Find it anywhere you get your podcasts!
Apple podcasts: tinyurl.com/chevengur
Spotify: tinyurl.com/chevengur-sp...
07.03.2026 00:10
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Find it anywhere you get your podcasts!
Apple podcasts: tinyurl.com/chevengur
Spotify: tinyurl.com/chevengur-sp...
It's been a long time coming...part two of Andrei Platonov's Chevengur, covering chapters 25-43, is out today!
As we finally arrive in the town of Chevengur, nearly 250 pages in, we go from picaresque romp to the dirty work of actually building the Soviet state.
Chevengur, part 2, coming soon to a theater near you...
When I was editing this episode, I realize it felt a little half-baked and didn't want to do Andrei Platonov that disservice. We're going to take another crack at it and bring you something better next Friday.
Get it anywhere you listen to your podcasts!
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/zvenihora
Spotify: tinyurl.com/zvenihora-s
Plus, you may have heard my confusion about Dovzhenko's life in the episode on "Earth." Well, turns out there's a good reason for that: misinformation.
We'll dig into that and attempt to get at a fuller understanding of his life in this episode.
It's finally here...and it's a real big fish. Oleksandr Dovzhenko's "Zvenihora" (1928) is an ambitious silent film masterpiece, spanning a thousand years of Ukrainian history from Varangian Invasion to new Soviet reality.
Find it anywhere you get your podcasts!
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/people-immor...
Spotify: tinyurl.com/people-immor...
The next episode on Dovzhenko's "Zvenyhora" is coming! Working my way through a research rabbithole.
In the meantime, check out an older episode: Vasily Grossman's The People Immortal.
Less mature than his later work, it nonetheless shows his immense commitment to truth.
Also, you can register for the livestream at Elena and Rosamund's Jan. 29 event at Pushkin House here: www.pushkinhouse.org/whats-on/eve...
Plus, you'll hear a lot about their unusual translation process--one involving 83 other translators across the world.
Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!
Spotify: tinyurl.com/chekhov-early
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/early-chekhov
Out today! I sat down with Rosamund Bartlett and Elena Michajlowska to talk about their new book: Anton Chekhov, Earliest Stories: Stories, Novellas, Humoresques, 1880-1882.
The collection covers Chekhov's earliest published stories, a great insight into his juvenile writing!
Happy Friday! A short delay on the way to the cherry orchard, but you'll hear our new episode soon.
Watch it on YouTube here: youtu.be/khXaVt0ilFc
Or listen anywhere you get your podcasts!
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/bdz66bhm
Spotify: tinyurl.com/y375n2t7
Happy New Year, everybody!
The Slavic Lit Pod has one last gift from 2025: Sayat Nova (1969), directed by Sergei Parajanov.
Plus! I watched a lot of films last year, so here are five that I really liked. (It's on YouTube, too, so you can see what I'm talking about)
Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/deaf-republic
Spotify: tinyurl.com/deaf-republi...
Delicious Hunger takes the opposite perspective, telling the stories of guerilla fighters for the Malaysian Communist Party from the 70's to the 80's.
Hai Fan, a former guerilla himself, tells their stories with a deft tenderness for the people and moments between combat.
A little late, but out today: The latest For Your Consideration explores Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic and Hai Fan's Delicious Hunger.
"THE PEOPLE ARE DEAF," declares Sonya's sign in the face of occupying soldiers, as Deaf Republic explores how the town of Vasenka resists them.
Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/war-diary-be...
Spotify: tinyurl.com/war-diary-sp...
A picture of the Ukrainian writer and artist Yevgenia Belorusets with the text "War Diary by Yevgenia Belorusets. Plus, The Time of Doves by Merce Rodoreda."
Hey, did you catch it?
My latest For Your Consideration continues Yevgenia Belorusets' reflections on Ukraine under war in "War Diary," plus a detour into Barcelona to explore a women's life through the Spanish Civil War in Mercè Rodoreda's "The Time of Doves."
Lucky Breaks, in particular, blurs this line, depicting stories of women's lives and struggles in the Donbas region at war -- prior to Russia's full-scale invasion.
Get it anywhere you listen to your podcasts!
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/lucky-breaks
Spotify: tinyurl.com/lucky-breaks...
Out today! For your consideration: Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belorusets and The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
Both collections document the stories of people in war -- in Ukraine and in Vietnam -- guiding their readers with a blend of fact and fiction.
Get it anywhere you listen to your podcasts!
Apple podcasts: tinyurl.com/alindarka-ce...
Spotify: tinyurl.com/alindarka-sp...
In one novel, we have two Belarusian children on a folkloric-like journey; in the other, we have a Native American WW2 veteran struggling with PTSD. Both explore how they and their communities adapt--or sometimes fail to adapt.
(Photo credit to Jula Cimafiejeva)
Out today! For Your Consideration: Alindarka's Children by Alhierd Bacharevič and Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko.
Both novels tackle the problems of people native to a land that is now hostile to them, in one way or another.
Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/europe-central
Spotify Podcasts: tinyurl.com/europe-centr...
Psst -- did you miss it?
A new For Your Consideration, looking back on some books that have profoundly influenced my life.
We'll go from the beautiful prose of William T. Vollmann's Europe Central to complicated memories in Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood.
It's a long one, so you have my apologies! Get the episode anywhere you listen to your podcasts.
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/teffi-rasputin
Spotify: tinyurl.com/rasputin-teffi
Out Today: A new sub-series I'm called "For Your Consideration," solo episodes covering books I think are worth reading.
We're tackling creative license on your own life in Teffi's Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me -- plus Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods.
Listen to it anywhere you get your podcasts!
Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/story-sonechka
Spotify: tinyurl.com/story-sonech...
Out Today: Inessa Fishbeyn and C. D. C. Reeve joined me to talk about Marina Tsvetaeva's The Story of Sonechka.
Tsvetaeva's book recalls her relationship with the actress Sonia Holliday, opening questions about memory, how we see each other, and Tsvetaeva's queer relationships.