The Slavic Literature Pod

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron get into Lyudmila Ulitskaya’s recently published collection of short stories “The Body of the Soul.” In particular, they’ll be covering “The Dragon and the Phoenix,” “A Man in a Mountainous Landscape,” and “Woof-woof.” They’ll be getting into the dynamics of building communities, death as a part of life, and the immaterial emotions we tie into our toys.  Ma...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron take a trip into the stacks to review and -- more importantly -- rank their back catalogue. Everything from Gogol's "The Nose" to Life and Fate , they'll be putting it under the microscope and giving you their thoughts on where it falls from S-tier to F-tier (which, of course, stands for: 'What were we f'ing thinking?). Plus you'...

Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 2, Chapter 49 of Vasily Grossman's  Life and Fate.  You can read our post about the chapter  here . If you haven't already signed up to get daily emails reflecting on each chapter of  Life and Fate , you can do so on our  website . Be sure to follow us on  Instagram  and join our  Discord  to pa...

Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 2, Chapter 48 of Vasily Grossman's  Life and Fate.  You can read our post about the chapter  here . If you haven't already signed up to get daily emails reflecting on each chapter of  Life and Fate , you can do so on our  website . Be sure to follow us on  Instagram  and join our  Discord  to pa...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron keep up the pace in Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate , covering Part 2, chapters 21 through 50. They’ll be covering everything from Klimov’s All Quiet on the Western Front moment in Battlefield Stalingrad to the death camps that take up much of the latter chapters for this part. Get ready to get sad, and tune in.  Major themes: Why fight wars, no step on sna...

You can pick up a copy of Dr. Maya Vinokour’s book Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in Russian Labor Culture here.  Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron sit down with Dr. Maya Vinokour to talk about her book Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in Russian Labor Culture and touch on Daniil Kharms’ short story “How the Old Woman Tried to Buy Ink.”  Dr. Vinokour is Assistant Professor in the Department of...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron decide to see what insights Book-Twitter has to offer by reading and reacting to some choice passages from Hit Reverse: New Ideas From Old Books by Jash Dholani. If you’ve ever read H.P. Lovecraft and decided, “yeah, I should get my views on governance from this guy,” boy is this the book for you.  Head to visitmagnitogorsk.com to book your tour today!  10:...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron continue their quest through Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate , covering Part 1, chs.61-70 along with Part 2, chs. 1-20. They’ll be going into greater depth about the state of Grossman’s world, the nature of fascism, and will dive a little bit into the nature of science in the USSR.  Major themes: Provocative moral questions, totalitarian ideology, World War...

Note: This episode contains light discussion of sexual assault throughout.  Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron dig into Ivan Bunin’s popular short story “Light Breathing” to talk about narrative chronology, whether Bunin really is the emigree Gorky, and why exactly every Slavic literature class makes its students read this piece at least once.  Major themes: Philosopher ships, respecting tom...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron take some time to recap the syllabus to students in Office Hours. They’ll be recapping the Life and Fate Read Along so far, talk about Dostoevsky on Instagram, and then spend far too much time talking about the one, the only novel of its kind: Empress Theresa .  Major themes: Read Along recap, Dosteovsky-gram, Empress Theresa The music used in this episode...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron stay on the Life and Fate grind, covering Part 1’s chapters 32 through 60. Time to talk hospital tours, tank corp organization, and front-line commissars oh my! Get your canteen full of carefully boiled water and tune in!  They’ll be briefly recapping the events covered in these chapters, but for a complete play-by-play, check out our daily read along episo...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron are joined by Professor David Cooper to talk about his new book The Czech Manuscripts: Forgery, Translation, and National Myth. In the book, Dr. Cooper takes a new look at the so-called Czech Manuscripts — several forged literary works that played a large role in 19th Century Czech national identity-building — using several approaches to tackle what trends...

This week, Matt and Cameron take a break from their daily Grossman grind™ to talk about what they’ve been getting up to for fun this month, about Cameron’s deep fear and love for the sea and its creatures, as well as a ChatGPT’s take on how you should be reading Dostoevsky. Major themes: Dissertations, fears of sea monsters, DostoevskyGPT The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye K...

Show Notes : You can sign up for our email list here , where we are currently sending daily analysis emails as part of our Life and Fate read along This week, Matt and Cameron — after numerous daily episodes — start outlining some of the main themes covered in Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate , chapters 1-31, and talk a little (read: a lot) more about his life. Grab your flak vest and get ready for...

Show Notes : Pick up a copy of Ochre & Rust from Green Linden Press’ website. This week, Matt and Cameron tackle some of the work of Sergey Gandlevsky, translated by Philip J. Metres and collected in Ochre & Rust. Tune in to hear more about one of Russia’s most celebrated modern poets, self-described outsider who drifted around the edges of the USSR (and, later, the Russian Federation) and...

Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 5 of Vasily Grossman&#3...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron cover the short story “The Sulphur Spring” by the author Nadezhda Durova, and investigate its depiction of indigenous peoples, its ambiguous relationships, and sulphur as a health benefit for ungrateful children. Yep, it's a wide-ranging one. Grab your spring water and tune in! Major themes: Improvised speaking, sulpher water, ambiguous relationships 07...

Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 4 of Vasily Grossman&#3...

Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 3 of Vasily Grossman&#3...

Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 2 of Vasily Grossman&#3...

Wondering where the other episodes in this series are? We've moved them to a secondary RSS feed (under the title Life and Fate - Chapter A Day Read Along) to avoid clutter. Find it on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Amazon Music , or wherever else you get your podcasts. Covering thoughts shared by some of our listeners on our Discord and on social media about Part 1, Chapter 1 of Vasily Grossman&#3...

Show Notes : Note: This is a re-run of Vasily Grossman's "The Sistine Madonna." Matt and Cameron have finished reading Stalingrad, but they aren’t yet done with Grossman. This week, they tackle his short story “The Sistine Madonna.” Written before the publication of  Stalingrad  and after he began to write  Life and Fate , “The Sistine Madonna” is a piece about beauty, desperation, and...

This week, Matt and Cameron start up the December Supporter Drive 2023, aiming to raise their paying monthly supporters by 10 people.  If you're interested in supporting us, you can do so here. So why are we asking for the money? To answer that, we recorded several short episodes covering our purpose (as we see it), how we plan to spend the money, and how we're looking to expand into the f...

This week, Matt and Cameron start up the December Supporter Drive 2023, aiming to raise their paying monthly supporters by 10 people.  If you're interested in supporting us, you can do so here. So why are we asking for the money? To answer that, we recorded several short episodes covering our purpose (as we see it), how we plan to spend the money, and how we're looking to expand into the f...

This week, Matt and Cameron start up the December Supporter Drive 2023, aiming to raise their paying monthly supporters by 10 people. If you're interested in supporting us, you can do so here. So why are we asking for the money? To answer that, we recorded several short episodes covering our purpose (as we see it), how we plan to spend the money, and how we're looking to expand into the fu...