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 roughly two Fridays per month.

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/10/27/6/032e7bfa-e364-45aa-bbd3-f31b702504ca_slavlit_una_intro.mp3

Show Notes:This week, Cameron is joined by Una Vulevic: a PhD student, Anna Karenina enthusiast and...a new co-host on the show. They&#39;ll talk a little bit about her background, how she got in to Slavic literature, the importance of highlighting women&#39;s often-overlooked contributions and our theory of Slavic lit podcasting. Check out Una&#39;s YouTube channel: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@slavicliteraturegirl" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/@slavicliteraturegirl</a>Una&#39;s Substack: <a href="https://substack.com/@slavicliteraturegirl" rel="nofollow">https://substack.com/@slavicliteraturegirl</a> This podcast is proudly A.I.-free. Any instances of intelligence are entirely human in origin. The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links: <a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow">Website</a> | <a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Discord⁠</a> | <a href="https://www.patreon.com/c/slaviclitpod" rel="nofollow">Patreon</a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

A new voice on the Slavic Literature Pod

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/10/9/7/5990f05b-f014-45e5-a9fe-70c655412cf2_slavlit_no-one-talks.mp3

Show Notes:This week, Nina Kossman joins the podcast to talk about her upcoming book, No One Talks About the War: Travels in Ukraine During the War. A collection of short stories recollecting conversations she had while crossing Ukraine in 2023, No One Talks About the War seeks to simply document people. An attempt to avoid generalizing one person&#39;s view as everyone&#39;s perspective, her book catalogues everyday thoughts, opinions, gripes, and hopes from across the country. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-One-Talks-About-War-ebook/dp/B0H89TP8P6" rel="nofollow">Pre-order No One Talks About the War here</a> (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-One-Talks-About-War-ebook/dp/B0H89TP8P6" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/No-One-Talks-About-War-ebook/dp/B0H89TP8P6</a>). Nina Kossman is an award-winning bilingual writer, poet and translator. She’s written twelve books, including an anthology she put together for Oxford University Press, a book of vignettes about her childhood in the Soviet Union, several poetry collections and translations of Marina Tsvetaeva.  This podcast is proudly A.I.-free. Any instances of intelligence are entirely human in origin.The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links: <a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow">Website</a> | <a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Discord⁠</a> | <a href="https://www.patreon.com/c/slaviclitpod" rel="nofollow">Patreon</a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, threats? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

No One Talks About the War (with author Nina Kossman)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/9/18/6/cf70e5d5-a0e8-43d6-9f6d-82495ce52423_slavlit_ukr-modernism-final.mp3

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into the various forces in Ukrainian literature, theory, and criticism shortly after the turn of the 20th century. To help him wrap his head around the topic. Drs. Halyna Babak and Yuliya Ilchuk join the podcast to talk about their new readers Ukrainian Literary Modernism of the 1910s to Mid-1930s, Vol. 1 &amp;2. <a href="https://www.academicstudiespress.com/9798897831197/" rel="nofollow">Buy either volume of Ukrainian Literary Modernism here</a> (<a href="https://www.academicstudiespress.com/9798897831197/" rel="nofollow">https://www.academicstudiespress.com/9798897831197/</a>). Yuliya Ilchuk is an Associate Professor and the Director of Slavic Languages and Literatures Department at Stanford University. Her first awards-winning book, Nikolai Gogol: Performing Hybrid Identity ( published by the University of Toronto Press, 2021), revises Gogol’s identity and texts as ambivalent and hybrid. Her most recent book project, The Vanished: Memory, Temporality, Identity in Post-Euromaidan Ukraine shifts the discussion from collective remembrance to the cultural dimensions of forgetting. Ilchuk has also published several translations of Ukrainian poetry and literary criticism in tandem with Amelia Glaser and by herself.  Halyna Babak is an assistant professor at the University of Konstanz in Germany. Her research explores the intellectual history, literary theory, and literary production of 20th-century Ukraine within the broader context of Soviet and East European political and cultural history. She is the author of the monograph (in co-authorship with Alexander Dmitriev) Atlantida sovetskogo nacmodernizma. Formal&#39;nyj metod v Ukraine (1920-e – načalo 1930-ch). (Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2021). This podcast is proudly A.I.-free. Any instances of intelligence are entirely human in origin. The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links: <a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow">Website</a> | <a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Discord⁠</a> | <a href="https://www.patreon.com/c/slaviclitpod" rel="nofollow">Patreon</a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, threats? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

