The Slavic Literature Pod
by The Slavic Literature Pod
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.
Episodes
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A new voice on the Slavic Literature Pod
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'll talk a little bit about her background, how she got in to Slavic literature, the importance of highlighting women's often-overlooked contributions and our…
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No One Talks About the War (with author Nina Kossman)
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…
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Ukrainian Literary Modernism (with Drs. Halyna Babak and Yuliya Ilchuk)
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…
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Mosquito by Akhmet Baitursynov (with translator Jake Zawlacki)
Show Notes: This week, Jake Zawlacki joins Cameron to talk about his translation of Akhmet Baitursynov's Mosquito. Although it'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...
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Sofia Petrova by Lydia Chukovskaya
Show Notes: This week, Cameron (finally) dives into Lydia Chukovskaya's Sofia Petrovna. A novel about the Great Terror written during the Great Terror, Chukovskaya's eponymous character lives a fairly comfortable Soviet life -- until her son is arrested for an unspecified crime. Splitting its…
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For Your Consideration: John Williams' Butcher's Crossing (and why I don't think we should compare it to Blood Meridian)
Show Notes: This week, on For Your Consideration, Cameron dives into John Williams' 1960 novel, Butcher's Crossing, a cautionary tale about how reading Ralph Waldo Emerson can drive you into buffalo-murdering madness. It's not uncommon to see the novel compared to Cormac McCarthy's Blood…
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The Last Letter (2002) by Frederick Wiseman + What Vasily Grossman and Life & Fate mean today
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,...
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PREP WORK: The Last Letter (2002) by Frederick Wiseman
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,...
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A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov (w/ Dr. José Vergara)
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...
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Chevengur by Andrei Platonov, Chapters 25-43
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. “Danger…
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Zvenihora (1928) directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko
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...
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Anton Chekhov, Earliest Stories (w/ editors Rosamund Bartlett and Elena Michajlowska)
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...
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My five favorite films of the year + Sayat Nova, dir. by Sergei Parajanov
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: https://youtu.be/khXaVt0ilFc Also, sorry…
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Earth (1930) directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko
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...
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Not Russian by Mikhail Shevelev (w/ Ally Pitts, host of A Russian & Soviet Movie Podcast)
Show Notes: This week, Ally Pitts — host of A Russian & 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…
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Chevengur, chapters 1-25, by Andrei Platonov
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.…
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The People Immortal by Vasily Grossman
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...
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Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky and Delicious Hunger by Hai Fan
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...
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An update, a reason to podcast, a look through October
We were supposed to talk about Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic and Fan Hai's Delicious Hunger today, but the episode'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…
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For Your Consideration: War Diary by Yevgenia Belorusets & The Time of Doves by Merce Rodoreda
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...
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A message from Matt
There is no description.
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Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belorusets & The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Show Notes: This week, Cameron talks about unreliable narrators in Yevgenia Belorusets’ Lucky Breaks and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, posing an unusual argument: what if lying to your reader was a good thing? Belorusets is a Ukrainian writer whose work focuses on the people marginalized...
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Alindarka's Children by Alhierd Bacharevič & Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Show Notes: This week, in For Your Consideration, Cameron dives into Belarusian writer Alhierd Bacharevič’s Alindarka’s Children and Laguna-Pueblo-American writer Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony. Both novels explore people native to a land that is now, in different ways, hostile to them.…
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Europe Central by William T. Vollmann & Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Show Notes: This week, Cameron dives into William T. Vollmann’s Europe Central and Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. The uniting theme this week: reflection and memory. Both novels cast a long shadow over his life, so it’s time to untangle exactly why that is. Can Europe Central be cleanly read…
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Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me by Teffi & In The Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
Show Notes: This week, Cameron dives solo into two books: Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me by Teffi and In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien. He’ll pull apart their authors’ mutual love for taking a creative license to their own lives. Major themes: Emotional truth, social expectations…
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The Story of Sonechka by Marina Tsvetaeva (w/ Inessa Fishbeyn and C. D. C. Reeve)
Show Notes: Pick up a copy of The Story of Sonechka here. This week, Cameron dives into Marina Tsvetaeva’s The Story of Sonechka, a recollection of her relationship with the actress Sonia Holliday in Moscow, 1919. The story — one of the clearest examples of queer literature we’ve had on the…
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A look forward to June
A quick look forward to our June episodes plus a little apology for the delayed episode this month. If you'd like to join our monthly book club, you can join our discord here.
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The Moscoviad by Yuri Andrukhovych (w/ Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky)
Show Notes: This week, Cameron dives into Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych’s The Moscoviad, a picaresque-cum-magical realist novel following the poet Otto von F. as he spends one day trying to accomplish a few chores around Moscow: a visit to a meeting, a reunion with a sort-of girlfriend, and…
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I Live I See by Vsevolod Nekrasov (w/ trans. Bela Shayevich and Dr. Ainsley Morse)
Show Notes: This week, Cameron dives into the poetry of Vsevolod Nekrasov, joined by Bela Shayevich and Ainsley Morse who collected and translated works spanning much of his life in I Live I See: Selected Poems. Born in the USSR in 1934 and writing—mostly unofficially—through the end of his life…
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Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov (w/ the author himself)
Show Notes: This week, Cameron ascends into the towering heights of imperial politics in Yaroslav Barsukov’s Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov. The novel follows Shea Ashcroft, an imperial minister whose refusal to gas protesting citizenry has earned him a reassignment to a…
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Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy (w/ Dr. Tatyana Gershkovich)
Show Notes: This week, Cameron dives back into the work of Leo Tolstoy to talk about one of his later works, Hadji Murat. He’s joined by podcast returnee Dr. Tatyana Gershkovich, whose book Art in Doubt analyzes Tolstoy and Vladimir Nakokov’s approaches to skepticism, to talk about the work,...
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To Hell with Poets by Baqytgul Sarmekova (w/ translator Mirgul Kali)
Pick up a copy of To Hell with Poets from the Tilted Axis Press website. Show Notes: This week, Cameron revisits Baqytgul Sarmekova’s To Hell With Poets with the help of the collection’s translator, Mirgul Kali. Together, they’ll dive back into how Sarmekova explores both Kazakh society and more...
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I Burned at the Feast by Arseny Tarkovsky (w/ translators Philip J. Metres and Dimitri Psurtsev)
Buy a copy of I Burned at the Feast here. Show Notes: This week, Cameron dives into the collection I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky. You have almost certainly heard of virtuosic filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, but his father might be less familiar to you. Yet, you may still...
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Cecil the Lion Had to Die by Stiazhkina (w/ translator Dominique Hoffman)
Show Notes: This week, Cameron will dive into the novel Cecil the Lion Had to Die by Ukrainian historian, journalist, and novelist Olena Stiazhkina — a novel diving into the intricacies of family life and identity formation through the late Soviet Union, the chaotic years following, and into the...
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A Look Forward
Cameron pops in at the end of the month to talk about episodes you can expect in the coming months.
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The Talnikov Family by Avdotya Panaeva (w/ translator Fiona Bell)
Pick up a copy of The Talnikov Family from Columbia University Press! Show Notes: This week, Cameron gets into Avdotya Panaeva’s The Talnikov Family with its translator Fiona Bell. The novel, set in 1820s St. Petersburg, follows Natasha Talnikova’s life in an abusive household, setting readers…
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A Hiatus, Kind of
Show Notes: Our Christmas gift to you is a non-clickbait title. Unusual for December, huh? TL;DR: Matt is going to be stepping back from the podcast for the time being. Cameron will be continuing to produce episodes going forward, shifting the focus toward interviewing translators and authors…
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December Break: The Performance by Sergei Dovlatov
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron dive into the short story “The Performance,” from Sergei Dovlatov’s book The Zone. Get ready to dive into the most underrepresented point-of-view in the Soviet camp system: the guards. Well, kind of. Get ready to get stagnant and talk a bit about the state…
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Office Hours - Is Tolstoy still relevant?
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron get into their last Office Hours of the year, tackling the future of literature, whether or not Tolstoy is still relevant, which Russian literature icon would win in a rap battle and — most importantly — the tale of John Moritsugu, a man who tricked PBS…
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The UnSimple by Taras Prokhasko
Heads up: This episode will contain conversation about incest throughout. Take that into consideration as you head into it. Also sorry about the kitchen noises in the background of some portions. Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron learn about narrative-causes and narrative-effects in The...
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To Hell with Poets by Baqytgul Sarmekova
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron dig into the short story collection To Hell WIth Poets, authored by Kazakh writer Baqytgul Sarmekova and translated by Mirgul Kali. The collection, published in English by Tilted Axis Press in 2024, explores rural-urban divides (with a focus on the...
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Office Hours - Why don't straight men read novels?
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron host Office Hours, speaking about the wider state of reading as well as some non-Slavic lit they’ve been getting in to. Tune in to find their opinions about Lament for Julia by Susan Taubes and Z by Vassilis Vassilikos, whether or not literary analysis has...
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Strike! (1925) by Sergei Eisenstein
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron dive into Sergei Eisenstein’s landmark film Strike! (1925) to get a better look into his foundational ideas around montage and film composition amidst a tragic tale of a failed strike. Yes, they will be talking about the cow scene for most of the episode.…
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The Tears & Smiles of Things by Sodomora (w/ translators Dr. Roman Ivashkiv and Sabrina Jaszi)
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron dive into Andriy Sodomora’s short story collection The Tears & Smiles of Things with the help of its translators Roman Ivashkiv and Sabrina Jaszi. The collection draws together Sodomora’s reflections on life, ancient texts, and the difficulties of...
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Office Hours - Enrolling in Jordan Peterson Academy
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron talk Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, dropping the nuclear bomb (a timely conversation), and torturing your roommates by cooking cabbage. They’ll also be getting into a topic that everyone has been dying to know more about: Jordan Peterson Academy. Well…maybe…
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The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron are down with the sickness of Schulzomania, covering parts of the short story collection “The Street of Crocodiles” by Polish-Jewish literary superstar Bruno Schulz. They’ll be talking about “Visitation,” “Tailor’s Dummies,” and the eponymous “The Street of...
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Devil's Yard by Ivo Andrić
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron chart new territory by covering the novella Devil's Yard by Yugoslav writer, poet, and diplomat (at varying times) Ivo Andrić. Covering a story within a story, they’ll have plenty to say about the construction of narrative, storytelling from the core and...
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August Break - The Czech Manuscripts (w/ author Dr. David L. Cooper)
Note: This episode originally aired in February 2024. Matt and Cameron are taking a much needed break this August and wanted to re-up some mid-series Life and Fate episodes they thought deserved more attention. Pick up a copy of The Czech Manuscripts here. Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron...
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August Break - Ochre & Rust by Gandlevsky (w/translator Philip J. Metres)
Note: This episode originally aired in January 2024. Matt and Cameron are taking a much needed break this August and wanted to re-up some mid-series Life and Fate episodes they thought deserved more attention. Pick up a copy of Ochre & Rust from Green Linden Press’ website. Show Notes: This week,...
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August Break - Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in Russian Labor Culture (w/ author Dr. Maya Vinokour)
Note: This episode originally aired in April 2024. Matt and Cameron are taking a much needed break this August and wanted to re-up some mid-series Life and Fate episodes they thought deserved more attention. You can pick up a copy of Dr. Maya Vinokour’s book Work Flows: Stalinist Liquids in…
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About this show
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.
Hosted by
The Slavic Literature Pod