Archive for 'History'
Yeltsin gets a street, Dostoevsky gets married & Russian soldiers commit suicide Posted by josefina on Apr 24, 2008
Politics, huh? Russian politics are great, very entertaining and at times rather frightening – just not my shot of vodka, if you get my drift. When I started out as a ‘watcher & commentator on Russian life’ [particularly from a Siberian point of view] back in 2005 at the tender age of 20, I was…
20th Century Russian Lit Reading Tip: «Зависть» Posted by josefina on Apr 14, 2008
Sometimes the lists of books assigned for you to read during the course of a semester for a class at an institution of higher (or middle) education can make you feel anything but excited or even a tiny bit thrilled. Usuallly the student asks himself (or herself) the following question (given that the class being…
Who Is Mikola Gogol? Posted by josefina on Apr 12, 2008
This morning, while browsing through the main page of www.izvestia.ru for some appropriate piece of Russian news to comment on here, I came across this fascinating headline: «Микола Гоголь – нарезка в семи томах: украинские переводчики отредактировали и подправили “пророссийскую” повесть Гоголя “Тарас Бульба”» [Mikola Gogol – a slicing in seven volumes: Ukrainian translators edited…
How many languages does Russia know? Posted by josefina on Mar 16, 2008
Always the faithful reader of «Русский репортёр» [Russian reporter], I came across a rather fascinating article in the latest number (Nr. 9, 13-20 March 2008) under the headline of «Сколько языков знает Россия?» The article focuses on the 150 small languages being spoken by different nationalities in Russia, and their fate in the future of…
A recent past remaining in the present: a journey to the former GULAG camp “Perm-36” Posted by josefina on Feb 28, 2008
After one hour on the bus from Perm, located on the European side of the Urals, there is only snow and dark green pine trees outside my window as far as the eye can see. With at least one more hour to go before arriving at the museum “Perm-36”, those small villages that one passes…