Ukrainian Literary Modernism (with Drs. Halyna Babak and Yuliya Ilchuk)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/8/28/4/10816445-922d-4118-8896-c0ad0e6e611f_slavlit-mosquito-final.mp3

Show Notes:This week, Jake Zawlacki joins Cameron to talk about his translation of Akhmet Baitursynov&#39;s Mosquito. Although it&#39;s appearing in English now for the first time, the collection itself is more than a century old--originally published in 1911, Mosquito is a clarion call to the Kazakh people. Living in land still subject to the Russian empire, Baitursynov&#39;s collection is a political tract, an appeal for unity, a sorrowful reflection on their world and a hopeful verse for the Kazakh future. <a href="https://www.academicstudiespress.com/9798897831616/" rel="nofollow">Buy a copy of Mosquito from Academic Studies Press here</a> (<a href="https://www.academicstudiespress.com/9798897831616/" rel="nofollow">https://www.academicstudiespress.com/9798897831616/</a>) or get it wherever you buy your books. Jake Zawlacki is a writer, translator, and scholar, and currently teaches writing at the University of San Diego. He is the editor of Conversations with Todd McFarlane and Conversations with Denys Cowan as well as the translator of the first English-language translation of Akhmet Baitursynov’s Mosquito. Zawlacki holds degrees from Louisiana State University, University of San Diego, and Stanford University, and his creative work has been published in The Saturday Evening Post, The Journal, Citron Review, and Roanoke Review. The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

Mosquito by Akhmet Baitursynov (with translator Jake Zawlacki)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/8/14/10/27c95b15-c25a-40b9-8696-1b9d1c12ffbf_slavlit-chukovskaya-sofia-petrovna.mp3

Show Notes: This week, Cameron (finally) dives into Lydia Chukovskaya&#39;s Sofia Petrovna. A novel about the Great Terror written during the Great Terror, Chukovskaya&#39;s eponymous character lives a fairly comfortable Soviet life -- until her son is arrested for an unspecified crime.Splitting its time between prison lines and a workplace growing rife with denunciations and arrests, Sofia Petrovna memorializes a moment most people would rather forget. It turns a mirror on the people who lived through the Great Terror and asks, too, &#34;Who were you?&#34; Some works referenced in this episode:Stalin, Vol. II, Waiting for Hitler, 1928-1941 by Stephen Kotkin<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/343411" rel="nofollow">&#34;Did Stalin Kill Kirov and Does It Matter?&#34; by Matt Lenoe</a>: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/343411" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/343411</a>On Stalin&#39;s Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics by Sheila Fitzpatrick<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2499175" rel="nofollow">Fear and Belief in the USSR&#39;s &#39;Great Terror&#39;: Response to Arrest, 1935-1939</a> by Robert W. Thurston: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2499175" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstor.org/stable/2499175</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

A Contemporary Perspective on the Great Terror


This week, Cameron (finally) dives into Lydia Chukovskaya&#39;s Sofia Petrovna. A novel about the Great Terror written during the Great Terror, Chukovskaya&#39;s eponymous character lives a fairly comfortable Soviet life -- until her son is arrested for an unspecified crime. 

Splitting its time between prison lines and a workplace growing rife with denunciations and arrests, Sofia Petrovna memorializes a moment most people would rather forget. It turns a mirror on the people who lived through the Great Terror and asks, too, &#34;Who were you?&#34;

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Sofia Petrova by Lydia Chukovskaya

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/6/12/6/36d6294c-a51d-41d9-a354-b06f9c4daa0d_slavlit-butchers_crossing.mp3

