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I take issue with the premise of this article. I majored in Russian at a liberal arts college; the standard practice (which was reflected at similar schools) was to teach one survey course of 19th century literature, and one of 20th, both in translation. That way comp-lit students could take either course. There's a canonical Golden Age (mid-19th century) and Silver Age (early 20th) that is universally taught.
Stalin made life easier for Russian majors by effectively destroying the intelligentsia by the 1930's, greatly reducing the amount of literature we had to study.
For those looking for a quality read of something Soviet I suggest Soviet science fiction writers.
Take a look at works of Ivan Efremov, Alexander Kazantsev, Kir Bulychev.
Kazantsev is especially Soviet in the sense that he looked forward to the worldwide communism and the greater good it would provide to humanity. Once you get over the overabundance of "tovarisch" his works are truly epic, full of adventures and immensely enjoyable to the former teenage me. "The destruction of Faena" is easy to google. I don't know about any other English translations.
For an easy way in read Bulychev's "Those Who Survive". Bulychev is famous for writing SF books for children but this story is more than that. Read it.
I read just a couple of short stories of Ivan Efremov and I cannot say much about him except for the fact that he has some highly regarded SF novels.
There are also Strugatsky brothers who I think are well known in the West.
Somehow I thought that Stanislaw Lem belongs to the list. His works felt closer to Soviet SF than to the western SF. He was a brilliant Polish writer.
Want a good laugh? Read Ilf and Petrof's "The Twelve chairs".
As you see I am mostly a SF guy. I don't find the prose of the Soviet period interesting maybe because it mostly covers the consequences of the wars and revolutions that Russia had to go through. These events seemed to overshadow everything else in the mind of a Soviet writer. If you want to read about the heroism of the Soviet people during and after the WW2 and atrocities of the revolutions there are a lot of books to chose. My grandmother lived through the WW2 and read and reread the books about it many times.
As for the topic the West praises the works of art that depict only how tough it is to be Russian and live in Soviet Russia. Who wants to intentionally read and study propaganda and counterpropaganda anyway?
Regarding Ivan Efremov, I'd like to mention two of his novels being set in a same "universe" (although separated by something like thousand years):
1. "Andromeda" (literally translated: "Andromeda Nebula"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_(novel)
2. "The Bull's Hour": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bull%27s_Hour
The latter one was even informally prohibited from being published in major media until "perestroyka" had arrived (IMO, due to the author's caricatural depiction of contemporary social and political views towards communism, contraposed - along the story - with what communism should really look like; if you'd ever get to read that, try to guess whom Choyo Chagas (rus. "Чойо Чагас") is intended to resemble).
Some think that both stories (esp. first one) is nothing more than rhapsodic tribute to the communism. Personally, I had read "Andromeda" in my early teens considering it being "just SF". Only after reading "The Bull's Hour" in sixteenth or such and subsequent re-reading in almost decade later, would I realize that SF was for "Social Fantasy" :) The catch is that "communism" in the book stands for the mixture of anarchy (no central government or regulator) and technocracy (councils of recognized specialists - engineers and scientists - were in charge of their corresponding domains of knowledge) with "decision enforcement" being based on high self-consciousness inherent to all and every member of the society (btw, this is explicitly pictured in "Andromeda").
I recommend Bulgakov - I've read "Master and Margarita" in Russian and then in English, and I think it was translated very well. Bulgakov is a favorite writer of many Russians, and probably is a top 5 Russian writer of the 20th century. I'd say there's a lineage: Gogol - Bulgakov - Pelevin.
Re: Stanislaw Lem. You're right, he definitely feels like he belongs in the Soviet writers context. You can tell the difference in culture, context, commercial preoccupations, etc. when you compare Soderbergh's film version of Solaris with Tarkovsky's version. Both films were enjoyable, of course, but Tarkovsky was much closer to the depth of the book.
Lem's "Invincible" is my favourite book of all time. It's very hard to buy it for my English friends though, as the only translation seems to be from German(already a translation)->English from 1971, so it's not ideal.
The thing is, of course, that Lem didn't like both :)
Ilf and Petrof's "The Golden Cath" is a must read, if you speak Russian. Not sure if it translates well. I think both The Golden Cath and 12 Chairs would make awesome comedies if properly adopted to modern day US. I know Mel Brooks tried with the 12 Chairs, but he failed.
Salient point:
All of the professors with whom I corresponded said that universities were full to the brim with Soviet literature courses in the sixties, but interest took a nose dive once Russia ceased to be the Evil Empire. Priscilla Meyer, of Wesleyan University, told me that enrollment in Russian courses has decreased by 40 percent since 1991, with a particular hit in the Soviet department.
I was born in China but grew up in Australia until I was 21 when I moved to the US. What I found that surprised me was all of the white people I kept meeting in the US who were totally conversationally fluent in Mandarin. Australia as a culture always felt like it had much closer ties to China and Chinese culture was much more integrated into mainstream Australia culture than when I lived in Seattle or SF.
Still, I maybe met 2 people my entire time growing up that were had any proficiency in Mandarin vs over a dozen in my time in the US who were conversationally fluent (and who didn't have Chinese wives or girlfriends or any other exogenous reason for learning it). In contrast, for white people in Australia, conversational fluency in Thai or Indonesian seemed abnormally common.
There are some things about the US that are hard to realize if you've grown up here. America is a much more business focused and entrepreneurial/private market minded kind of place and it's a dominant lens through which to view the world. It's hard to put into words exactly what it is but the last time I had that "only in America" feeling was seeing this sign on a coin op telescope on the top of Twin Peaks: http://imgur.com/AaD1mk5
I'm curious - why would Australians learn Mandarin (if not for exogenous reasons - such as family relations or business opportunities)?
China is one of Australia's largest trading partners, due to China's proximity, size and growing need for minerals, which Australia has in spades. China is the dominant player in East Asia, which is the region closest to Australia. China also has a diaspora throughout the regional that's disproportionally represented in trade and business, so even if you were setting your sights on doing business in say, Indonesia, you might be dealing with a lot of Chinese people.
Indonesia has a large Chinese population of course, and they tend to do more business. Same with Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, ...
Probably the biggest reasons are that Russia doesn't have as much appeal to American college students (unlike say France or Germany) because the country is seen as dysfunctional. And unlike Chinese or Arabic, Americans don't see much financial opportunity in learning to speak Russian.
>because the country is seen as dysfunctional
All the more reason to study their literature.
Aside from "serious literature struggle" a nation that liked catch-22 and stuff like that would dig "Monday begins on Saturday". Its been out of print forever (in english), used copies sell for $50 on amazon.
Something to think about with "failed markets" is when you only have a microscopic hyper regulated oligopoly you can end up with tons of demand but if the small number of providers close ranks and refuse to sell that kind of stuff, well... doesn't matter if used or bootleg copies indicate market demand at $50, the general public simply will not be permitted to read. Its very much like recording company execs as gatekeepers, if you disagree with them well tough cookies you aren't going to hear what you want.
I suffered thru about half of "The Idiot" before I gave up, and I almost never give up on books, but Russia is really big and not all russian lit is like that (although there is a lot of old russian lit that obviously was paid for on a "per word" contract)
In Powell's in Portland, I have seen out-of-print old translations and original Russian copies of Monday begins on Saturday. Maybe try their website?
Apparently, a new version of Monday Begins on Saturday is due to be released in September, costing £4 and £10 for the Kindle and paperback editions, respectively.
https://www.orionbooks.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=97814732...
Unless you know they have the internet. That book is available from several sources.
What cracks me up about the main conclusion of this piece, that once foreign culture X loses its edge as an enemy, the well dries up, has an interesting counterpoint in Arabic language literature.
I will not debate the enemy thing, but the perception is there, with centuries of making literature from the region even more exotic prior thanks to orientalism, and yet there are less than a dozen American uni profs I can name that specialize in Arab literature that are not in fact Arab literateurs that make a living out of their profession/hobby (many write literature themselves, and the community is small and self-feeding).
And yet, you would think people care. But as a former Arabic language major, the amount of interest in learning Arabic while totally circumscrbing the obvious cultural and literary component is hilariously omni-present with the gaggles of wannabe intelligence officers.
I can go on and on, but is nice to see the USSR counterpoint.
That seems pretty counter-productive. Learning the language without learning any of the literary/cultural component means missing out on the idiomatic dimension of written communication and falling into the (apparently fairly common) error of assuming one's strategic opponents think the same way as oneself, tsuj a ni tnereffid egaugnal.
You ask about _literature_ specifically: Depends on what you're teaching. I think novels like Cement and How the Steel was Tempered are hard sells in the classroom. And Quiet Flows the Don is so long.
Having said that, a well-designed cultural studies course in literature, painting, sculpture, film, and propaganda would be amazing, and I think would be intellectually stimulating.
Maybe like this: http://registrar.princeton.edu/course-offerings/course_detai...
"Cement" is so out there it reads like a farce.
My grandmother had one of the first editions and it was clearly meant for people that were limited to the entry level school education, if that much. The book was basically printed in large letters, the sentences was generally short and the storyline was as flat as it was obvious. It's a "working man" novel about "working man" subjects written in a "working man" language. Propaganda all the way. It's certainly worth a read to get an idea of what the early Soviet literature was like.
Aw, Cement is charming in its own way, as an artifact of Soviet Russia in the 1920s. I wouldn't read it on it's own as a literary masterwork, but it's useful for understanding early Soviet culture.
It also came out during the height of Soviet Russia's 'ликбез' campaign against illiteracy, so it doesn't surprise me that you think the Russian is basic. It's funny that I didn't notice that when I originally read it - I guess my Russian was pretty basic too!
Maybe the "entry level" vocabulary, etc., is exactly why it was taught in my Russian class in college.
As for it's doctrinaire qualities: At least it's not Alexander Dovzhenko's film, "Earth."
"Cement" looks like an odd choice to me, it's not even in a school program in Russia itself. Perhaps, they limited by the books translated into English..
I don't know why, but in my Soviet literature course in college (early 1980s) we read Cement. Maybe it was on syllabi back then because there was also an English translation. (Now that I look at Amazon, maybe there wasn't a translation back then.)
Only vaguely related to the subject, a wonderful 10' fairytale film for the kids, made in USSR:
Ezītis miglā (Hedgehog in the fog) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPS7tKJNj9M .
Enjoy!
This one is in Latvian (author of the animation is Latvian). Here is one in Russian with English subs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCsJZV7aCdY
That's not a kid's cartoon though. I never "got" it until I was well into my 20s. But it is widely heralded as a breakthrough for its animation style and overall stylistics.
As a kid growing up in USSR I remember this cartoon, it was one of the most dreadful cartoons they could show on TV.
"Nu, Pogodi" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8uFylzinW0 ) is more popular I guess, but "Hedgehog in the fog" has its own kind of charm...
As a Romanian who grew up in the '80s and '90s I also have to say that "Nu, Pogodi" was very much liked in these parts of Europe. Bonus points for this excellent Elektronika game on which I spent many, many hours as an 11-12 year old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGy14lwf_LQ .
Later edit: Damn it, because nostalgia has kicked in and we're talking about Eastern European animation, I also have to give a big thumbs-up for the Bulgarian National Television's opening sequence of its daily cartoon show from back in the '80s-'90s, an example (of many) being this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YLmLx53ZvM , the Polish Lolek and Bolek (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiiULpdnVrY) and the Romanian Balanel and Miaunel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_F2IVgjasc)
The most dreadful? That would be "Barefoot Gen" they were running on TV and making children watch in cinemas in the late 80s and early 90s.
The lifeblood of departments is undergraduate enrollment. English departments are or were huge because of the required composition and survey courses. When there is a drop off in Russian language students, the graduate students and the faculty diminish. The Cold War created a large demand for Russian competence.
"writers like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are part of a mainland tradition—it’s not necessary to know much about the historical context of their era to understand or appreciate their work, whereas the Soviet writers are completely steeped in their historical setting."
I would question that. Tolstoy does write a lot of his historical context into this work. But reading Dostoevsky without knowing something 19th Century European thought seems a bit futile.
enemy -> attention (this is why Russia craving for yesterday level attention today is so hard trying to pose as an enemy). Also add that 20th century had a lot of immigrants from Russian Empire territories (Jews before WWI, Russian aristocracy and just educated people running from Revolution, Jews and dissidents after the WWII). And USSR with its communism looked like something ahead, a next stage in progress forward.
That all has changed. Today in US it is absolutely not interesting to study the self-reflections of people with too much time on their hands in a society without opportunities and without good access to mental health professionals - ie. Russian literature (as well as literature of almost any other culture - because they pretty much all deep in the past and the issues they explore in many cases has already been answered). US has moved past that. People like Musk illustrate it - work, make money, improve and expand civilization. This is why the only good writers in Russia since the space flights started have been Strugatskies brothers - who explore the issues of such civilization expansion and Pelevin - who explores absence of such expansion and the resulting end-game of the above mentioned "self-reflection", ie. he finishes what Dostoevsky/Chehov started.
Saying we don't need to read Russian literature because Elon Musk has answered all the questions it asks seems like it could be a parody of HN comments.
That's true. Elon Musk didn't answer ALL the questions raised by Russian literature. But Bitcoins and Angular.js answered the other half.
> Today in US it is absolutely not interesting to study the self-reflections of people with too much time on their hands in a society without opportunities and without good access to mental health professionals - ie. Russian literature (as well as literature of almost any other culture - because they pretty much all deep in the past and the issues they explore in many cases has already been answered).
I disagree with the grammar of your point. I think most of the issues you're referring to don't have answers--or direct ones at least. They're meant to serve as exploratory exercises into morality, the human condition, and the other age-old questions that will continue to engage mankind so long as we don't have all the answers. That sort of self-reflection isn't uniquely Soviet, nor is it entirely separable from works that are more focused on human progress and advancement.
We study and value these works for similar (if not the same) reasons we study and value history. Implying they are not applicable to our times seems awfully short-sighted.
There's a crop of writers exploring post-expand world. Сорокин, Латынина and Рыбаков for example.
Of course most of good books are virtually unknown even inside the country when everybody either try to entertain themself or indulge in the past.
"All of the professors with whom I corresponded said that universities were full to the brim with Soviet literature courses in the sixties, but interest took a nose dive once Russia ceased to be the Evil Empire."
Yes. After the Soviet Union went down, there was a sign at the Stanford bookstore: "All Communism 70% off".
Is there a soviet equivalent of James Bond? I'd love to read some cold war spy novels from the "other side"'s perspective.
"American universities don’t teach Soviet literature because American students show little interest in reading it. All of the professors with whom I corresponded said that universities were full to the brim with Soviet literature courses in the sixties, but interest took a nose dive once Russia ceased to be the Evil Empire."
This is supposedly the reason? When I was in school, I was not required to read any Russian Liturature. I didnt care at the time, I was working towards a business degree, with a minor in biology. My writting skills, and use of the English language was, and still is atrocious; I ended up taking most the required English, and Literature courses my last semester.
My first introduction to Russian Liturature was years later. I checked out Lolita by Valadimire Nabokov. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Well, after reading the book, I finally appreciated good writing. I found his writing beautiful, and easy to read. I wonder why some of his work wasn't required reading. I wish I was forced to read at least one of his books in high school, or college.(I understand why a high school english teacher wouldn't even mention Lolita. It wouldn't be worth the backlash, but his other books are appropriate?).
As to why I wasn't introduced to any Russian Liturature, I always thought it was due to the Mcarthy Era--where anything remotely related to socialism/communism was career ending? And, professors remember what their predecessors went through, and just decided it wasn't worth it. Stick with the safe stuff politically? I assumed, today, Russian Literature, at least some authors, were required reading in most American college Lit. departments? I had no idea, the students were the one's whom showed no interest in Russian literature? Are their any recent English, Lit. majors who would chime in? Just curious to see If you agree with the author?
(Valadimire Nabrakov Lolita is one of his English novels. I always thought it was translated. His first nine novels were in Russian.)
The author is correct.
Honestly, during the entire Cold War every American university was pumping up the size of their Slavic Studies department - hiring professors left and right. While it certainly wasn't required, studying the Russian language, history, and literature was a fairly popular thing to do, and there certainly weren't any political problems with either teaching or studying it. Anything academic relating to Eastern Europe was funded very generously by the federal government, and with a background in Russian you could go on to get a respectable career in that same government.
After the Cold War ended, the funding dried up, Russian stopped being such a desirable specialty for government work, and the tenured Slavic Studies professors who retired stopped being replaced. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - the size of the field was artificially inflated and now is returning to a somewhat more rational level.
To nitpick, Lolita is not Russian literature, it's English
I had to look it up to see what you meant. You are referring to the fact that the book was written in English. But would it not still be considered Russian literature, at least in some sense? I mean, his "true" Russian works are still considered Russian literature even when translated into English, so why would a book by the same author not be considered Russian if he initially wrote it in English? Or are all his books written after moving to the US considered to be English literature? Would that be the case even if one was written in Russian?
These are honest questions, I don't know (and had never thought about) how literature is classified in this sense.
Just realized, came back to edit--if possible?