An appreciation of communist-era jokes, culled from a new book, Hammer & Tickle (FT) (thanks, TM).
An appreciation of communist-era jokes, culled from a new book, Hammer & Tickle (FT) (thanks, TM).
Vladimir Nabokov's son has decided to publish his father's last novel, The Original of Laura, which in his will Nabokov requested be destroyed; the son's decision was preceded by a visit from his father's ghost (Oregon Live).
The International Federation of Russian-speaking Writers (Международной федерация русскоязычных писателей) plans to site bronze Pushkin monuments, designed by sculptor Leonid Vatnik, in countries all over the world (Lenta.ru, in Russian).
Bjork and Antony Hegarty, Dull Flame of Desire. What's that gotta do with Russian art, Matthew, you Bjork-groupie (or, er, Hegarty-groupie?)? Well, the words are based on a poem by Fedor Tyutchev (1803-73); and you can hear them in the Russian original as part of the final scene of Tarkovsky's Stalker (спасибо, MR).
A book review: The Magical Chorus: A History of Russian Culture From Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn by Solomon Volkov (Martin Rubin/LA Times). Maybe invest in it now, because these things can go up: my own Socialist Realist Painting is currently at $375-$550 on Amazon and $375-$620.47 on abebooks ;) That's a 500% appreciation minimum on the opening price (depending when you click on those links, the prices may vary, of course).
The New York Times delves lovingly into the history of writer and political activist Eduard Limonov (thanks, MK).
A monumental work of genealogy, a book of 1886 which describes the family history of the entire 60,000 Ingush population living around Vladikavkaz, has been republished (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, in Russian). Apparently
in Ingushetia it is considered indecent not to know your family history eight generations back.
The well-known satirist "Mr Parker" (Maxim Kononenko) has published a parody of Vladimir Sorokin's Den' Oprichnika (Day of the Oprichnik) entitled Den' Otlichnika (Day of the Honours Student) (Gazeta.ru, in Russian). Apparently Kononenko's novel satirises liberal values.
The son of Vladimir Nabokov, Dmitri, is considering whether to carry out his father's wish and destroy the manuscript of his last, unfinished novel, The Original Of Laura (Pravda, in Russian).
Commentary on the Russian market for luxury goods and high fashion in Kathemerini.
A little more on the case against the Preobrazhenskis, reported earlier. PS, The venerable (founded in the thirties) weekly Moscow News, where this report is, is due to be shut down by its owners in January next year; can't recall where I read it though.
Russki Zhurnal (in Russian; pdf) has an interview with bookshop-owner Boris Kupriyanov, facing a sentence of up to two years for the distribution of "pornography": novels (in Russian translation, I think) such as Lidia Lunch's Paradoxia, Pierre Bordage's L'Evangile du Serpent and Virginie Despentes's Baise Moi. Describing a campaign against his shop which he describes as "terror", Kupriyanov suggests that books selling "intellectual literature" may cease to exist in Moscow.
Prospective England soccer manager has collection that includes Kandinsky and Chagall (The Guardian).
A report celebrating a show in Kiev that marks the 250th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Arts includes the statistic that 400 artists worked on the interior of the resurrected Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow (Kievskii Telegraf, in Russian). PS here are some historic photos of the original's destruction.
