Marinetti was both the Malcolm McLaren and Johnny Rotten of his era, the impresario and figurehead of what was early 20th century punk. He charmed his audience with shock and provocation, telling his Russian hosts that the Kremlin was an absurdity, Tolstoy hypocritical, Dostoevsky hysterical, responded to a question about Russian art by asking if […]
One of the locus points of Russian satirical writing after the turn of the 20th century was a magazine titled Сатирикон – transliterated variously as Satirikon, Satiricon and Satirycon. It was published in St. Petersburg from 1908 to 1914, with a spinoff New Satirikon running from 1913 to 1918. Along with satirist Arkady Averchenko, the […]
The Washington Post has an amazing article about teaching Russian literature in prisons in Virginia. Not only does it recount how convicted felons are getting enthusiastic about reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and company, and having their minds opened up to the wider possibilities of life by what they’re reading as opposed to being reformed or restrained […]
The 4th Slovo Russian Literature Festival is well underway in London. Running from March 5 to 26 the festival celebrates Russian literature old and new, along with the links between the two. This is well illustrated by lectures being given on March 15 by contemporary novelist Dmitry Bykov (Living Souls, 2011) on Boris Pasternak and […]
Chtenia’s Summer 2012 issue is out and is devoted entirely to horses, with an essay on the animals’ role in Russian literature as well as translations of equestrian-themed work from Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikolai Zabolotsky, Vladimir Sorokin and Alexander Kuprin among others. One odd feature of this magazine is that though there is a “Web links […]
Prague in the ‘20s was a hotbed of émigré Russian intellectual life In the wake of the Russian Revolution and civil war Prague played a surprisingly large and often unacknowledged role in 20th century Russian literature and thought. While the exiled aristocratic and political exiles settled in Paris and most of Russia’s intelligentsia chose Berlin, […]
The PennSound collection of audio recordings of writers and artists includes readings and discussions with contemporary Russian poets as well as archival recordings featuring poets from Yeats to Mayakovsky. The University of Pennsylvania’s PennSound collection is an extensive archive of poetry readings, discussions, film clips and other related material and links. Contemporary Russian poets have […]
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