The Slavic Literature Pod

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron wrap up Mikhail Bulgakov’s Soviet-era masterpiece The Master and Margarita , covering chapters 26 to the epilogue. Come see the Devil and a representative of Yeshua Ha-Nozri hack out the fate of our eponymous characters, as the Moscow investigators finally try to put a pin into this whole “magic” thing.  Major themes: Comedy in translation, Ivan as creative...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron finish the last three parts of Guzel Yakhina’s A Volga Tale , discuss fairytales as history, talk about best character Vaska, and think about billiards as a metaphor for World War II. Join us as we think about just what does the Volga mean.  Major themes: Knowing The Big Lie, WWII as billiards, rivers as historical force  43:56 - Part 1 of our series on Fyo...

Sign up for emails related to our Life and Fate read along here! Show Notes : This week, it’s time for Office Hours, which Matt and Cameron are contractually obliged to hold at least once per quarter. This episode they’ll be revealing a little something-something that you should look forward to, talk about violence and discomfort in media, and spend a little time on Reddit. Just another day on cam...

Show Notes : Content warning: there will be a brief mention of rape from 12:20 to 12:28.  This week, Matt and Cameron get into their tuxes for a Devil’s Ball celebrated all the way from across the skies to the distorted apartments of Moscow, covering chapters 19 through 25 of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita . They’ll be talking sex, they’ll be talking fairytale morality, and you bet th...

Show Notes Content Warning: there are mentions of rape around 10:55-12:30 and 27:45-28:10 This week, Matt and Cameron lace up their sailing shoes and dig into Guzel Yakhina’s sophomore novel A Volga Tale . Hop on your skiff and let’s get discussing! Major themes : Fairy tales, women with “K” names, justified societal shunning Buy this book with our affiliate links on ⁠ Bookshop ⁠ or ⁠Amazon⁠ ! 01:...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron explore Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film Solaris . They talk genre, they talk the meaning of the soul, and they draw a couple points from — hold on, what do you mean he wrote a book about it ? I did all this research and he just…he just wrote a book? Okay, that’s fine. Well, they’ll cover what he has to say, where they agree and disagree, and what it means to b...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron track the (alleged) Devil’s progress through Moscow through his debut at the Variety Theatre and beyond in Chapters 10-18 of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. Grab your hidden speculative currency and turn in to follow the aftermath of Woland’s arrival, his magic tricks, and — finally — the arrival of The Master into the plot.  Major themes: Refe...

Pick up a copy of Drs. Karpukhin and Vergara’s edited collection of pedagogical essays, Reimagining Nabokov: Pedagogies for the 21st Century here! Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron tackle “Signs and Symbols” by Vladimir Nabokov and are joined in this effort by Drs. José Vergara and Sara Karpukhin. Dr. Vergara is both a returning podcast guest and an Assistant Professor of Russian on the Myr...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron debut the first episode of a new series we’re calling “Office Hours.” Sit down with us as we catch up about our lives, talk about Matt’s thoughts on Reddit and bookstagram, and stray into Cameron’s fascination with a particular alternate history author. We recorded this episode while sipping on Espresso Martinis, per the request of our supporter Kaitlin. Ma...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron kick off their next big read, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, covering chapters one through nine. Join us as we talk about how the devil definitely doesn’t exist according to the USSR, how the devil definitely does exist according to the Devil, and the true story of the Gospels (at least, if you believe the Devil). Oh, also there’s a lot to sa...

Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron dive into a work that’s been on the sidelines for far too long: The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy, along with the extremely helpful Dr. Tatyana Gershkovich. She is the author of Art in Doubt: Tolstoy, Nabokov, and the Problem of Other Minds (Northwestern UP, 2022), and essays published in PMLA, The Slavic and Eastern European Journal, the Journal of the His...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron dive into the short story “The Performance,” from Sergei Dovlatov’s book The Zone . Get ready to dive into the most underrepresented point-of-view in the Soviet camp system: the guards. Well, kind of. Get ready to get stagnant and talk a bit about the state of the Soviet Union in the 1970s, but mostly about a play in a prison camp where all the old Bolshevi...

Show Notes : A quick note: this episode will contain some references to suicide throughout along with one mention of rape.   This week, Matt and Cameron quietly consider the movie Leviathan (2014), directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev, while standing on the edge of a cliff. Come along as they talk about a dismal family story that may or not have a lot to do with the biblical Book of Job and institutions...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron get into something a little more modern with a short story from Ukrainian writer and translator Sophia Andrukhovych, “An Out-Of-Tune Piano, An Accordion.” Come join in as they debate the meaning of the fantasy or dream (or maybe terrifying reality?) of a woman named Viola as she stumbles upon a sort of danse macabre in the midst of worrying about her dying...

Want to learn more about Khvoshchinskaya? Read Matt's post on our blog here . Show Notes : Apologies for Cameron’s audio quality. This episode was recorded on a back-up microphone in a Reno bathroom.   This week, Matt and Cameron dive into an author you may not have heard of before in the short story On the Way: A Sketch by Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya. They talk childhood, imagining the fantastic...

Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron say “sayonara” to Tipsy Tolstoy and “come on in” to The Slavic Literature Pod . RIP to having a valid reason to reference drunkenness on our resumes. Plus we address some questions you may have about the change.  08:53 - CarolynMarieReads' Youtube channel 09:21 - Shae McMullin's Instagram The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kin...

Show Notes : Note: This is a re-run of The Captain’s Daughter by Aleksandr Pushkin It’s week 4 of Matt and Cameron’s June break. So this week, we’re looking back at one of our favorite books from this podcast, originally put out in October of 2021. Major themes: Is it really fatalist?, My boy Pugachev, Benedict Anderson will never leave us alone 04:52 - It’s “ Farmer’s Daughter ” by Rodney Atkins,...

Shownotes: Note: This is a re-run of The Orchard by Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry It’s week 2 of Matt and Cameron’s June break. So this week, we’re looking back at one of our favorite books from this podcast, originally put out in June of 2022. Major themes: The Time Between Dog and Wolf, Re-writing the past, Toasting to art   35:30 - To avoid spoilers, go to 36:42 51:59 - The Orchard by Kristina Gor...

Shownotes:  Note: This is a re-run of Zuleikha (parts 1 and 2) by Guzel Yakhina. It’s week 1 of Matt and Cameron’s June break. So this week, we’re looking back at one of our favorite books from this podcast, originally put out in April of 2021.  Major themes: Forest spirits, Vestigial pagan folklore, and Dekulakization. 03:51 - Here’s a link to the article that I heavily cited in this episode: Fea...

Shownotes:  Some quick updates before we head into our June break: HERE IS THE LISTENER SURVEY! The music used in this episode, and for the last time in a new release, was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube . Please go show them some love and buy their albums if you’re able.  Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠  Socials: ⁠Instagram⁠ | ⁠Twitter⁠...

Shownotes: This week, Matt and Cameron actually finish War and Peace by covering both epilogues. Did you want to find out what happened to the characters? Too bad! It’s time for more argumentation about history. Well, okay, there’s a little bit of character wrap-up. But most of it, predictably, is about farming. Just another day with Tolstoy.  Major themes: Better History, Questionable Theories, L...

Shownotes: This week, Matt and Cameron finish War and Peace!! Well, minus the epilogue. Tune in to hear about the meeting of old acquaintances, the passing of old friends, and the quiet night at the end of a war. Book 4, Part 4. It’s the end of a true epic, in the most literary sense of the word. Be there or be square.  Major themes: PTSD = Cool Dude, Super Friendship, Laws of History The music us...

Shownotes: This week, Matt and Cameron continue Napoleon’s invasion into Imperial Russia into its final phase: a slow, deadly retreat accompanied by irregular warfare in War & Peace’s Part 3 of Book 4. This is what Cameron studied for a potion of his degree and he is going to make that your problem in this episode. Follow along as we catch up with the youngest Rostov, Petya, as he finally depl...

Shownotes: This week, Matt and Cameron move away from particular characters and start talking about the long arc of history in Book 4, Part 2 of War and Peace. As the French army retreats from Moscow, it’s the perfect time to ask the question: hey, wait, was everyone wrong about calling Stalingrad the Soviet War and Peace? You’ll have to listen to find out. Plus we’ll learn about the function of p...

Shownotes: This week, Matt and Cameron start on Book 4, Part 1 (after diverging from our original plan to combine parts 1 and 2) and do a deep dive on how we can really analyze wisdom, on the horror of war collapsing into peace, and whether self-sacrifice can ever be a true ideal of Christianity. That’s right, it’s the big ideas section! Well - the whole book is the big ideals section, but this is...