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The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification, Part III
In the end, he was released as partially insane, for it was noted that he considered himself an incarnation of the Buddha and believed that he desperately needed money to...
The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification, Part II
On October 9th, 1927, already after the tragic death of Duncan herself, and again in the Sunday supplement to Hearst’s newspapers, there appeared yet another article, undoubtedly from the same...
The Last Will and Testament of Sergei Esenin: Cultural History of a Mystification, Part I
In this article, I’d like to turn away from heated debates over Esenin’s alleged “killers,” or unprofessional falsifiers of literary history, toward an apparently calmer place. I will focus on...
War and Pestilence: The Epidemiological Motif in L. N. Tolstoy's Historical Epic
In the motivic structure of "War and Peace," the “mythical” French "grippe" of Anna Petrovna Scherer occupies a unique position. It is a simultaneously socio-linguistic, satirical, historical, moral, and providential...
How Pushkin Became a Cat, Part II
Sometimes, it turns out, "Pushkin" is simply a fun nickname, in no way “instantly summoning,” as the devoted Gogol put it, “an intimation of Russia’s national poet.”
How Pushkin Became a Cat, Part I
An American magazine article from 1936 plainly states that “the name Pushkin is ideal for a cat.” Why?
Bitter Taste: How Gorky Saved Pushkin’s Honor by Closing His Café, Part III
Immediately after Gorky's death, rumors began to spread that he had been poisoned by chocolate candies sent to him from the Kremlin. Whether this is true or not, nobody knows....
Bitter Taste: How Gorky Saved Pushkin’s Honor by Closing His Café, Part II
The hysterical reaction by the Soviet establishment to an apparently innocent incident — a reaction that struck at least one Western observer as symptomatic, but still curious — was deeply...
Bitter Taste: How Gorky Saved Pushkin’s Honor by Closing His Café, Part I
"The dignity of Russia’s most famous poet, Alexander Pushkin, has been saved, but as a result Moscow’s most pretentious café is now nameless. It all started a few weeks ago...