novel
Tom Kitson, Jenn Wilson
In association with PEN AMERICA and the RUSSIAN LIBRARY 
Jordan Center – NYU
19 University Place, New York, NY 10003

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7:00 PM
The Russian Literary Matrix II: Literature & the Russian Revolution at 100
Vadim Levental, Jonathan Brent
Norwood Club

READ RUSSIA PRIZE 2017 Announcement & Cocktail Reception with Russian Authors
Norwood Club
241 W 14th St, New York, NY 10011

A SPECIAL READING: Elif Batuman presents The Idiot
Elif Batuman has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2010. She is the author of The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. The recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, and a Paris Review Terry Southern Prize for Humor, she also holds a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford University. The Idiot is her first novel.

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Online film screening: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

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FRIDAY – MAY 5

RUSSIAN LIBRARY
Editorial Advisory Board Meeting (INVITATION ONLY)
Columbia University Press

7:00pm (doors open at 6.30pm)
Moscow, Petersburg & Russian Literature
Vsevolod Bagno, Solomon Volkov
Book Culture
536 W 112th St, New York, NY 10025

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Online film screening: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

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SATURDAY – MAY 6

11:00 am
The Politics of Russian Literary Translation: Brunch with the Experts

Russian Literature in Translation: Why These Wars? Why Such Violence?
Oliver Ready and Caryl Emerson

Russian Samovar
256 W 52nd St, New York, NY 10019

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Online film screening: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

At the 2017 London Book Fair, March 14-16, Read Russia will showcase more than 450 new titles – with a focus on works by Russian writers whose major anniversaries are being celebrated in 2017, among them Bella Akhmadulina, Valentin Kataev, Vladimir Makanin, Konstantin Paustovsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, and Maximilian Voloshin.

The public program will include talks and discussions with Russian writers, presentations of new translations of Russian literary works into English, and announcements of new funding opportunities for publishers and translators.  Renowned British literary translators Arch Tait, Donald Rayfield, and John Farndon will present their newest works, and Read Russia will host a series of conversations with award-winning writers Alexey Ivanov, Valery Bochkov, Alisa Ganieva, Marina Stepnova, and Vadim Levental. Film screenings include “My Own Honor Bright,” directed by Alexander Karpilovsky, based on the book by Mikhail Seslavinsky; and “The Backbone of Russia,” Alexey Ivanov’s four-episode documentary series produced with journalist, television host, and director Leonid Parfenov and producer Julia Zaitseva, exploring the culture of the Urals.

Read Russia events will be held at the Russian stand at Olympia and at London cultural venues including Waterstones Piccadilly and Pushkin House.

Tuesday, March 14

11:00 – 12:00
Opening of the Russian National Stand
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 F111
Language: Russian with English translation

12:30 – 13:00
Presentation. The Read Russia Prize – celebrating the best translations of Russian literature
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Stand 5 F111
Language: Russian with English translation

14:00 -15:00
Roundtable discussion. How to Make Russian Literature Even More Popular
Participants: Julia Goumen, literary agent; literary translators Donald Rayfield and Arch Tait; and Karina Karmenian, Director of St. James's Publishing and Russian Children's Book Festival
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Stand 5 F111
Language: English

15:00 – 16:00
Book presentation. Hamid Ismailov's Dance of Devils
Participants: Hamid Ismailov, writer and journalist, Head of BBC Central Asia and Caucasus Service; and Donald Rayfield, author, historian, literary translator
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Stand 5 F111
Language: English

18:00 – 19:30
New Faces of Modern Russian Literature
Participants: Authors Alisa Ganieva, Aleksey Ivanov, Vadim Levental, and Valery Bochkov
Moderator: Olga Aminova, Editor at EKSMO Publishers
Venue: Rossotrudnichestvo, First floor, 37 Kensington High Street, London W8 5ED
Language: Russian
RSVP: readrussialbf2017@gmail.com, +44 (0)207 937 3355
Reception to follow

Wednesday, March 15

11:00 – 12:00
In Conversation with: Valery Bochkov, on his dystopian novels The Coronation of the Beast, Kharon, The Ferryman of Hell, and The Time of the Water
Special guest: Valery Bochkov, author
Moderator: Olga Aminova, Editor at EKSMO
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 F111
Language: Russian with English translation

12:00 – 13:00
Aletheiya Publishers, Glagoslav Publications, and the Institute for Literary Translation present Shards from the Polar Ice by Lydia Grigorieva (in Russian and English)
Participants: Lydia Grigorieva, poet; John Farndon, translator; Maxim Hodak, Director of Glagoslav Publications; and Tatiana Savkina, Director of Aletheiya Publishers
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Stand 5 F111
Language: Russian with English translation

13:00 – 14:00
Glagoslav Publications presents Tsunami by Anatoly Kurchatkin
Participants: Maxim Hodak, Director of Glagoslav Publications; and Arch Tait, literary translator
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Stand 5 F111
Language: English

14:00 – 15:00
Citata Plus publisher presents Yaroslavl – Exeter: Twin Cities
Participants: Natalia Gubina, author, and R. John Shepherd, editor
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Stand 5 F111
Language: Russian with English translation

15:00 – 16:00
In conversation with: Alexey Ivanov on the history of Russia
Special guest: Alexey Ivanov, author
Moderator: Alexander Kan, cultural historian and BBC broadcaster
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Stand 5 F111
Language: Russian with English translation

19:00 – 20:30
Youth in Literature: In Conversation with Russian Writers Vadim Levental, Marina Stepnova, and Alisa Ganieva
Chairperson: Natalia Rubinstein, journalist and literary critic
Venue: Pushkin House, 5a Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2TA
Language: Russian with English translation

Thursday, March 16

11:00 – 12:00
In Conversation with: Marina Stepnova on Family Values
Special guest: Julia Goumen, literary agent; and Marina Stepnova, writer
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 F111
Language: Russian with English translation

12.00 – 13.30
The Storytellers. In Fall 2016 six British and Russian artists shared an epic journey on the Trans–Siberian Express, writing music, fiction and poetry that reflected their experiences and performing for the public along the way.  Writers Joe Dunthorne and Andrew Dickson (Britain), and Alisa Ganieva (Russia) reflect on their adventure with breathtaking film footage from Arseny Khachaturyan. Organized by the British Council as part of the UK-Russia Year of Language and Literature 2016.
Chair: Doug Wallace, Creative Director of the UK–Russia Year of Literature and Language 2016
Sponsored by the British Council
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Stand 5 F111
Language: English

19:00 – 20.00
An evening dedicated to Cherubina de Gabriak
Venue: Rossotrudnichestvo, First floor, 37 Kensington High Street, London W8 5ED
Language: Russian

19:00 – 20.30
In conversation with: writer Alexey Ivanov with a film screening of The Backbone of Russia (with English subtitles)
Chair: Natalia Rubinstein, journalist and literary critic
Venue: The Russian Bookshop at Waterstones Piccadilly, 203–206 Piccadilly, London, W1V 9LE, 4^th Floor
Language: Russian
RSVP: readrussialbf2017@gmail.com

by Olivia Kennison

Russian readers, both scholarly and amateur, consider the literary heroes of their country in a way wholly different from that of Americans. One can sense this when entering a Russian literary museum, of which there are hundreds across the country. In Saint Petersburg alone one can visit the former apartments of Anna Akhmatova, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vladimir Nabokov, and their common ancestor, Alexander Pushkin, which have all been turned into museums housing some portion of their earthly possessions. For Russians these museums, always located in a former residence of the writer, allow them to pay a pilgrimage to the artist that has brought beauty and history into their lives. A museum dedicated to Joseph Brodsky was opened for one day in Saint Petersburg in 2015, in the minuscule communal apartment in which he spent his childhood, and over 5,000 people lined up outside for the chance to walk through his halls and admire the papers he left behind. The cultural importance of writers and poets in Russia is strong, and it is the goal of the Literary Matrix series to ensure that this outlook on national literature is passed to the next generation.

Subtitled “the textbook written by writers,” the Literary Matrix series spans four volumes dedicated to discrete eras in Russian literature: the nineteenth century (ХIХ Век), the twentieth century (ХХ Век), and the Soviet period (Советская Атлантида), and a final volume titled Extracurricular Reading (Внеклассное чтение). Meant to provide an alternative to Russian classroom fare, these books contain literary articles by contemporary writers about canonical writers and poets included in Russian literature curricula. The articles are written with this specific audience in mind: secondary school and university students enrolled in literature classes. The Extracurricular Reading volume explores writers who are usually left out of standard literature programs.

In these books contemporary Russian writers and journalists choose writers from decades or centuries past and survey their biography and artistic life, usually tracking how the writer in question’s work changed or progressed through the years. Each author has chosen his or her subject for a reason that quickly becomes clear while reading his or her article; in most cases, this reason is deep love and respect for the artist and work. Literary critic Maya Kucherskaya writes about the poet Nikolai Nekrasov in her essay “The Danse Macabre of Nikolai Nekrasov.” Author Vladimir Sharov discusses Andrei Platonov in “The People of Andrei Platonov.” Marina Stepanova, a poet and publisher well known in the West for her efforts to promote press freedom in Russia, describes the life and legacy of poet Marina Tsvetaeva in her essay “Living Wage.” The authors are careful to set the writer in historical context and provide quotations from contemporaries to accurately illustrate the public and private lives of the subjects. It is worth noting that the volume dedicated to the Soviet period focuses specifically on those writers who were officially recognized by the government at the time. Articles about anti-Soviet and censored writers can be found in the XX Век volume.

These articles draw on the Russian tradition of literature: one of passionate devotion and intimacy. In Russian literature classes it is not uncommon for professors to call prominent writers and poets simply by name and patronymic, and it is the responsibility of the student to know exactly who is being mentioned, despite the fact that (God knows) Russian names do not run the gamut of creativity, and certain first names pop up again and again. Despite this, students and professors refer to writers in friendly, informal terms because these writers have been with them in one way or another for most of their lives. It is in this style that authors in the Literary Matrix series write about the giants of Russian literature. This intimacy is especially noticeable and touching in Svetlana Bodrunova’s piece about Anna Akhmatova, titled “It Is Only Possible to Judge by the Right of Love.” Bodrunova writes in the introduction that analysis of Akhmatova is difficult, but Bodrunova feels that she can try because of the great love she has for the poet. At the end of the article, she writes a poem to Akhmatova, written in the subject’s style, which she is allowed to write “by the right of love.” She feels personal ownership for the body of work Akhmatova produced (Russians have a much better word for the sum of the work an artist created in his or her lifetime – tvorchestvo) and is proud to have the responsibility of presenting her to less knowledgeable readers. In another article titled “His Own Man,” popular Russian poet and activist Dmitry Bykov writes about Maxim Gorky by focusing on Gorky’s popularity among contemporary readers and the political and cultural power he wielded for decades at the beginning of the twentieth century. This article draws less on the emotional attachment of the author to the subject and more on the phenomenon of enduring popular acclaim that led to Gorky becoming canonized as one of the greats in Russian literature. Bykov is particularly interested in tracking how the Soviet government censored Gorky’s biography in the decades following his death: the information withheld or offered during certain eras reveals nuances of the social climate at the time. These articles set the subject into a fully realized context and are sure to pay respect to the breadth of work produced and the boundless effect each had on Russian culture and history, and suggest specific work that may be of interest to readers.

 It is difficult to think of authors in the American canon that are adored and respected on the scale the Literary Matrix series presents. In Lydia Ginzburg’s Blockade Diary, an account of the siege of Leningrad that led to the starvation of a quarter of the city’s population, she writes that everyone who could manage to read would pore avidly over War and Peace. They found impossible warmth and comfort in the pages of Tolstoy, who gave them tools with which to survive famine and sickness. What work of American literature can be said to have helped so many during such hardship?

The Literary Matrix series demonstrates the intensity of Russian devotion to its writers while also persuading the reader to dive deeper into the subject of each piece. These volumes make it clear that the life of a writer is just as important to preserve as the work produced. Reading these articles is like looking in the window while the author and the subject revel together in the beauty of prose and poetry and share their devotion for Russian literary tradition. Young Russian students experiencing not only the work of the writers assigned in school, but also reading these articles written by popular contemporary writers, will emerge with a much more fully developed portrait of the giants of literature and the effect that each has had on national culture and artistic life.  We believe a translation of these volumes should be in the works, too, because English-speaking readers would stand much to gain as well.

Olivia Kennison is a senior at Bard College, where she is studying Russian language and literature. She held a summer 2016 summer internship at Read Russia.  

An Overview of the Inaugural Russian Library Titles

By Christine Dunbar

One of the defining features of the Russian Library is its generic diversity. This is particularly significant for an Anglophone audience, because we tend to think of the Russian literary tradition as one that derives its greatness from novels, primarily the 19th century masterpieces of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Others think first of Chekhov’s fin-de-siècle plays, which have become part of the Western canon in large part because of their connection to Stanislavsky and eventually to method acting. Russians, and for that matter, scholars of Russian, are more likely to consider poetry the best and most powerful iteration of Russian letters.

The first three books in the Russian Library will publish in December, and while the three have much in common—linguistic virtuosity being the most obvious example—they amply demonstrate the profusion of genres that make up Russian literature. Before going any farther, let me digress momentarily to admit that I am and will be referring to genre in a fairly unsophisticated manner. I believe that it is generally more productive to think of a work as exhibiting certain generic characteristics, rather than belonging to a genre. However, obeying the generic conventions of the blog post, I’m not going to get too hung up on it here.

Andrei Platonov (1899-1951) was a supporter of the 1917 revolution, and in both his best-known novel The Foundation Pit and the plays in the Russian Library volume Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays one can see his sympathy for the dream of communism, even as he absolutely eviscerates the policies and realities of the contemporary Soviet Union. Fourteen Little Red Huts and Other Plays contains two plays written in the early 1930s as direct reactions to the travails of collectivization and the resulting famine. (Estimates vary, but most place the death toll of the famine at between 5.5 and 8 million.)

While the subject matter is undeniably grim, The Hurdy-Gurdy andFourteen Little Red Huts are remarkable for their humor, both a slapstick, physical humor (especially in the first title) that recalls Beckett and a linguistic humor, founded on the disconnect between lofty Soviet slogans and wretched everyday conditions. This latter form proves very productive in art throughout the Soviet period, even when the suffering of the people becomes less acute. You can see it, for instance, in the late Soviet period in the sots-art movement in the visual arts and the poetry of the Moscow conceptualists. It is also a technique used in the next of our inaugural Russian Library titles.

Stalin, who once wrote “Scum” in the margin of one of Platonov’s works, died in 1953, and a brief period of relative liberalization followed, commonly referred to as the Khrushchev Thaw. The Sinyavsky-Daniel trial, which took place in 1966, is seen as one of the markers of the end of the Thaw. (Brezhnev took power in 1964.) Andrei Sinyavsky and Yulii Daniel were accused and convicted of publishing material abroad that undermined the reputation of the Soviet Union. The trial itself hearkened back to the show trials of the Stalin era, and significantly, fiction by the defendants was used as evidence of their guilt, which was unprecedented. The outcry in the West was acute.

Sinyavsky served six years in the gulag, and during this time, he wrote Strolls with Pushkin in letters to his wife. Given how integral the quotations from Pushkin are to the text, this is remarkable, as is, indeed, the text as a whole. Sinyavsky published Strolls under his pseudonym Abram Tertz, which is one clue that the book is not a straightforward work of literary criticism. Tertz is a maverick, even an outlaw (the pseudonym is borrowed from Abrashka Tertz, a Jewish bandit from an Odessa thieves’ song). Sinyavsky himself called it a work of “fantastic literary scholarship,” a kind of analog to the “fantastic realism” whose publication abroad had caused him such trouble. Sinyavsky ignores not only the arguments of Soviet scholars who positioned Pushkin as a kind of proto-communist but any outside evidence at all, insisting on taking the poet seriously on his own terms. But this is not some kind of latter-day New Criticism, where nothing outside of the poem matters, or an attempt to declare the death of the author (though death, for Pushkin, will come soon enough). Sinyavsky’s declared goal is to get at the essence of what makes Pushkin so great, and facts of biography, poetry, and politics are only helpful insofar as they support him in this goal. For instance, one of the hallmarks of Pushkin’s verse is its effervescent effortlessness. Evidence that Pushkin labored over drafts, used by some scholars to show that Pushkin was not in fact an aristocratic flibberdigibet, but rather a something of a shock-worker, and by others to show that he was a serious and deep thinker, gets in the way of Sinyavsky’s narrative, so he refuses to believe it, manuscript evidence be damned.

The final inaugural Russian Library title, Between Dog and Wolf by Sasha Sokolov, seems at first glance like a straightforward novel, if one with an unreliable, and not particularly literate, narrator. But as the instability of the narrative line becomes more apparent, even generic boundaries start to break down. Whole chapters, for instance, consist of nothing but poetry.

Like Platonov and Sinyavsky, Sasha Sokolov was profoundly affected, and restricted, by Soviet reality. Sokolov was born in 1943 in Canada, where his father was attached to the Soviet embassy, but he grew up in Moscow. He had some success in both unofficial and official literary circles, but was briefly jailed after an unsuccessful attempt to flee the Soviet Union over the Iranian border. His father’s connections saved him from having to serve a long sentence, and he went to work as a gamekeeper in the Tver region. It was here that he wrote A School for Fools, which would become his most famous novel, and gathered the impressions that would so influenceBetween Dog and Wolf. Sokolov was finally given permission to emigrate in 1975, after his then wife, the Austrian Johanna Steindl staged a hunger strike. He lived briefly in Austria before settling in the States, and has lived in North America ever since.

Between Dog and Wolf has been called untranslatable, and Alexander Boguslawski’s accomplishment with this translation cannot be overstated. The world of the novel is built on word play and literary allusions, with plot, that most easily of conveyed elements, hidden well in the background. Even the prose chapters—the majority of the book—make constant use of what we often think of as poetic devices. Sokolov has called this writing “proetry,” a mix of prose and poetry (it sounds better in Russian, I promise). The literature generally describes Between Dog and Wolf as a modernist novel, with an oft-repeated comparison to Finnegans Wake, but much of it is built around that moment of recognition, so central to the delight of reading postmodern literature. (Yes, I realize this is something of a straw man argument, especially if you think of that recognition as a kind of Nietzschean eternal return, and then there’s the whole question of whether Joyce is more modernist, postmodernist, or ultramodernist….)

I hope this brief introduction to the three inaugural Russian Library titles has demonstrated the wide range of Russian literature that the series will publish. The 19th century novels are great, and world literature would look very different without them (see, for instance,last week’s Thursday Fiction Corner for an example Dostoevsky’s influence). But Russian literature has even more to offer.

Read Russia is pleased to present the program of activities at the London Book Fair in honor of the Russia – United Kingdom Year of Language and Literature 2016:

 

Monday, April 11

18:00 – 20:00
Meet the Authors: Guzel Yakhina and Alexander Snegirev
Theme: Reflections of Russia’s Past and Present in Contemporary Literature
Venue: Pushkin House, 5a Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2TA
Language: Russian

18:30 – 20:00
Homage to Osip Mandelstam on his 125th Birthday. Book presentation, My Friend Osip Mandelstam: Selected Illustrated Bibliography and Autographs
Speaker: Mikhail Seslavinsky, Head of the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications
Venue: Rossotrudnichestvo, First floor, 37 Kensington High Street, London W8 5ED
Language: Russian

Tuesday, April 12

11:00 – 11:30
Official opening of the Russian national stand at the London Book Fair
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: Russian with English translation

