Director of the Centre of European Studies at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Bowers packs a ton of learning into this interview. Among other topics, we touch on why Russia’s printing culture was slow to develop, what is meant by the Petersburg Text, and the paradoxical nature of many Russian writers. A word of warning - your reading list will have expand considerably after listening. I also want to personally thank Katherine for being, first and foremost, a teacher. I got caught up in the ‘what of things’, and she very kindly refocused me on the ‘why’ of things. Basically, today's episode is about learning and growing. It's fantastic.
Websites
Here’s the book list:
Nikolay Karamzin - Poor Liza, Island of Bornholm, Letters of a Russian Traveller
Mikhail Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time
Alexander Pushkin - The Bronze Horseman, Eugene Onegin
Nikolai Gogol - Nevsky Propsect, The Overcoat
Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Women
Bram Stoker - Dracula
Evgenia Tur - Antonina
Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishement, The Double, The Brothers Karamazov, Notes from Underground
Oksana Zabuzhko - The Museum of Abandoned Secrets
Andrey Kurkov - Grey Bees
Serhiy Zhadan - The Orphanage
Alexander Beliaev - Professor Dowell’s Head, Amphibian Man
Mikhail Bulgakov - The Master and Margarita
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipeligo
Sasha Sokolov - Between Dog and Wolf, In The House of the Hanged, A School for Fools