Show Notes:This week, on For Your Consideration, Cameron dives into John Williams&#39; 1960 novel, Butcher&#39;s Crossing, a cautionary tale about how reading Ralph Waldo Emerson can drive you into buffalo-murdering madness.It&#39;s not uncommon to see the novel compared to Cormac McCarthy&#39;s Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West, but after reading both...he&#39;s skeptical. It seems that they don&#39;t share much more than a genre. This episode has a two-fold purpose: 1) To cover Butcher&#39;s Crossing&#39;s adept take on the Western and 2) Why we should all be more skeptical about the act of comparing things, especially these two novels. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43017669" rel="nofollow">Butcher&#39;s Crossing: The Husks and Shells of Exploitation by Jack Brenner</a>: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43017669" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstor.org/stable/43017669</a><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27117925" rel="nofollow">Pragmatist Individuals and the Nineteenth-Century American West in Wallace Stegner&#39;s Angle of Repose and John Williams&#39;s Butcher&#39;s Crossing by Gregory Alan Phipps</a>: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27117925" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstor.org/stable/27117925</a><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2025.2608966" rel="nofollow">The Influence of Jacob Boehme&#39;s Aurora on Cormac McCarthy&#39;s Blood Meridian by Lydia R. Cooper</a>: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2025.2608966" rel="nofollow">https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2025.2608966</a><a href="https://jacobboehmeonline.com/assets/docs/AURORA.18693240.pdf" rel="nofollow">Aurora the Day Spring Or Dawning of the Day in the East Or Morning-Redness in the Rising of the SUN by Jacob Boehme</a>: <a href="https://jacobboehmeonline.com/assets/docs/AURORA.18693240.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://jacobboehmeonline.com/assets/docs/AURORA.18693240.pdf</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

For Your Consideration: John Williams' Butcher's Crossing (and why I don't think we should compare it to Blood Meridian)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/5/3/8/1ffeafac-a6a9-4556-add5-b51c9ec3c2ad_slavlit_lastletter_full.mp3

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 <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

The Last Letter (2002) by Frederick Wiseman + What Vasily Grossman and Life & Fate mean today

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/4/3/18/9af4856c-b78a-4f2a-bb7f-146337fd7edf_slav-lit-prep-work-last-letter.mp3

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 <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

PREP WORK: The Last Letter (2002) by Frederick Wiseman

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/3/20/18/a34248af-9c20-42ce-87ee-2e1c00f4e82a_slavlit-sokolov-school.mp3

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.<a href="https://encyclopediaofthedog.com/" rel="nofollow">Link to Encyclopedia of the Dog</a>: <a href="https://encyclopediaofthedog.com/" rel="nofollow">https://encyclopediaofthedog.com/</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.97.3.0426" rel="nofollow">The Embodied Language of Sasha Sokolov’s A School for Fools</a> by José Vergara: <a href="https://doi.org/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.97.3.0426" rel="nofollow">https://doi.org/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.97.3.0426</a><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv1fkgbqh.9" rel="nofollow">Sasha Sokolov: ‘Here Comes Everybody’ Meets ‘Those Who Came’</a> by José Vergara: <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv1fkgbqh.9" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv1fkgbqh.9</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov (w/ Dr. José Vergara)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/3/6/23/ba67eeb8-70cd-49a6-9c46-9ba6bbeb202a_slavlit-cheevengur-2.mp3

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.  <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4213493" rel="nofollow">“Danger and Deliverance: Reading Andrei Platonov” by Angela Livingstone</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7ztm8t.8" rel="nofollow">“Chevengur: On the Road with Bolshevik Utopia” by David Bethea in The Shape of Apocalypse in Modern Russian Fiction</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1134gsn.11" rel="nofollow">“Chevengur: Buried in the Family Plot” by Elior Borenstein in Men without Women: Masculinity and Revolution in Russian Fiction, 1917-1929</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

Chevengur by Andrei Platonov, Chapters 25-43

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/2/13/9/1febeea8-4e3b-4084-a55a-b40377d5ca5a_slavlit-zvenihora.mp3

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. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/831348/Alexander_Dovzhenkos_1939_Autobiography?rhid=37782878500&sm=b" rel="nofollow">Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s 1939 autobiography</a> <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y1p4niHUKSnUTD9u1aZP4VnrUVPwWfKILe-7HFetKow/edit?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow">My notes on George Liber’s Alexander Dovzhenko: A Life in Soviet Film</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

Zvenihora (1928) directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/1/21/9/76fcf142-a085-47a9-8656-9ece577b64bf_slavlit_earlychekhov.mp3

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.  <a href="https://www.pushkinhouse.org/whats-on/events/4579" rel="nofollow">Book tickets for Rosamund and Elena’s event at Pushkin House here.</a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/antonchekhovfoundation/" rel="nofollow">Follow the Anton Chekhov Foundation on Instagram @antonchekhovfoundation </a> <a href="https://medium.com/@acf_43552" rel="nofollow">Read more on the foundation’s blog here.</a> <a href="http://antonchekhovfoundation.org" rel="nofollow">Check out their website antonchekhovfoundation.org</a> <a href="http://antonchekhovfoundation.org/ectp.html" rel="nofollow">Learn more about the Early Chekhov Translation Project here</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

Anton Chekhov, Earliest Stories (w/ editors Rosamund Bartlett and Elena Michajlowska)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2026/1/1/23/09433ada-e3b3-4561-bb18-1baafbae765d_sequence_01.mp3

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: <a href="https://youtu.be/khXaVt0ilFc" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/khXaVt0ilFc</a> Also, sorry, the name of the theater is Dreamland Cinema. I forgot to say that in the video.  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=2503s&v=s2Xw3LvNT20" rel="nofollow">An Analysis of the Color of Pomegranates by YouTuber Blythe</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffukF1MvLGk" rel="nofollow">Sinners and the Death of Black art by YouTube F. D. Signifier</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4n6D2zYZPM" rel="nofollow">Goodnight Irene, dir. by Sterlin Harjo</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

My five favorite films of the year + Sayat Nova, dir. by Sergei Parajanov

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2025/12/5/13/bffe466c-20a5-42df-8cb4-191b0faef779_slavlit-earth.mp3

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: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKPqvKgpM4E" rel="nofollow">“Earth” (1930) x biju</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3664464" rel="nofollow">Offscreen Dreams and Collective Synthesis in Dovzhenko’s Earth by Elizabeth A. Papazian</a><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3850551" rel="nofollow">All in the Foreground: A Study of Dovzhenko’s Earth by Gilberto Perez</a><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/fq.2011.64.4.17" rel="nofollow">Dovzhenko: Folk Tale and Revolution by Gilberto Perez</a><a href="https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2022/09/death-and-life/" rel="nofollow">Death and life on Alexander Dovzhenko by Jonathan Rosenbaum</a><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43752837?ab_segments=0%2Fspellcheck_basic_search%2Ftest&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ac9c65235225267c300418b4e8652637e&searchText=Dovzhenko&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DDovzhenko%26so%3Drel&seq=1" rel="nofollow">The Dovzhenko Papers by Marco Carynnyk</a><a href="https://commons.com.ua/en/kontekst-tvorchosti-dovzhenka/" rel="nofollow">Who is Hidden behind the Figure of a Genius? The Context of Dovzhenko’s Work by Anna Tsymbal</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24711657" rel="nofollow">Subversions in Dovzhenko’s Earth by Romana M. Bahry</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXg116r5KEE" rel="nofollow">“Ukranian masterpieces: Earth (1930) - Dovzhenko</a>”<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Mi3M06r-hg" rel="nofollow">Earth: Analysis of Film Form, Auteur Characteristics and Context</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

Earth (1930) directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2025/11/21/9/391e61d0-b994-4afa-a035-7ae0e2afabb1_slavlit-not-russian.mp3

Show Notes:This week, Ally Pitts — host of A Russian &amp; Soviet Movie Podcast — joins Cameron to talk about the book Not Russian by Mikhail Shevelev. The book follows veteran journalist Pavel Vladimirovich as an old friend’s sudden reappearance at the head of a terror attack forces him to reflect on his history as a Russian journalist and how things turned out this way.  You can find Ally on his Twitter @Alistair_Pitts and on Instagram under @ally_pitts_movies_etc. You can find A Russian &amp; Soviet Movie podcast anywhere you listen to your audio.  <a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/anna-karenina-film-adaptations/" rel="nofollow">Our prior episode with Ally on Anna Karenina film adaptations.</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

Not Russian by Mikhail Shevelev (w/ Ally Pitts, host of A Russian & Soviet Movie Podcast)

