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Linor Goralik: "She Said, He Said"
Like, here, I had this parrot, and you know, they live a long time. Well, he died, like, he was sitting on my shoulder and all of a sudden I...
A New Translation of Yuri Tynianov's "Interlude" (1924)
Today, an excerpt from a new translation of Yuri Tynianov's essays by Ainsley Morse and Philip Redko, out this fall from Academic Studies Press in a collection titled "Permanent Evolution:...
Book Review: Yuri Tynianov's "Permanent Evolution: Selected Essays on Literature, Theory, and Film"
Despite his sizable contributions to Russian Formalism, Yuri Tynianov remains a largely understudied figure in the West. Whether a victim of canonization or cross-cultural barriers, his work continues to evade...
Linor Goralik: Excerpts from "Biblical Zoo"
The rabbit conveys to you that you can’t even imagine how and what he pees and poops—but soon you will.
Spring Reading Series: Andrei Egunov-Nikolev's "Beyond Tula," Part I
"Beyond Tula" has a transparently insignificant plot: a young writer from the city comes to visit his engineer friend in the country for a couple of days, and everything ends...
Spring Reading Series: Andrei Egunov-Nikolev's "Beyond Tula," Part II
Railroad engineers used to refer to tracks in the feminine: “get up on her,” they’d say about the fifth track, or “she’s a tough one, the eleventh.”
Spring Reading Series: Andrei Egunov-Nikolev's "Beyond Tula," Part III
Darya Fyodorovna came in and asked whether to serve them dinner, but the co-op operator was loping dreamily around the room. A porcelain Easter egg was hanging in the corner...
"Everyone Reads the Text That's in Their Own Head": An Interview with Linor Goralik
I’ve really lucked out in that I really consider myself to be a private individual, I don’t feel the need to look for a relationship to the Russian literary canon,...
“The Russian Avant-Garde Goes Underground”
On Saturday, April 20, the Poets House hosted a panel discussion on the Russian Avant-Garde, co-sponsored by the Jordan Center. The panel consisted of Anthony Anemone, Polina Barskova, Ainsley Morse,...
Reinventing the Soviet Past: Actor Pavel Derevyanko's "Positive Heroes"
In the series "Dark Side of the Moon" (2011-) and in the film "Salyut-7" (2017), historical and biographical truth take a backseat to the aesthetic and ideological needs of the...
An excerpt from Alexandra Petrova's "Appendix" (2016)
I felt even worse about my appendix. Over and over, they’d told me: “Don’t swallow fruit pits, and make sure to shell sunflower seeds before sticking them in your mouth,...
Impeachment – From the Ukrainian Perspective
Amid the ongoing impeachment scandal, the perspective from Ukraine has largely gone unnoticed. On January 23rd, as part of its New York City -- Russia Public Policy Series in collaboration...
Talking with Geoff Cebula, Author of "Adjunct"
I knew from the beginning that I didn't want her to be a Slavist.
Open Letter on the Termination of Russian Studies Faculty at Ohio University
Like you, we are wholeheartedly invested in the survival and recovery of higher education in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic. That recovery depends on the will of universities...
Change is coming to All The Russias
I am stepping away from most of my editorial duties for the blog
Alexis in America: The Grand Tour of a Russian Grand Duke, 1871-1872
The story of the Grand Duke’s trip is more than just a tale of forbidden love, political intrigue and colorful characters. It also touches upon important developments and events in...
Play Based on Venedikt Erofeev's "Moskva-Petushki" Debuts at the East Village Playhouse
Like Erofeev's Venya, our own contemporaries seem to suffer from strong disillusionment with authority — an unsurprising outcome in the face of the degradation of discourse, institutions, and stable employment....
What Trump and Putin want from their historic summit
As his 1972 summit with Mao Zedong approached, President Nixon prepped by considering three simple questions: What did China want? What did the United States want? What did they both...
Russian Studies is Thriving, not Dying
At least in Political Science, Russian studies is alive and well.
Tolstoy's Double, Part II
Tolstoy was sensitive and impressionable, but if a war, a guillotining, an autopsy or a famine was happening nearby, he wanted to see it for himself.