Russian literature is featuring more than usual in The Guardian this week. First, sadly, the obituary of the poet Elena Shvarts, one of the great heirs to the Petersburg tradition of Russian literature. Second, an article about Vasily Grossman to mark the British publication of Robert Chandler’s translation of Everything Flows (read it — it’s extraordinary!). […]
Two articles
Posted by Sarah Young on May 7, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/05/07/two-articles/
Crystal Palace Literature
Now I’ve recovered from the unbearable strain of watching Crystal Palace’s game against Sheffield Wednesday and can breathe a sigh of relief as we’ve avoided relegation, I can get back to the Crystal Palace itself and continue my musings on some of its representations in literature. The Crystal Palace first appeared in fiction in the […]
Posted by Sarah Young on May 2, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/05/02/crystal-palace-literature/
Four short links: Russian dictionaries
1. Multitran: an excellent resource, Multitran has dictionaries for French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Estonian, Latvian, Japanese and, oddly, Afrikaans, Esperanto and Kalmyk. You very occasionally get a duff translation, usually of an idiom, but the only real problem is the absence of stress marks, which my students find a bit annoying. 2. Slovopedia: with links to […]
Posted by Sarah Young on April 28, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/04/28/four-short-links-russian-dictionaries/
I love Orlando
For some reason I feel a sudden urge to declare my undying love for Orlando the Marmalade Cat. Okay, so this isn’t the real Orlando, because I can’t find any images that are out of copyright, but I hereby declare Orlando to be the king of fictional felines. Continuing the ‘cat in plant pot’ theme. […]
Posted by Sarah Young on April 26, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/04/26/i-love-orlando/
Anagram
It’s puzzle time, folks, and today I have an anagram for you: I GOOF SLANDER Can you guess what the answer is? If you can’t work it out, here are a few clues: from the BBC, the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday, and, though it pains me to even to write these words, let alone provide […]
Posted by Sarah Young on April 25, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/04/25/anagram/
The Crystal Palace in Russian Literature (2)
I think the general assumption is that Chernyshevsky’s use of the Crystal Palace as the basis for his utopian vision riled Dostoevsky so much that he then included in the polemic against rational egoism in Notes from Underground (Russian text here). But by the time What is to be Done? was published, Dostoevsky had already visited […]
Posted by Sarah Young on April 22, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/04/22/the-crystal-palace-in-russian-literature-2/
The Crystal Palace in Russian Literature (1)
At my next conference, the 14th International Dostoevsky Symposium, in Napoli this June (volcanic ash cloud permitting), I’ll be presenting a paper on Dostoevsky and the Crystal Palace. It’s a subject that has obviously been examined before, usually in relation to the narrator’s comments in Notes from Underground, but I’ve decided to tackle it partly because my […]
Posted by Sarah Young on April 20, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/04/20/crystal-palace-russian-literature-1/
Villains and Victims
I’ve just got back from a conference at the University of Nottingham, organized by Sarah Badcock in the History department, entitled ‘Villains and Victims: Justice, violence and retribution in late Imperial and early Soviet Russia.’ It was a small, workshop-style conference with a couple of dozen participants, and like many of the other people there, […]
Posted by Sarah Young on April 8, 2010
https://sarahjyoung.com/site/2010/04/08/villains-and-victims/