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2025/10/27/2/c271baaf-99e2-4171-ad40-fc6fa143fb14_slavlit-chevengur.mp3

Show Notes: This week, Cameron dives into Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur, covering chapters 1 through 25. Through the late Russian Empire into the early Soviet Union, Sasha Dvanov is finally orphaned when his fisherman father drowns in an attempt to understand his all-knowing, deathless fish. Growing up in the shuffling shadow of the new world, he joins the Bolshevik party and seeks to spread communism.  This episode covers his adventures trying to find out if the peasants have, after the abdication of the Tsar, suddenly begun to embrace communist lives. From anarchist militias to a Bolshevik Fyodor Dostoevsky, he finds little to approve of in the countryside. <a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/the-cow-the-third-son/" rel="nofollow">Check out our old episode covering The Cow and the Third Son.</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1zxsjhv.3" rel="nofollow">A Companion to Andrei Platonov’s “The Foundation Pit” by Thomas Seyfrid.</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/310054" rel="nofollow">Time out of line: Sequence and plot in Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur by by Hallie A. White</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

Chevengur, chapters 1-25, by Andrei Platonov

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2025/9/26/11/6cb5e23f-afd0-4de8-8897-e45cab286651_slavlit-people-immortal.mp3

Show Notes:This week, Cameron returns to Vasily Grossman, covering his first novel of World War II, The People Immortal. The novel follows the Red Army through the early days of the war: losing battles, ceding ever more ground, and quickly losing hope. Although this novel doesn’t contain the philosophical and critical heights of his later two novels, The People Immortal yet captures Grossman’s foundational commitment to telling the truth. The truth of the Red Army being beaten back, the fact that some—tired of the abuses of the Soviet Union—welcomed the invaders, and what awaited people overtaken by the Wehrmacht. An early work, less mature, and yet one well worth reading. The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

The People Immortal by Vasily Grossman

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2025/9/16/6/f3c0b337-784a-45dc-9695-a26176e7f9e8_slavlit_deaf-republic.mp3

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.  <a href="https://www.ethosbooks.com.sg/blogs/news/delicious-hunger-book-launch" rel="nofollow">Hai Fan’s interview during Ethos Books’ launch party for Delicious Hunger.</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky and Delicious Hunger by Hai Fan

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2025/9/12/21/a7183a8c-4507-4e8a-a2bc-282da3796126_slavlit-sep2025-update.mp3

We were supposed to talk about Ilya Kaminsky&#39;s Deaf Republic and Fan Hai&#39;s Delicious Hunger today, but the episode&#39;s audio is trapped on a dead computer. You can look forward to listening to (a probably re-recorded) episode on Monday. Since we have the time, I wanted to take a step back and discuss the ever-evolving reason for this podcast. It&#39;s hard to talk about &#34;just&#34; literature right now. But I think it&#39;s still worthwhile. We&#39;ll go over that and what&#39;s coming up next. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

An update, a reason to podcast, a look through October

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2025/8/29/22/c9aed5f4-726f-4de2-9a85-ee8b02c809cd_slavlit_fyc-war-doves.mp3

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.  <a href="https://www.isolarii.com/kyiv" rel="nofollow">Read the entries of War Diary at https://www.isolarii.com/kyiv</a> The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on <a href="https://peremotka.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@peremotka_band/featured" rel="nofollow">Youtube</a>.  Our links:<a href="https://slaviclitpod.com/" rel="nofollow"> Website</a> |<a href="https://discord.gg/hVFgDtwDsx?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> ⁠Discord⁠ </a>Socials: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/slaviclitpod/?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow">Instagram⁠</a> |<a href="https://bsky.app/profile/slaviclitpod.bsky.social?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> BlueSky</a> |<a href="https://twitter.com/slaviclitpod?ref=slaviclitpod.com" rel="nofollow"> Twitter⁠</a> |<a href="https://www.facebook.com/slavlitpod" rel="nofollow"> Facebook</a> Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at <a href="mailto:slaviclitpod@gmail.com" rel="nofollow">slaviclitpod@gmail.com</a>. Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a>

For Your Consideration: War Diary by Yevgenia Belorusets & The Time of Doves by Merce Rodoreda

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 roughly two Fridays per month.