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The Slavic Literature Pod is your guide to the literary traditions in and around the Slavic world. On each episode, Cameron Lallana sits down with scholars, translators and other experts to dive deep into big books, short stories, film, and everything in between. You’ll get an approachable introduction to the scholarship and big ideas surrounding these canons.
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- May 3, 20261h 36m
The Last Letter (2002) by Frederick Wiseman + What Vasily Grossman and Life & Fate mean today
Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into Frederick Wiseman’s 2002 film “The Last Letter,” a dramatization of one chapter of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate: the final letter Anna Semionova writes her son, Viktor Shtrum, from a Jewish ghetto.We’ll get into how Wiseman adapts this troubling, poignant chapter into film, why I think this chapter is the best encapsulation of Grossman’s ideas in Life and Fate, and some thoughts on why he remains so provocative today. Quick note: At one point in this episode I misspeak and say that the Vlasovite Russian Liberation Army was entirely Russian, which was not the case. It was primarily made of of Russian former Red Army soldiers, but did include Soviet defectors of other ethnicities more broadly.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
- Apr 3, 202651 min
PREP WORK: The Last Letter (2002) by Frederick Wiseman
Show Notes:This week, you and Cameron get into some PREP WORK for an upcoming episode about Frederick Wiseman’s 2002 film “The Last Letter,” which dramatizes a chapter of Vassily Grossman’s Life and Fate. In preparation for that episode, we’ll read that dramatized chapter — Part 1, Chapter 18, Anna Semyonova’s final letter to her son, Viktor Shtrum — along with two other letters Grossman wrote to his mother after her death. 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
- Mar 20, 20261h 5m
A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov (w/ Dr. José Vergara)
Show Notes:This week, Dr. José Vergara returns to the podcast to talk about Sasha Sokolov’s A School for Fools. The novel, first published in English in 1977, follows student so-and-so (and his double) as he attempts to tell events of his life. The novel doesn’t follow a linear plot — or even an easy-to-distinguish narrator — and puts you on your toes as you meander between stories.Dr. Vergara is an associate professor of Russian in the Bryn Mawr College’s Department of Russian. He is the author of All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature, a co-editor of Reimagining Nabokov: Pedagogies for the 21st Century, and aa co-editor of the digital annotated edition of Sasha Sokolov’s Between Dog and Wolf.Link to Encyclopedia of the Dog: https://encyclopediaofthedog.com/The Embodied Language of Sasha Sokolov’s A School for Fools by José Vergara: https://doi.org/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.97.3.0426Sasha Sokolov: ‘Here Comes Everybody’ Meets ‘Those Who Came’ by José Vergara: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv1fkgbqh.9The 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
- Mar 6, 20261h 45m
Chevengur by Andrei Platonov, Chapters 25-43
Show Notes:This week, Cameron takes on the back half of Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur, covering chapters 25-43. As our characters finally arrive in the town of Chevengur, we go from a picaresque romp around the newly-Soviet countryside into the dirty work of actually building Communism. “Danger and Deliverance: Reading Andrei Platonov” by Angela Livingstone“Chevengur: On the Road with Bolshevik Utopia” by David Bethea in The Shape of Apocalypse in Modern Russian Fiction“Chevengur: Buried in the Family Plot” by Elior Borenstein in Men without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929The 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
- Feb 13, 20261h 52m
Zvenihora (1928) directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko
Show Notes:This week, Cameron returns to the beginning of Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Ukrainian Trilogy with “Zvenihora.” The film, released in 1928, explores a thousand years of Ukrainian history — spanning from Varangian invasion to the rise of the Soviet Union. The film is a fascinating take on Soviet film, mashing together Ukrainian culture and the new, Soviet reality.You may have noticed this episode is two hours long….so, I decided to look into why I was finding inconsistent information on Dovzhenko’s life in the episode on “Earth.” Turns out, there’s a good reason for that. Oh, boy, do we get into that in this episode.Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s 1939 autobiographyMy notes on George Liber’s Alexander Dovzhenko: A Life in Soviet FilmThe 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
- Jan 21, 20261h 9m
Anton Chekhov, Earliest Stories (w/ editors Rosamund Bartlett and Elena Michajlowska)
Show Notes:This week, we see that every author starts somewhere in Anton Chekhov, Earliest Stories: Stories, Novellas, Humoresques, 1880-1882. To talk about Chekhov’s earliest published stories, Cameron sits down with Elena Michajlowska and Rosamund Bartlett. The pair not only edited the collection, but also oversaw the unusual editing process that involved 83 other translators across the world.They’ll talk about where Chekhov was this early in his career, the editing process and what kinds of stories we find among this juvanalia. Book tickets for Rosamund and Elena’s event at Pushkin House here.Follow the Anton Chekhov Foundation on Instagram @antonchekhovfoundation Read more on the foundation’s blog here.Check out their website antonchekhovfoundation.orgLearn more about the Early Chekhov Translation Project hereThe 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
- Jan 1, 202642 min
My five favorite films of the year + Sayat Nova, dir. by Sergei Parajanov
Show Notes:This week, Cameron talks a little bit about director Sergei Parajanov’s “Sayat Nova” (also known as The Color of Pomegranates), and five other films he really liked this year. Want to see the video version of this episode? Check it out here: https://youtu.be/khXaVt0ilFcAlso, sorry, the name of the theater is Dreamland Cinema. I forgot to say that in the video. An Analysis of the Color of Pomegranates by YouTuber BlytheSinners and the Death of Black art by YouTube F. D. SignifierGoodnight Irene, dir. by Sterlin HarjoThe 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
- Dec 5, 20251h 13m
Earth (1930) directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko
Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into the final entry into Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Silent Trilogy, “Earth” (1930). The film’s deceptively simple plot—of a tractor delivery to a collectivizing village in Ukraine is followed by the murder of a local Bolshevik organizer—doesn’t hinder its avant-garde stylings, employing a montage of loose logical associations better described as dream logic, moving from people to fruit to threshing in a way that demands your attention. Yeah, that’s right — I’m arguing that a socialist realist work about tractors is super interesting. A novel concept for the podcast, I know. You can watch Earth (1930) in excellent quality here: “Earth” (1930) x bijuOffscreen Dreams and Collective Synthesis in Dovzhenko’s Earth by Elizabeth A. PapazianAll in the Foreground: A Study of Dovzhenko’s Earth by Gilberto PerezDovzhenko: Folk Tale and Revolution by Gilberto PerezDeath and life on Alexander Dovzhenko by Jonathan RosenbaumThe Dovzhenko Papers by Marco CarynnykWho is Hidden behind the Figure of a Genius? The Context of Dovzhenko’s Work by Anna Tsymbal Subversions in Dovzhenko’s Earth by Romana M. Bahry“Ukranian masterpieces: Earth (1930) - Dovzhenko”Earth: Analysis of Film Form, Auteur Characteristics and ContextThe 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
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About The Slavic Literature Pod
The Slavic Literature Pod is your guide to the literary traditions in and around the Slavic world. On each episode, Cameron Lallana sits down with scholars, translators and other experts to dive deep into big books, short stories, film, and everything in between. You’ll get an approachable introduction to the scholarship and big ideas surrounding these canons.
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