12:00 – 13:30
Roundtable discussion. On the Translation of Contemporary and Classical Literature
Participants: Translators Donald Rayfield, Arch Tait and James Rann
Moderator: Maria Skachkova, Grants and Contracts Officer, Institute for Literary Translation
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

14:00 – 15:00
Roundtable discussion. The Genius of Varlam Shalamov's work – How Can It Be Conveyed in Translation?
Participants: Translators Donald Rayfield and Robert Chandler
Moderator: Maria Skachkova, Grants and Contracts Officer, Institute for Literary Translation
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

15:00 – 15:30
Presentation of Russia Beyond the Headlines Education section: Where to Learn More about Russian Universities, Educational Programs, Internships and Other Opportunities
Presenter: Representative of Russia Beyond the Headlines
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX,Stand 5 D169
Language: English

15:30 – 16:30
Presentation. Teffi (1872-1952) – Tragedian or Humorist?
Participants: Robert Chandler
Moderator: Maria Skachkova, Grants and Contracts Officer, Institute for Literary Translation
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

16:30 – 17:30
Roundtable organized by Russia Beyond the Headlines: How to Make Russian Literature More Popular in the UK?
Participants: Grigory Ryzhakov, writer, Valentina Polukhina, Russian Poets Fund founder, Rosamund Bartlett, translator, Robert Chandler, translator, Larissa Itina, Anglo-Russia Culture Club founder, Peter B. Kaufman, President & Executive Director of Read Russia
Moderator: George Butchard, translator and editor for Russia Beyond the Headlines
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

18:00 – 19:30
The Healing Power of Love. Images of Russian Women in Writings of Contemporary Russian Authors
Participants: Writers Andrei Gelasimov, Alexander Snegirev, Guzel Yakhina, and Andrey Astvatsaturov
Venue: Rossotrudnichestvo, First floor, 37 Kensington High Street, London W8 5ED
Language: Russian

Wednesday, April 13

09:30 – 10:00
Presentation of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Centre in Yekaterinburg
Participants: Alexander Drozdov, Executive Director of the Yeltsin Centre
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

10:00 – 11:00
The Big Book Prize presents: Guzel Yakhina - A New Name in Russian Literature
Participants: Guzel Yakhina, writer
Moderator: Georgy Urushadze, Director, Big Book Prize
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: Russian with English translation

11:00 – 12:00
In Conversation: Writers Andrei Gelasimov and Irina Muravyova
Theme: The Problem of Moral Choice
Moderator: Olga Aminova, editor, Eksmo Publishing House
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: Russian with English translation

12:00 – 12:30
The British Council’s new translation competition for emerging translators and a publishing bursary scheme as part of The UK-Russia Year of Language and Literature 2016
Participants: Cortina Butler, Director Literature, British Council, Doug Wallace, Creative Director, UK-Russia Year of Language and Literature, Sophie Rochester, Founder, The Literary Platform
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

12:30 – 13:30
Presentation: The Moscow Metro as Literary Object, or Race Relations in the Last Years of the Soviet Union
Participants: Hamid Ismailov, author, journalist, BBC World Service Writer-in-Residence
Moderator: Carol Ermakova, translator
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

13:30 – 14:30
In conversation: Love and Pain: Alexander Snegirev’s Prose
Participants: Alexander Snegirev, writer
Moderator: Olga Aminova, editor, Eksmo Publishing House
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: Russian with English translation

14:30 – 15:30
In conversation: Without Ties to the Homeland. The Fate of the Russian Writer in Exile
Participants: Irina Muravyova, writer
Moderator: Olga Aminova, editor, Eksmo Publishing House
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: Russian with English translation

15:30 – 16:00
Presentation. The Read Russia English Translation Prize and Russian Literature Week
Participants: Peter B. Kaufman, President & Executive Director of Read Russia
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

16:30 – 17:00
Presentation. The Russian Library
Participants: Jennifer Crewe, Director of Columbia University Press, and Peter B. Kaufman, President & Executive Director of Read Russia
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

17:00 – 18:00
Presentation. Thinking about Learning Russian but Would Rather Read Detective Stories? You Can Do Both with New Unconventional Russian Language Textbooks
Participants: Ignaty Dyakov, Russian language trainer, textbook writer, finalist of "The best Russian language teacher outside of Russia" award, member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and the Society of Authors (UK)
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

18:30 – 20:00
New Faces of Modern Russian Literature: Alisa Ganieva and Andrey Astvatsaturov Discuss Modernism and Tradition in Contemporary Russian Prose
With the generous support of the British Council
Venue: The Russian Bookshop at Waterstones Piccadilly, 203-206 Piccadilly, London, W1V 9LE
Language: Russian

Thursday, April 14

09:30 – 10:00
Presentation. The 11th International Saint Petersburg Book Fair
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

10:00 – 10:30
Presentation. The 28th International Moscow Book Fair
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

10:30 – 11:00
Presentation. The Boris Yeltsin Presidential Centre’s Publishing Programmes
Participants: Alexander Drozdov, Executive Director of the Yeltsin Centre
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

11:00 – 11:30
Presentation. From the Archive: Writing the History of Russian Contemporary Art
Participants: Ruth Addison, Chief Editor, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

12:00 – 13:00
Presentation. Russian Book Market: Status, Trends and Economic Crisis
Participants: Evgeny Kapyev, Eksmo Nonfiction Director
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

11:30 – 12:30
Alisa Ganieva in conversation with Sasha Dugdale
Participants: Alisa Ganieva, writer, and Sasha Dugdale, poet, translator
Sponsored by the British Council
Venue: The PEN Literary Salon (opposite Foyles Bookshop), Level One of the Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX
Language: English

13:00 – 14:00
Roundtable. The Past and the Present through the Eyes of Contemporary Russian Writers
Participants: Alisa Ganieva, Andrei Gelasimov
Moderator: Sasha Dugdale
With the generous support of the British Council
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

14:00 – 15:00
Presentation by Russia Beyond the Headlines. Leo Tolstoy: A Modern-Day Star
Participants: Oleg Tolstoy, photographer, and Phoebe Taplin, journalist
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

15:00 – 15:30
Presentation by Russia Beyond the Headlines. Russian Walks in London with Phoebe Taplin
Participants: Phoebe Taplin
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre, Hammersmith Road, London W14 8 UX, Stand 5 D169
Language: English

18:30 – 20:00
Is There Life in Children's Literature? The Launch of the Competition «Kniguru in Britain» and the Russian Children's Book Festival
Participants: Nina Dashevskaya, musician and writer, winner of Kniguru Awards; Georgy Urushadze, Director of the Russian Literature Centre and Kniguru Awards; Karine Karmenyan, Director of the Russian Children's World project and the Director of St James's Publishing Ltd.
The Russian Bookshop at Waterstones Piccadilly, 203-206 Piccadilly, London, W1V 9LE
Language: Russian with English translation

19:00 – 20:30
Meet the Authors: Literary Works of Andrei Gelasimov and Andrey Astvatsaturov as a Reflection of the Russian Soul
Venue: Pushkin House, 5a Bloomsbury Square, London, WC1A 2TA
Language: English

18:00 – 19:00
Seminar. Partnership Network of the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute: New Opportunities for Studying and Teaching Russian
Venue: Rossotrudnichestvo, First floor, 37 Kensington High Street, London W8 5ED
Language: Russian

19:00 – 20:15
Alisa Ganieva: Challenging Russia’s Narrative
Participants: Alisa Ganieva, Imtiaz Dharker, Kirsty Lang (chair)
Sponsored by the British Council
Venue: Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA
Language: English

Every day from 11:00 till 16:00 at the Russian stand at the London Book Fair: Consultation on Russian Language Distance Learning
Consultant: Marina Beloborodova, Pushkin State Russian Language Institute

Official Website of the London Book Fair: www.londonbookfair.co.uk
Lead media sponsors: Russia Beyond the Headlines http://rbth.com/
The Kompass: http://thekompass.rbth.co.uk/

For aditional information, please contact Tatiana Voskovskaya at the Yeltsin Centre (+7-495-229-75-89, tatyananv@fonde.ru) and Anastasia Kornienko at the Institute for Literary Translation (+7-495-915-33-05, akornienko@institutperevoda.ru)

Read Russia is pleased to announce the launch of RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK 2015, the second in an annual series of live and online events and publications every December celebrating & promoting the translation of classic & contemporary Russian literature into English. 

Described more formally as “a celebration of Russian literature in translation featuring distinguished authors, translators, editors, publishers, journalists, filmmakers, broadcasters, & arts, education, and cultural institutions,” RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK 2015 will celebrate & promote in particular new translations of Russian literature and new film and online initiatives about Russian literature and book culture from publishers and producers large and small.

RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK 2015 will run December 7-11, 2015, and include readings, panel presentations, roundtables, discussions, plus online events & film screenings.  Leading authors, publishers, & translators will preside over our New York City events.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7

4:00 – 5:30 PM
Eugene Vodolazkin, author, on his new novel LAURUS and his research in Old Russian
NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia
New York University
19 University Place, 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10003

Eugene Vodolazkin presents Laurus, his first novel to be translated into English, and talks about the relationship between his personal writing and his work in Old Russian Literature, folklore, and medieval history — two worlds he never thought would collide. He will also discuss why interest in medieval history and literature is experiencing a resurgence. Laurus tells the story of a late-15th-century Russian village healer, devastated by the death of his beloved in childbirth, who embarks on a journey of redemption that brings him face-to-face with a host of eccentric characters and legendary creatures from bizarre medieval bestiaries. The novel won both the Yasnaya Polyana Award and the Big Book Award when it was first published in Russian in 2012, and it has been compared to both Umberto Eco’s writing and The Canterbury Tales.

Co-sponsored by the Institute of Literary Translation

RSVP

6:00 – 8:00 PM
Vladimir Sharov, author, BEFORE AND DURING, in conversation with Oliver Ready, 2015 READ RUSSIA PRIZE laureate, translator, and fellow, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and Dmitry Bak, Director, Russian’s State Museum for Literature
Soho House
29-35 Ninth Ave
New York, NY 10014

A lively discussion about literature, translation, and Russia’s literary traditions between prizewinning novelist Vladimir Sharov, celebrated translator and Oxford University fellow Oliver Ready, and Dmitry Bak, Director of Russia’s State Museum for Literature.

Co-sponsored by the Institute of Literary Translation

RSVP

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TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8

6:00 – 8:00 PM
The Real Story of Doctor Zhivago
Peter Finn, author and Washington Post National Security Editor, and Marian Schwartz, translator
Poets House
10 River Terrace
New York, NY 10282

An intimate conversation about Boris Pasternak, his prose, and his poetry – between Peter Finn, journalist and the author of The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden Book, and Marian Schwartz, one of Russian literature’s leading translators.

This event is made possible through Poets House's Literary Partners Program
Co-sponsored by Russia Beyond the Headlines & the Russian Library

RSVP

7:00 – 8:30 PM
THE DOCUMENTARY NOVEL (in Russian) –  Leonid Yuzefovich, author – interviewed by Vadim Yarmolinets, author
InfoCommons Lab
Brooklyn Public Library/Central Library
10 Grand Army Plaza
Brooklyn, NY 11238

An in-depth conversation with Leonid Yuzefovich, one of Russia’s leading authors, led by journalist and fiction writer Vadim Yarmolinets.

Co-sponsored by the Brooklyn Public Library

RSVP

7:00 – 9:00 PM
Eugene Vodolazkin and translator Lisa Hayden in conversation about LAURUS
BookCourt
163 Court St
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Eugene Vodolazkin discusses Laurus, his first novel to appear in English, with the book's translator, Lisa Hayden.
Laurus tells the story of a late-15th-century Russian village healer, devastated by the death of his beloved in childbirth, who embarks on a journey of redemption that brings him face-to-face with a host of eccentric characters and legendary creatures from bizarre medieval bestiaries. The novel won both the Yasnaya Polyana Award and the Big Book Award when it was first published in Russian in 2012, and it has been compared to both Umberto Eco’s writing and The Canterbury Tales.

Co-sponsored by the Institute of Literary Translation, the Bridge Series, and the PEN America Translation Committee

RSVP

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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9

6:30 – 8:30 PM
RUSSIA’S 2015 YEAR OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE: A CELEBRATION (INVITATION ONLY)
Featuring Dmitry Petrov, host, “Polyglot,” Kultura TV
Consulate General
Russian Federation
9 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128
RECEPTION TO FOLLOW

A celebration of Russia’s 2015 YEAR OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE and the future of literature in translation – featuring the host of Russia’s television program “Polyglot” and leading stars of the Russian literary world. Reception to follow.

Co-sponsored by the Renova Group of Companies and the Renova Fort Ross Foundation

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10

7:00 – 8:30 PM
LITERATURE, LANGUAGE, HISTORY & TIME (in Russian)  
Vladimir Sharov, author; Evgeny Vodolazkin, author; and Dmitry Petrov, host and producer of “Polyglot” on Kultura TV – moderated by author and translator Lisa Hayden
Dweck Center
Brooklyn Public Library/Central Library
10 Grand Army Plaza
Brooklyn, NY 11238

A broad-ranging discussion with authors Vladimir Sharov and Eugene Vodolazkin and the host and producer of Kultura TV's “Polyglot” Dmitry Petrov. The conversation will touch on changes in language in Sharov and Vodolazkin's representations of history and time, as well as specific challenges for translators. Moderated by Lisa Hayden, translator and blogger on contemporary Russian fiction.

Co-sponsored by the Brooklyn Public Library

RSVP

6:00 – 8:00 PM
“Solzhenitsyn: The Untranslated Oeuvre”
Peter Constantine, translator; Marian Schwartz, translator; other speakers TBD  
Book Culture
536 West 112th Street
New York, NY 10025
RECEPTION TO FOLLOW

A deep dive into Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s unpublished works – now being translated and soon to appear in print in English! Additional speakers TBD.

Co-sponsored by the Kennan Institute, Russia Beyond the Headlines & the Russian Library

RSVP

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FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11

12:00 – 2:00 PM
RUSSIAN LIBRARY – Editorial Advisory Meeting (INVITATION ONLY)
Columbia University Press    
61 West 62nd Street
New York, NY 10023
Co-sponsored by the Russian Library

6:00 – 8:00 PM
THE RUSSIAN NOBEL LAUREATES: On the works of Ivan Bunin, Mikhail Sholokhov, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky, and Svetlana Alexievitch
Antonina W. Bouis, translator; Solomon Volkov, author; Stephanie Sandler, Harvard University; and Peter Constantine, translator
The Grolier Club                    
47 East 60th Street
New York, NY 10022
RECEPTION TO FOLLOW

A closing night celebration of Russia’s Nobel Prize laureates in literature – with their translators and biographers. Featuring Antonina W. Bouis, translator; Solomon Volkov, author; Stephanie Sandler, Harvard University; and Peter Constantine, translator. 

Co-sponsored by the Renova Group of Companies, the Renova Fort Ross Foundation, and the Russian Library

RSVP

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FEATURED ONLINE FILM FOR RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK – 2015!
“Pushkin is Our Everything”
pushkinfilm.com
Online on VHX, Vimeo, and YouTube 

Pushkin Is Our Everything is a documentary film in which Michael Beckelhimer goes on a journey through Russia to find out how Russia’s most famous 19th-century poet became contemporary Russia’s supreme national icon – and how he’s helping Russia today.
The documentary is a revealing jaunt through history, from Pushkin’s fatal duel in 1837 to the fall of the Romanov empire through the communist period. At each of these points, Pushkin rose higher and higher on the pedestal of Russian culture.

Download the Schedule for RUSSIAN LITERATURE WEEK 2015

On June 27 across Red Square from the Kremlin, Read Russia and Russia's Institute for Literary Translation convened the Editorial Advisory Board of the Russian Library, a new initiative designed to bring 100 to 125 works of Russian literature in top-notch English translations to English-speaking readers around the world.

The editorial meeting brought together distinguished Russian and American publishers, literary scholars, curators, and bibliographers - Vsevolod Bagno, Dmitry Bak, Caryl Emerson, Edward Kasinec, Irina Prokhorova, Alexander Livergant, Stephanie Sandler, Vladimir Tolstoy, and others - to discuss Russian works of literature meriting inclusion in the Russian Library over the next ten years. The Russian Library will be published in hardcover, paperback, and electronic formats and include multiple online dimensions and multimedia study environments for teaching and learning. Andrew Roth of the New York Times wrote: "Academics at the conference said that the collaboration presented a chance, at least informally, to build the relationship between the two countries at a time of heightened tensions."

Read the New York Times article, "Columbia University Press to Publish New Translations of Russian Literature"

New York, NY, May 29, 2015 - Read Russia today announced the winner of the 2015 READ RUSSIA PRIZE, celebrating the best translation of Russian literature into English published in 2014: Vladimir Sharov’s Before and During, translated by Oliver Ready and published by Dedalus Books. The annual literary prize carries a cash award shared by translator and publisher.

In a unanimous vote the READ RUSSIA PRIZE jury of scholars, translators, and authors praised Ready’s translation in its citation:

Translation should not strive for perfection, but for excellence. Perfection is impossible, whereas excellence is only nearly impossible. And excellence is what Oliver Ready achieves in his rendering of Before and During by Vladimir Sharov. He captures the clear voice and confused mentality of the narrator who is able to love both Christ and Lenin, who prays for the sinner Ivan the Terrible and who tries to unravel the legacy of the Bolsheviks.

Vladimir Sharov was born in 1952, the same year as Vladimir Putin. We have heard a great deal from Putin both in terms of his speeches and press conferences as well as in his actions – which, as the saying goes, speak louder than words. In a time when the Russian and American leadership both speak past one another, it is especially important to hear other voices from Russia, voices that can speak directly to us and directly of Russia which we in the West all too easily either romanticize or demonize. And it is possible for us to hear Sharov’s voice due to the hundreds of hours of detail-by-detail labor on the part of Oliver Ready, a solitary effort that has now resulted in the public, i.e. published, version in English of Sharov’s own long and solitary labor. His translation gives us all both pleasure and practical value – it is, as they used to say, dulce et utile.

It is therefore fitting that the excellence of Ready’s achievement and the vision of Dedalus Books in publishing it be recognized by this prize.

Read Russia also presented a special jury award this year to celebrate the monumental achievement of two additional translations:

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Translated by Rosamund Bartlett
Published by Oxford University Press

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Translated by Marian Schwartz
Published by Yale University Press

The READ RUSSIA PRIZE jury wrote:

Why re-translate the classics? It’s often said that translations have a life span of 50 years, or that every generation needs its own translation of the classics. Tolstoy’s language has not aged for his Russian readers, but the language of his first English translators may now seem dated to the reader in the 21st century. More importantly, our understanding of Tolstoy has changed over the century since his death, as has our idea of what makes for a good translation. Both Rosamund Bartlett and Marian Schwartz have embraced the peculiarities, repetitions, and perceived awkwardness of Tolstoy’s style that often transgress all conventions of good English prose. Bartlett writes that her “translation seeks to preserve all the idiosyncrasies of Tolstoy’s inimitable style, as far as that is possible,” while Schwartz notes that she “found [Tolstoy’s] so-called roughness . . . both purposeful and exciting, and was eager to recreate Tolstoy’s style in English.” True, the two translators go about this in their own ways, and as one might suspect they have their own strengths and biases, but this foregrounding of style is everywhere felt in these new translations.

Ultimately, translation represents an act of interpretation. There is no doubt that these volumes, published so beautifully by excellent university presses, present to the English-language reader two magnificent interpreters of Tolstoy’s beloved novel.

The READ RUSSIA PRIZE carries a purse of up to $10,000, divided at the discretion of the Prize jury between translator and publisher of the winning volume.