The Slavic Literature Pod

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 tomes, the emigree Gorky The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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 TheresaThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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 episodes: the current’s month’s chapters will be in our main feed, and all previous month’s chapters can be found under Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate Read Along (available wherever you already listen to The Slavic Literature Pod). Major themes: Rehumanizing routine, totalizing systems and their believers, GrossmanGPTThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. 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 | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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 shaped them and how they were treated in turn. Pick up a copy of The Czech Manuscripts here.David L. Cooper is Associate Professor and Head of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A specialist in Czech and Russian literatures, his research is in the areas of nationalism in literature, forgery and mystification, translation history and translation studies, and history of criticism. David has published translations of Slovak folktales and a critical edition of the poems of the Czech 19th-century forged manuscripts, The Queen’s Court and Green Mountain Manuscripts with Other Forgeries of the Czech Revival (Ann Arbor, 2018).Major themes: National identity, forgery or fiction, more medieval poetryThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. 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 | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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, DostoevskyGPTThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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 alongThis 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 some front-line reporting, it’s time for the Gross-cast. Major themes: A wolfish era, memorialization not valorization, emerging identities23:59 - “Free at Last: Vasily Grossman and the Battle for Stalingrad” by Carol Garrard and John GarrardFor more about Grossman’s life, we have sourced Alexandra Popoff’s book “Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century” quite heavily in producing this episode. The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Pick up a copy of it here.Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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 cataloged his thoughts and experiences in his poems. Philip Metres is a poet, scholar, translator, essayist, and peacebuilder. He is the author of twelve books, including Fugitive/Refuge (2024), Ochre & Rust: New Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (2023), Shrapnel Maps (2020), The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance (2018), and Sand Opera (2015). His work has garnered fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Watson Foundation. He has been awarded the Adrienne Rich Award, three Arab American Book Awards, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and the Hunt Prize. Philip has been called “one of the essential poets of our time,” whose work is “beautiful, powerful, magnetically original.” He is professor of English and director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University. He is also Core Faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts.  You can find more from Philip on his website and see some other links he’s shared on his linktree. Major themes: Prodigious drinking, After the USSR’s dissolution, Andrei Bolkonsky returnsThe music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube. Our links: Website | ⁠Discord⁠ Socials: Instagram⁠ | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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'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 participate in the discussion.Thanks to Gabe and TomBombadillo for their thoughts in this episode.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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 relationships07:54 - The (Un)making of a Man: Aleksandr Aleksandrov/Nadezhda Durova by Ruth Averbach32:08 - It’s 1 verst to .66 miles, so bit of an overestimation there.The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. 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 | BlueSky | Twitter⁠ | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com or call our voicemail at 209.800.3944Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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'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 participate in the discussion.Thanks to Leah, Ines, and Gabe for their thoughts in this episode.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands