The Slavic Literature Pod

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic and Hai Fan’s Delicious Hunger, trying to probe the question plaguing recent episodes: “What is the value of art during wartime?”Deaf Republic tells an all-too-familiar parable of a town under occupation, subjected to abuse and murder, and how the people there chose their own forms of resistance to occupation. Delicious Hunger tackles the issue from another angle: Hai Fan is the pen name for Ang Tiam Huat, a guerilla who fought for the Malaysian Communist Party for over a decade. His book fictionalizes the stories and struggles of his comrades during their years in the rainforest. Hai Fan’s interview during Ethos Books’ launch party for Delicious Hunger.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.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron continues speaking about Yevgenia Belorusets’ work with War Diary and also explores the experience of women living through war in Merce Rodoreda’s The Time of Doves. War Diary catalogues the first 40 days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, capturing the turbulence and violence while never forgetting to focus on the human element. Belorusets’ writing is a powerful call against apathy and a reminder to not forget what is human in man. The Time of Doves follows Natalia, a Catalan woman in a new marriage in the years prior, during and after the Spanish Civil War. Rodoreda’s writing depicts the anxiety of being a woman — subject to an overly-expectant husband, keeping house and kids while earning rent money. The flow-of-consciousness style gives you an intimate look into Natalia’s experiences, sometimes blatantly and sometimes merely hinting at the things in her subconscious. Read the entries of War Diary at https://www.isolarii.com/kyivThe 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.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron talks about unreliable narrators in Yevgenia Belorusets’ Lucky Breaks and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, posing an unusual argument: what if lying to your reader was a good thing?Belorusets is a Ukrainian writer whose work focuses on the people marginalized by society and takes that eye toward the East, writing stories of women from the Donbas region after war broke out in 2014. Her work brings a light to stories often left untold — and even poses questions about the morality of doing so. Yevgenia Belorusets’ website“The Complaint Against Language” in Wartime Ukraine: A Conversation with Yevgenia Belorusets, interview by Eugene OstashevskyYevgenia Belorusets Focus On Ukraine, Creative Horizons (video, 2024)One Day More — Yevgenia Belorusets’ visit to BrusselsThe 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.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into William T. Vollmann’s Europe Central and Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. The uniting theme this week: reflection and memory. Both novels cast a long shadow over his life, so it’s time to untangle exactly why that is. Can Europe Central be cleanly read as a series of parables? Is it appropriate to turn Hitler into a sort-of fairy tale? Is it a red flag that Cameron has read Norwegian Wood six times? Tune in to find your answers. “Shostakovich in Love: William T. Vollmann’s Europe Central” by Peter G. ChristiansenThe 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.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:Pick up a copy of The Story of Sonechka here.This week, Cameron dives into Marina Tsvetaeva’s The Story of Sonechka, a recollection of her relationship with the actress Sonia Holliday in Moscow, 1919. The story — one of the clearest examples of queer literature we’ve had on the podcast — reflects not only Marina and Sonia themselves, but also questions on relationships, memory and how we understand each other. Joining him to talk about the novel is Inessa Fishbeyn and C. D. C. Reeve, who translated The Story of Sonechka into English for the first time. Fishbeyn is an independent writer and translator of Russian literature, born and educated in Kazan, Russia. Reeve is DKE Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he specializes in ancient Greek philosophy and has translated many of the works of Plato and Aristotle and written books, commentaries, and essays on them. Major themes: Love Triangles, Queer literature, Knowing the otherThe 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.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych’s The Moscoviad, a picaresque-cum-magical realist novel following the poet Otto von F. as he spends one day trying to accomplish a few chores around Moscow: a visit to a meeting, a reunion with a sort-of girlfriend, and a gift for his friend’s children. This journey takes him to beer halls, into the sewers, into the attention of the KGB and beyond. Set in the very late Soviet Union, Andrukhovych tackles the place of colonized subject in imperial core, the uneasy “friendship of peoples,” and life in a failing empire. Joining him to talk about the novel is Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky. A professor at the University of Kansas, Chernetsky is the author of the book Mapping Postcommunist Cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the Context of Globalization. In addition to The Moscoviad, he has translated into English Yuri Andrukovych’s Twelve Circles, Sophia Andrukovych’s Felix Austria, along with two poetry collections, scholarly articles and historical documents. He is the president of the Shevchenko Scientific Society, and has previously served as the director of the University of Kansas’ Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, the president of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies, and the president of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Major themes: Empire, beer vending machines, subverted machismoThe 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, Cameron ascends into the towering heights of imperial politics in Yaroslav Barsukov’s Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov. The novel follows Shea Ashcroft, an imperial minister whose refusal to gas protesting citizenry has earned him a reassignment to a border region to oversee a fantastical military project. With no one truly on his side and managing strange technologies, Ashcrofts finds himself increasingly out of his depth.Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory includes and expands on Barsukov’s earlier novella Tower of Mud and Straw. It’s been nominated for a Nebula Award and received a Kirkus Reviews star.Joining Cameron to talk about the novel is Yaroslav himself. Born and raised in Moscow and now living in Austria for quite some time, Yaroslav’s background is in physics and software engineering. His writing career stems from game design, in a manner of speaking. He took up his pen around 2014 after quite enjoying the work of translating a game’s mythology for a pitchMajor themes: Suspicions of war, alien technologies, memory10:18 - Barsukov’s interview with the podcast “From the Lighthouse”26:54 - First correction I’ve had to issue in a while — I misremembered the name of the film, which is actually Protozanov’s “Aelita,” not “Anta Odeli Uta,” which is a phrase in the film. 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.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands