Scandal and Controversy in Russian literature - Episode 8: Farewell Europe

The eight episode of the podcast is about “The Big Green Tent” by Lyudmila Ulitskaya (born 1943), published in 2011. This final episode of the series focuses on a historical roman à clef. “The Big Green Tent” is a historical roman à clef about the post-Stalinist period, in particular the rise of the dissident movement in the 1960s and 1970s. While dissidents like Andrei Sakharov and Andrei Sinyavsky were still considered martyrs and moral winners when the Soviet Union was falling apart, in today’s Russia they are often seen as nothing less than traitors. Ulitskaya, however, stands up for the dissidents and suggests a parallel between the suffocating political climate under Leonid Brezhnev (in power from 1964 till 1982) and the no less repressive regime of Vladimir Putin. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shown how dangerous and prophetic her novel actually is.All translations were done by Otto Boele.© Otto Boele & Electrical Films 2024