The Slavic Literature Pod

Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron slow things down a bit and attend a funeral in part 5 of Crime and Punishment. This time we’ll start by recommending that you grab your cheapest wine or liquor because we are going to be spending some significant time in Luzhin’s POV in this part. Pay attention to the things that he, ironically, doesn’t. Perhaps it would be crass to tell you to enjoy this part - but kick back and tune into this wake gone very, very wrong anyway!Major themes: Self-Deception, The power of Sonia’s worldview, funeral parties.The music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠Bookshop⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠!Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron spend some time with unpleasant people in Part 4 of Crime and Punishment as Svidrigailov appears and everything is worse now. Awkward family dinners, debating your fiance into loving you, and telling your only friend to drown herself ahoy! Many things get weird in this part. Sit down, find the light of God as Dostoevsky would want, and turn in!Quick note: the section between 28:40 - 30:05 is an advertisement. Subscribe to LingoPie here! And you can purchase books on Libro.fm here.Major themes: Strange Men in your Bedroom, Financial Security, Reasonable Expectations for a Fiancé10:12 - Send it to tipsytolstoy@gmail.com43:36: History.com coverage of the My Lai Massacre.47:12 - Sonya, SIlent No More: A Response To the Woman Question in Doestoevsky’s Crime and Punishment by Elizabeth BlakeThe music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠Bookshop⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠!Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Some ways you can support the people of Ukraine:For Refugees-Ukrainian Relief Efforts are fundraisers which GoFundMe has collected in one place after verifying that the money is going where the fund claims that it is. These funds have a variety of purposes, so you can look for an individual organization or purpose.-The International Rescue Committee works to assist refugees all over the globe. This link will support the IRC infrastructure currently on the ground in Poland.-Polish Humanitarian Action provides support to internally displaced Ukrainians as well as those refugees who have come to Poland.Medical Aid-Voice of Children is a Ukrainian organization that was formed in 2015 to provide psychological help to children affected by war.-United Help Ukraine focuses on raises awareness on the war in Ukraine (their primary goal prior to the invasion) as well as distributing food and medical supplies to people affected by the war.For Journalists-The Kyiv Independent is a recently launched organization that emerged from the staff from the long-running Kyiv Post, which was shut down by its owner last November.-Free Press Unlimited, an organziation that supports free and independent journalism around the world.Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron dive into family dynamics in Part 3 of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Along with Luzhin, now Pulcheria and Dunia enter the scene to see their beloved son/brother - only to find him rather different than they remember. Grab your bottom-shelf beer and sit down, we’re about to see the fundamental separation of the human heart from those around us.Major themes: Hot Petersburg Summer, Regretting your drunk behavior, regretting your sober behavior**That sober behavior being writing an article justifying your own act of premeditated murder several months ago07:26 - “Bill, Bill. I got your note…I ask you just one thing, Just give Europe to Russia.”The music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠Bookshop⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠!Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron continue with Part 2 of our Crime and Punishment series, now with a very heavy emphasis on punishment. Grab some black tea and a beer, then join us as we discuss Raskolnikov’s psychosomatic torture and his attemps to confess all while Razumikhin continues to be the best friend alive. And you know it wouldn’t be Dostoevsky without a death or two in the mix!Don’t forget to read “Dostoevsky at 200: The Novel in Modernity," a collection edited by Katherine Bowers and Kate Holland!Major themes: Dostoevsky and Rationalism, Are ideas real?,01:24 - The Committee by Sonahhal Ibrahim, if you’re wondering.04:30 - Here’s a link to our Discord, if you’d like to join!04:56 - Here’s a link to our website!24:38 - Now that I’m editing, my phrasing strikes me as confusing. To be clear, while I’m conflating the actual Crystal Palace and the cafe in Crime and Punishment, they are very much different places.34:28 - “The Improbable Poetics of Crime and Punishment” by Greta Matzner-Gore42:43 - Holden Caulfield, not Caulfeld, I should note. Also you should read Franny and Zooey by Salinger. Granted, it’s been years since I read Franny and Zooey, but the novel occupies the same place that Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood or Tim O’Brien’s July, July do for me. Novels that discuss…youth, meaning, age - not a theme, but rather a central topic of all the book. I don’t know how to describe it but for a young man who struggled deeply with ideas of meaning and authenticity, it meant a lot to me.The music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠Bookshop⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠!Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron are kicking off our Crime and Punishment series in a bloody fashion! They’ll be speaking with Dr. Katherine Bowers - an associate professor at the University of British Columbia and vice-president of the North American Dostoevsky Society- about Crime and Punishment’s relationship to narrative, to contemporary crime reporting, and oh so much more! Dostoevsky is an author that absolutely needs no introduction, so grab a stakan of vodka and start dreaming about horses - it’s Crime time, babey.Quick note: the section between 25:30 - 28:40 is an advertisement. Subscribe to LingoPie here! And you can purchase books on Libro.fm here.Major themes: Poking at a rotten tooth, Razumikhin the Superman, The Drunkards01:21 - “Dostoevsky at 200: The Novel in Modernity” eds. Katherine Bowers and Kate Holland04:10: “The Rise of Crime and Punishment from the Air of the Media” by Konstantine Klioutchkine05:05 - “Feuilleton”08:33 - 150ish, close enough09:06 - Crime and Punishment: When Raskolnikov leaves the police station, he loses his limp; this is a subtle allusion to the fact that he may be the real Keyser Söze.What is To be Done: After obtaining all seven infinity stones, Rakhmetov uses his newfound power to eliminate all food that isn’t black rye bread and ham.Zuleikha: Zuleikha is almost killed by the invading Nazi Zombies - but at the last moment, Yuzuf and Ignatov return with their newly-acquired AKMs and blow the crowd away. Zuleikha throws away her cigar and drops a one-liner as the movie fades to black.Anna Karenina: They solve their problems with polyamory.53:27 - Skip to 54:10 to avoid references to the ending.54:20 - Here’s a link to check out the tweets!58:00 - You can find Dr. Bowers’s twitter here!58:16 - Here’s a link to Dr. Bowers’s website!58:50 - Writing Fear: Russian Realism and the GothicThe music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠Bookshop⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠!Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron are joined by Dr. Ian Garner to cover “The Polykhaevs” by Pavel Nilin, a work that Dr. Garner had originally translated for his upcoming book, Stalingrad Lives. The Polykhaevs follows the story of an elderly couple who are seeing their grandson for the first time in the better part of a decade after he was evacuated from Stalingrad during World War 2 - although now grown, he is a stranger to them. As they get to know their grandson, memories of the war bubble to the surface…Major themes: Rehabilitating Socialist Realism, Memories of Stalingrad, Brick-layers.02:28 - The Polykhaevs full text on Dr. Ian Garner’s website.42:18 - Sorry, Ian! I would have edited this out…but you could hear our ill-timed laughter in the re-take.46:11 - “From Stalingrad to the Stars: Science Fiction and Memory in Putin’s Russia”The music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:Cameron goes on a tangent about Spain between 4:32 and 9:02 so…feel free to skip that part if you want, it has no bearing on the episode.This week, Matt and Cameron jump back into Russia’s past with an exploration of one of Tolstoy’s later works, Father Sergius. In this piece, Tolstoy explores his own version of hagiography - or the telling of a Saint’s Life - with all his usual flair and strong opinion. He is also uncomfortably horny in his writing. Have fun with that!Major themes: Tolstoy Horny on Main, Saint’s Lives, The History of the Alhambra08:32 - This is true.34:56 - “Hagiographical Motifs in Tolstoy’s “Father Sergius”” by Margaret Ziolkowski37:50 - “The Apophthegmata Patrum and Tolstoy’s Father Sergius” by Harry Walsh and Paul Alessi53:08 - “Yeltsin drunk. In his underwear. Hailing a cab.”54:38 - The Polykhaevs by Pavel NilinThe music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠Bookshop⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠!Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron have a few announcements for you…and then a whole lot of reflecting. Stay tuned for our Father Sergius episode, which will be released when we return on January 7th!Thank you all for listening! And being here for a whole year. Sometimes we can’t believe we’ve made it this far; on the other hand, blowing past our expectations has made it easier to imagine that we’ll be sticking around for a long time.00:57 - Unless you’re a Patreon member, in which case, you’ll still be getting Tolstoy’s Father Sergius today!01:27 - It’ll be February 4th!03:00 - In case you’re wondering, it’ll be the Barnes and Noble Classics Series Crime and Punishment, translated by Constance Garnett and revised by Juliya Salkovskaya and Nicholas Rice.19:09 - *Russian Major, not a Russian Lit major. UC Davis does not offer Russian lit degrees.The music used in this episode was “bella ciao,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Follow us on Instagram, check out our website, if you’re so inclined, check out our Patreon!Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:If you’d rather not hear references to sexual assault, skip 19:35 - 20:06; mild mention between 45:15 - 45: 20.This week, Matt and Cameron continue building the factory in the second half of Fyodor Gladkov’s Cement. Following the assault upon the factory, dark clouds loom on the Soviet horizon as committees interfere, the effects of the NEP become clearer, and a party purge approaches… Grab your shovel, comrade, and get to work! But don’t forget to put this podcast on while you dig.Major themes: Practicality vs. Idealism, Sometimes Side-Characters are the Real Main Characters, Ambivalence.03:22 - The brewer is - drum roll please…Baltika Breweries. Maybe the Baltika is damaging my memory. 07:32 - Love of the Worker Bees by Alexandra Kollontai08:08 - Okay, there are also a lot of other things that Lenin adds to Marxist thought to differentiate Marxist-Leninism. Notably, I would point to the introduction of the Vanguard and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as concepts assisting a systematic approach to revolution rather than the much more “spontaneous” collapse of Capitalism that Marxism tends to imply. Please don’t come for me, theory people.If you’re interested in the “modern” forms of Capital (where it is not just a physical thing, but also a theoretical thing), I would definitely recommend that you read Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin. That’s a much better explanation of what I was trying to express here.14:08 - The soft noise you’re hearing in the background is my cat trying to get into my room.28:38 - “A herd”32:54 - Specifically for saying that the Bersteinists and Legal Marxists don’t matter. To be clear, those groups do matter if we’re looking at movements globally, but they don’t matter specifically in the post-Russian Civil War context.46:45 - “The Unmentionable Politics in Gladkov’s Cement” by Edward Vavra49:22 - Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder by LeninThe music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠Bookshop⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠!Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Matt and Cameron kick off a two-part series on Fyodor Gladkov’s Cement, one of the most famous examples of literary Socialist Realism. (Or...is it?) Stay tuned to hear one man’s brave journey to...make a factory work again amidst famine and devastation. No - wait, that’s not a good sell — stay tuned to hear Matt and Cameron argue that Cement is much more interesting that a simple plot summary makes it seem.Major themes: Committees, Simple-hearted, working-class political commissars, Gender roles12:47 - “Gladkov’s Cement: The Making of a Soviet Classic” by Robert Busch16:01 - Spain in our Hearts by Adam Hochschild. Probably one of my favorite books, written by one of my favorite authors. You should also check out The Mirror at Midnight and King Leopold’s Ghost if you’re interested in South African and Congolese history respectively.27:57 - *11th hour44:57 - “The Hardening of Cement: Russian Women and Modernization” by Pavla VeselaThe music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠Bookshop⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠!Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠ | ⁠FacebookAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands