IZO

On a new history of C20 Russia written by members of the Moscow University history faculty (yasina, in Russian):

For the first time in a university text-book the percentages of Jews in the security, culture, education sectors are given.

The blogger, Irina Yasina, implies that this is a sign of anti-semitism. As presented in the book, which I haven't seen, it may well be; but on the other hand there seems no good reason why such info, including info about the relevant percentages of other nationalities, should not be in the public sphere. The cause of Yasina's anxiety is clear: the subject of the Jewish role in the disastrous post-1918 repressions is getting increasing traction in the Russian nationalist circles; image below via LJ gunter_spb.

 

Literature, books

On Ilya Kabakov and the underground movement: Matthew Jesse Jackson, The Experimental Group (University of Chicago Press).

Book imagines sex-life of Anne Frank (Guardian).

Leo Tolstoy's great-grandson lives life like Dostoevsky character (WP) (thanks, MK):

"I'm living like a bohemian," he jokes with a rascally grin. "I beg, borrow and steal."  According to people who have known him for more than 30 years, Tolstoy's money is gone, vanished, lost at the betting windows of the Laurel, Bowie, Timonium and Pimlico racetracks he used to roam six days a week.

A new translation of In The First Circle (Huffington Post) (thanks, MK).

Books

Russia-themed thrillers a la mode at Luton airport last week.

 

Also: review of Michèle Lesbre's novel Le Canapé rouge, a Prix Goncourt finalist (Le Courrier de Russie, in French).

New book: Ted Mooney's The Same River Twice is a Russian mafia-themed thriller (boston.com).

WWII

Politics as usual: Stalin scuppered two plots to kill Hitler because he feared Hitler's successor would make peace (Daily Mail).

A new book on the sexual violence during the Red Army's occupation in Germany: Gabi Köpp's Warum war ich bloß ein Mädchen? (Amazon) (via LJ avmalgin)

Books

Russian and Soviet Views of Modern Western Art, 1890s to Mid-1930s, edited by Ilia Dorontchenkov (UC Press).

Russian Textiles: Printed Cloth for the Bazaars of Central Asia (Ningbo Textiles).

Newish book: M. L. Bell's Ethnic Muscovites, a study Moscow's ethnic make-up (Falanster).

Biography of Russian emigré artist, Paraskeva Clark (Montreal Gazette). Below, her Parachute Riggers, 1947, in the Canadian War Museum.

Literature

On Elena Chizhova's Booker Prize-winning Time of Women (NYT):

A slender 95 pages, told in a sometimes cryptic stream of conversation, “Time of Women” was not favored to win the Booker Prize, and some critics dripped contempt. Summing up the books of the year for the magazine Literaturnaya Rossiya, Kirill Ankudinov sneered at “literature sitting on grandmother’s trunk and becoming drunk on memories of how well people behaved under Brezhnev,” and Yevgeny Yermolin bemoaned the popularity of “cemetery erotica.”

Meanwhile, Ekaterinburg writer Vladimir Blinov has won a local literary prize with his work Untitled Novel, the text of which consists of a single line: "Don't bother! I'll do it myself." ("Не надо! Я сама".) (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

Lennart Dalgren, ex-General Director of IKEA, is publishing an eye-opening history of the company's adventures in Russia (Forbes, in Russian).

Book review: The Same River Twice by Ted Mooney features "Turner, an art dealer who has crossed a ruthless Russian mobster and is handling the sale of a small collection of smuggled Russian folk art" (Publishers' Weekly).

New book on Russian Povera (maratguelman).

  

Short appreciative review of Sergei Zhadan's novel about Kharkov in the nineties, Red Elvis (GQ, in Russian).

Book review: Elif Batuman's The Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them (SFGate).

Prof. Gregory Freidin is the world's leading Babel scholar (Stanford University):

Babel lived through the Great Terror, seeing his friends disappear one by one until he was arrested in 1939.  The Soviet government sent out agents who pretended to have seen him in the subsequent decade – they even met with his family abroad. "Even after his death, Babel was used as a foreign policy asset," said Freidin. Confirmation of his arrest, torture and death in 1940 did not occur until 1954.

A document found in the archive of the Russian Foreign Ministry confirms that the British Museum is the lawful owner of the Sinai Codex; the document shows that the Codex was indeed sold by the [Greek] Monastery of St Catherine to the Russian government in 1869; in 1933 Stalin sold it to the British for 100,000 UKP (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

Reading Olav Velthuis's Talking Prices, about the economics of the art-world. This is a much better book than that thing about the 12 million dollar stuffed shark (which for some reason has been translated into Russian), although it is more technical. It's full of interesting info, e.g. Velthuis mentions a study which shows that as far as the relationship between an artist's prices and his age is concerned, the 'price-maximising age' is 38. Ну, годы мчатся...

Another option if you are interested in analysis of the art market is by "Russian financier Sergei Skatershchikov" and called Skate's Art Investment Handbook (Artworld Salon). The trouble is, if you are an "investor", none of these books, for all their analysis, tell you what to buy.

Rise Up, Russia!

Olga Rodionova, embattled heroine of the notorious Book of Olga (IZO, earlier), has won a nominal sum of 20,000 roubles (about $600) in damages for "moral harm" from TV presenter Kseniya Sobchak (Dni.ru, in Russian). Below, I think, the show which got Sobchak into trouble.

New books (thanks, MK)

Android Karenina describes a "steampunk-inspired world" (mediabistro.com).

A Mountain of Crumbs is a "minor-key coming of age story" about growing up in the USSR in the 60s and 70s (NYT).

Review of Pavel Pepperstein's collection of short stories, Spring (Kommersant, in Russian).

Pavel Seledkin sells electronic books. Among his authors are Leonid and Svetlana Zharov, authors of several relationship manuals, among them the four-volume How To Be A  Husband, How To Be A Wife: 25 Years of Happiness In A Siberian Village [I understand the Zharovs' books sell well enough for them to live comfortably on the income] (Seledkin.ru).

"Skyrocketing demand" for Russian translation of Torah (Chabad). Natan Sharansky Man of the Year for Russian Jews (Menorah).

Review of Zhivago's Children: The Last Russian Intelligentsia (Languagehat):

I've already finished it, and am as wrung out as if I'd been reading a great, tragic novel.

Two new biographies of Ayn Rand (statesman.com – although I can't say that it would be in your "rational self-interest" to buy these books or even to click on the link):

...both books end up revealing how hard it is to live out Rand's worldview — a difficulty exemplified most painfully by the ultimate devotee: Rand herself.  In a life spanning most of the 20th century, Rand sought to live up to her own fictional characters, falling deeper into that world she made and farther from reality. The result was a sad existence, rife with the personal and intellectual contradictions she detested in others.

Book review: Graphic Masterpieces of Yakov G. Chernikhov: The Collection of Dmitry Y. Chernikhov. Dmitry Y. Chernikhov, Author; Uta Keil, Editor; with an essay by Dmitry Chmelnizki (i love typography):

Graphic Masterpieces provides a fabulous presentation of genius. As an art book it provides eye candy of the highest caliber. As a work of book art collectors will adore it. I can find only one notable flaw: an edition of 500 should prove far too small.

Literature, books:

Translator Robert Chandler on Vasily Grossman (goodbooksguide).

"Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has generously offered to send twenty galley (pre-publication) copies of Gina Ochsner’s The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight to readers of Literary License" (Literary License).

The Marquis de Custine’s “Empire of the Czar, A Journey Through Eternal Russia" has been republished (Front Porch Republic):

Custine continued his journey toward the fountainhead across the Russian Steppes and was alarmed at the roads, shocked at the vermin-infested road houses, and appalled at the simultaneously paranoid and proud behavior of a people who speak one way in public and quite another in private. Still, Custine was entranced by the slanting light of the North, its moody conifers, and its great open spaces with remote villages hugging the road like rail sidings. He loved and admired the authentic monumentality of Moscow, and noted how much freer her people act when the Emperor is absent. He marvels at the rites of the Orthodox Church, but bridles at its partnership in exploiting the peasantry.

A new Russian-language guide to Moscow: The Book of Moscow (Книга Москвы), by Olga Derkach and Vladislav Bykov (Novaya Gazeta, in Russian).

Nabokov Manuscript Flops (Straits Times).

Example of the new Ukrainian morality committee (NEK) at work (dadakinder, in Russian):

The two sides [the Committee and the author Oles Ulyanenko] agreed that the NEK would withdraw its conclusion that the book, The Woman of his Dreams (Жінка його мрії (Женщина его мечты)), was pornographic and the author would make corrections to the text.

According to [Ulyanenko's] literary agent, words such as "to come" and "member" have been removed from the text and the phrase "he inserted his finger into her anus" has been changed to "he tenderly nibbled her ear".

If the author had fought a little harder he might have achieved a better compromise, for example "He tenderly nibbled her anus."

On a new two-volume Russian-language history of C20 Russia by 45 scholars (Sophia Kishkovsky/NYT). And the Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Languages is available for download (rossica_antiqua).

The Original Of Laura - review (WP). 

In Shanghai, Liliane Willens talks about her new book Stateless in Shanghai, just published (shanghailist). "Born in Shanghai to White Russian exiles of the Bolshevik Revolution, Liliane Willens is a'stateless' girl in the world's most cosmopolitan city. ... Stateless in Shanghai recounts Willen's life and trials in a China collapsing under the weight of foreign invaders and civil war" (Amazon).

You can download the text of the late Alexander Pyatigorsky's 1989 novel The Philosophy Of A Lane (Философия одного переулка) here (Shkola Kulturnoi Politiki) (via nevzlin).

Winner of Saatchi contemporary art-themed reality TV show will get exhibition at Hermitage (Telegraph).

New book: Russian Artists And The Children's Book, 1890-1992. To be published on December 1, 2009. 512 pages, full color with over 1100 images. CD included with thousands of additional images. Written and privately published by Albert Lemmens and Serge Stommels in the Netherlands. Presents an overview of children's books by Russian artists. Part 1 is a chronology within a historical context and Part 2 provides detailed information on 17 book artists.  Available from Productive Arts for $195 plus shipping (Productive Arts).

"Luna Park (...) begins as a noir crime thriller but expands into historical fiction and dystopic dreamlike scenarios, stretching through centuries of Russian and New York history. The principal characters are Alik Strelnikov, a deserter from the Russian Army and enforcer for a sliver of the Brooklyn mob, and Marina, a sex slave and fortune-teller" (nashuatelegraph).

Positive book review: The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, by Elif Batuman (Publishers Weekly).

The Lacuna, the latest novel from Barbara Kingsolver "follows Russian revolutionary Trotsky as he stays in exile with Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and the aftermath of his murder" (LAT).

Art investment handbook from Sergei Skaterschikov (Reuters).

Viktor Pelevin's new novel, t, is out (Lenta, in Russian). UPDATE: a disenchanted review from Anton Nosik (dolboeb, in Russian).

You get the feeling that the author repeatedly lost interest in writing this saga but had to keep on at it.

Anastasia Volochkova, former prima ballerina, has published a book, Confessions of a Russian Ballerina. Here's an interview with her about her relationships with her mother and her men (MK v Pitere, in Russian).

On S. An-sky, author of the play The Dybbuk and many other things, on the occasion of the publication of Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures from S. An-sky’s Ethnographic Expeditions (Forward).

2010 Soviet children's-book themed Russian Diary from Redstone Press: week-to-a-page: attractive and probably useful (I have one in my hands, because the publisher sent it me) (Redstone Press).

White Smoke is a book, in the form of a free .pdf download, about the Moscow hip-hop scene in the 90s (Yandex).

New book: Global Art includes interviews with Oleg Kulik, Igor Markin, Marat Guelman (paris art).

Alekper Aliev's novel of Azeri-Armenian gay love, Artush and Zaur, is a sensation in Azerbaijan (kirey_caustic, in Russian).

A new, fuller, more authoritative translation of Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle (WSJ).

Lovers of books and tourism are members of the Washington KIT club (Клуб интеллектуального танго или Книжки и туризм). Here's the annual report (Kit Club, in Russian); and the Youtube video (thanks, MK). Note in the latter the anglicism at 0:44: "они имеют секс" - "they have sex". You can hear that in Russia, but it is fairly rare. The phrase gets 33,700 results on google.ru whereas "они занимаются сексом"" gets 232,000. I suspect a lot of those 33,700 usages are by emigré Russian-speakers.

Sergei Rodionov and his wife Olga, the subject of the notorious Book of Olga (IZO, earlier), are suing actor and blogger Stanislav Sadalski because he described Olga as the Queen of Vaginal Piercing (stans-sadal, in Russian, with pictures). Judging by the comments Sadalski seems to think he has a case:

sukhuti: do you have a photo of the vaginal piercing? or will you have to show it on her body in court?
stanis-sadal: didn't you see photo 1? it's hanging from her pussy.

Book review: David King's Red Star Over Russia: A Visual History of the Soviet Union From the Revolution to the Death of Stalin (Abrams, $50) (NYT). David has an incredible collection, and he sourced much of it decades ago from the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Unofficial ad for the just-issued Titian: The Last Days, by Mark Hudson, featuring Rachel Hudson, one of my daughter's friends. Underneath, the official ad.

Rehab:

Banned from circulation in Soviet times, Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago is to become a compulsory part of the Russian school curriculum (Izvestiya, in Russian).

Also: 

The Russian Orthodox Church abroad has rehabilitated General Vlasov, who led the White Army struggle against the Bolsheviks; the Russian Supreme Court refused to rehabilitate him in 2001 (Lenta, in Russian).

Maxim Kantor has published a new novel, entitled [possibly, depending on how you translate the Russian] In That Direction (В ту сторону), about a historian dying of cancer in a hospital (Kommersant, in Russian).