The Slavic Literature Pod

Show Notes:This week, Dr. José Vergara returns to the podcast to talk about Sasha Sokolov’s A School for Fools. The novel, first published in English in 1977, follows student so-and-so (and his double) as he attempts to tell events of his life. The novel doesn’t follow a linear plot — or even an easy-to-distinguish narrator — and puts you on your toes as you meander between stories.Dr. Vergara is an associate professor of Russian in the Bryn Mawr College’s Department of Russian. He is the author of All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature, a co-editor of Reimagining Nabokov: Pedagogies for the 21st Century, and aa co-editor of the digital annotated edition of Sasha Sokolov’s Between Dog and Wolf.Link to Encyclopedia of the Dog: https://encyclopediaofthedog.com/The Embodied Language of Sasha Sokolov’s A School for Fools by José Vergara: https://doi.org/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.97.3.0426Sasha Sokolov: ‘Here Comes Everybody’ Meets ‘Those Who Came’ by José Vergara: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv1fkgbqh.9The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron takes on the back half of Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur, covering chapters 25-43. As our characters finally arrive in the town of Chevengur, we go from a picaresque romp around the newly-Soviet countryside into the dirty work of actually building Communism. “Danger and Deliverance: Reading Andrei Platonov” by Angela Livingstone“Chevengur: On the Road with Bolshevik Utopia” by David Bethea in The Shape of Apocalypse in Modern Russian Fiction“Chevengur: Buried in the Family Plot” by Elior Borenstein in Men without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron returns to the beginning of Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Ukrainian Trilogy with “Zvenihora.” The film, released in 1928, explores a thousand years of Ukrainian history — spanning from Varangian invasion to the rise of the Soviet Union. The film is a fascinating take on Soviet film, mashing together Ukrainian culture and the new, Soviet reality.You may have noticed this episode is two hours long….so, I decided to look into why I was finding inconsistent information on Dovzhenko’s life in the episode on “Earth.” Turns out, there’s a good reason for that. Oh, boy, do we get into that in this episode.Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s 1939 autobiographyMy notes on George Liber’s Alexander Dovzhenko: A Life in Soviet FilmThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, we see that every author starts somewhere in Anton Chekhov, Earliest Stories: Stories, Novellas, Humoresques, 1880-1882. To talk about Chekhov’s earliest published stories, Cameron sits down with Elena Michajlowska and Rosamund Bartlett. The pair not only edited the collection, but also oversaw the unusual editing process that involved 83 other translators across the world.They’ll talk about where Chekhov was this early in his career, the editing process and what kinds of stories we find among this juvanalia. Book tickets for Rosamund and Elena’s event at Pushkin House here.Follow the Anton Chekhov Foundation on Instagram @antonchekhovfoundation Read more on the foundation’s blog here.Check out their website antonchekhovfoundation.orgLearn more about the Early Chekhov Translation Project hereThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron talks a little bit about director Sergei Parajanov’s “Sayat Nova” (also known as The Color of Pomegranates), and five other films he really liked this year. Want to see the video version of this episode? Check it out here: https://youtu.be/khXaVt0ilFcAlso, sorry, the name of the theater is Dreamland Cinema. I forgot to say that in the video. An Analysis of the Color of Pomegranates by YouTuber BlytheSinners and the Death of Black art by YouTube F. D. SignifierGoodnight Irene, dir. by Sterlin HarjoThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into the final entry into Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Silent Trilogy, “Earth” (1930). The film’s deceptively simple plot—of a tractor delivery to a collectivizing village in Ukraine is followed by the murder of a local Bolshevik organizer—doesn’t hinder its avant-garde stylings, employing a montage of loose logical associations better described as dream logic, moving from people to fruit to threshing in a way that demands your attention. Yeah, that’s right — I’m arguing that a socialist realist work about tractors is super interesting. A novel concept for the podcast, I know. You can watch Earth (1930) in excellent quality here: “Earth” (1930) x bijuOffscreen Dreams and Collective Synthesis in Dovzhenko’s Earth by Elizabeth A. PapazianAll in the Foreground: A Study of Dovzhenko’s Earth by Gilberto PerezDovzhenko: Folk Tale and Revolution by Gilberto PerezDeath and life on Alexander Dovzhenko by Jonathan RosenbaumThe Dovzhenko Papers by Marco CarynnykWho is Hidden behind the Figure of a Genius? The Context of Dovzhenko’s Work by Anna Tsymbal Subversions in Dovzhenko’s Earth by Romana M. Bahry“Ukranian masterpieces: Earth (1930) - Dovzhenko”Earth: Analysis of Film Form, Auteur Characteristics and ContextThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Ally Pitts — host of A Russian & Soviet Movie Podcast — joins Cameron to talk about the book Not Russian by Mikhail Shevelev. The book follows veteran journalist Pavel Vladimirovich as an old friend’s sudden reappearance at the head of a terror attack forces him to reflect on his history as a Russian journalist and how things turned out this way. You can find Ally on his Twitter @Alistair_Pitts and on Instagram under @ally_pitts_movies_etc. You can find A Russian & Soviet Movie podcast anywhere you listen to your audio. Our prior episode with Ally on Anna Karenina film adaptations.The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur, covering chapters 1 through 25. Through the late Russian Empire into the early Soviet Union, Sasha Dvanov is finally orphaned when his fisherman father drowns in an attempt to understand his all-knowing, deathless fish. Growing up in the shuffling shadow of the new world, he joins the Bolshevik party and seeks to spread communism. This episode covers his adventures trying to find out if the peasants have, after the abdication of the Tsar, suddenly begun to embrace communist lives. From anarchist militias to a Bolshevik Fyodor Dostoevsky, he finds little to approve of in the countryside.Check out our old episode covering The Cow and the Third Son.A Companion to Andrei Platonov’s “The Foundation Pit” by Thomas Seyfrid.Time out of line: Sequence and plot in Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur by by Hallie A. WhiteThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron returns to Vasily Grossman, covering his first novel of World War II, The People Immortal. The novel follows the Red Army through the early days of the war: losing battles, ceding ever more ground, and quickly losing hope. Although this novel doesn’t contain the philosophical and critical heights of his later two novels, The People Immortal yet captures Grossman’s foundational commitment to telling the truth. The truth of the Red Army being beaten back, the fact that some—tired of the abuses of the Soviet Union—welcomed the invaders, and what awaited people overtaken by the Wehrmacht. An early work, less mature, and yet one well worth reading.The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic and Hai Fan’s Delicious Hunger, trying to probe the question plaguing recent episodes: “What is the value of art during wartime?”Deaf Republic tells an all-too-familiar parable of a town under occupation, subjected to abuse and murder, and how the people there chose their own forms of resistance to occupation. Delicious Hunger tackles the issue from another angle: Hai Fan is the pen name for Ang Tiam Huat, a guerilla who fought for the Malaysian Communist Party for over a decade. His book fictionalizes the stories and struggles of his comrades during their years in the rainforest. Hai Fan’s interview during Ethos Books’ launch party for Delicious Hunger.The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands