Year: 2021

Translator Interview: Anna Kurkina Rush, Peter France, & Christopher Rush, translators of Küchlya: Decembrist Poet. A Novel

Translator Interview: Anna Kurkina Rush, Peter France, & Christopher Rush, translators of Küchlya: Decembrist Poet. A Novel

December 9, 2021

“[I]s it a biography? an adventure story? a historical novel about the period in Russian history at a pivotal moment – its first attempted and abortive revolution, the Decembrist uprising of 1825? Or is after all the mainspring of the novel Russian literature played out by characters conjured up by the author’s imagination? Characters familiar by name to every Russian schoolchild (Pushkin, Krylov, Zhukovsky) leap off the page as live people, fascinating, memorable. And of course, the protagonist of the novel, Wilhelm Küchelbecker, hardly known to Tynianov’s contemporaries, a long-forgotten poet and Pushkin’s lycée friend, is in particular, Tynianov’s tour de force.”

Anna Frajlich’s Collected Essays to Be Awarded the Oskar Halecki Prize

Anna Frajlich’s Collected Essays to Be Awarded the Oskar Halecki Prize

October 7, 2021

Anna Frajlich’s The Ghost of Shakespeare: Collected Essays, edited by Ronald Meyer (Academic Studies Press, 2020) will be awarded the Polish American Historical Association’s Oskar Halecki Prize at their annual convention in January 2022. Established in 1981, the Oskar Halecki Prize is given annually by the Polish American Historical Association. This Prize recognizes an important book or monograph on the Polish experience in the United States and commemorates Oskar Halecki (1891-1973), a Polish historian, writer, and social and Catholic activist. Dr. Halecki was a graduate of Jagiellonian University (1914), who also studied in Vienna and taught at Jagiellonian University, Warsaw University, Fordham University and Columbia University.

An Interview with Charles J. Halperin, author of Ivan the Terrible in Russian Historical Memory since 1991

An Interview with Charles J. Halperin, author of Ivan the Terrible in Russian Historical Memory since 1991

June 30, 2021

“I suspect that there is something in every country’s history that some of its residents would rather forget. For reasons that remain unclear Ivan the Terrible made war on his own people. Unfortunately Ivan’s reign was so important in Russian history in both domestic and foreign affairs that it is impossible to avoid. To further complicate matters the surviving sources on his reign are often contested, either because they are biased (which applies to native as well as foreigner accounts) or are extant only in seventeenth-century manuscripts which compromises their authenticity and accuracy. There are major gaps in the types of evidence that have survived; for example, we have no personal rather than public documents from Ivan. Therefore there is a wide space for legitimate scholarly disagreement. But Ivan’s controversial identity goes well beyond these academic considerations.”

When Ksawery Met Moses

When Ksawery Met Moses

June 9, 2021

This is a guest post by Wiesiek Powaga, translator of Palestine for the Third Time, a book of reportage originally published in Poland in 1933 by Ksawery Pruszyński, a young reporter working for a Polish newspaper on assignment in Mandate Palestine. Here, Powaga introduces Pruszyński and his formative friendship with Mojżesz Pomeranz.

Thomas Seifrid on “Companions to Russian Literature”

Thomas Seifrid on “Companions to Russian Literature”

May 12, 2021

This series features volumes designed to enrich the reading of key works in the history of Russian literature by providing essential commentary on the author’s biography, intellectual engagements and influences, as well as the historical and political context in which the work arose. ASP Companions are accessible guides for general readers without knowledge of Russian or extensive familiarity with Russian literature and history, while also providing an au courant introduction to advanced study. Each volume is written by an individual scholar with recognized expertise on the work, or by a group of scholars who examine the writer or work from a variety of perspective.

Nikolai Gogol’s Language Game as the Engine of the Plot in his Absurdist Masterpiece “The Nose”

Nikolai Gogol’s Language Game as the Engine of the Plot in his Absurdist Masterpiece “The Nose”

April 1, 2021

This is an excerpt from Ksana Blank’s forthcoming book, “The Nose”: A Stylistic and Critical Companion to Nikolai Gogol’s Story. This literary guide leads students with advanced knowledge of Russian as well as experienced scholars through the text of Nikolai Gogol’s absurdist masterpiece “The Nose.” Part I focuses on numerous instances of the writer’s wordplay, which is meant to surprise and delight the reader, but which often is lost in English translations. It traces Gogol’s descriptions of everyday life in St. Petersburg, familiar to the writer’s contemporaries and fellow citizens but hidden from the modern Western reader. Part II presents an overview of major critical interpretations of the story in Gogol scholarship from the time of its publication to the present, as well as its connections to the works of Shostakovich, Kafka, Dalí, and Kharms.

The companion is out April 20, 2021 and is now available for preorder wherever books are sold. The excerpt published here is from the chapter “Language Game as the Engine of the Plot.”