Archive for 'language'
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…
Russian Phraseology: Nose Posted by josefina on Apr 9, 2008
Even long before the main hero of Nikolaj Gogol’s [Николай Гоголь] short story «Нос» [“The Nose”] met his own nose on Nevsky Prospect dressed as a general, the nose had a special place in Russian culture and language. A couple of days ago I was reading my favorite Russian weekly newspaper and came across an…
МАЯКОВСКИЙ: Love Him or Hate Him, but Respect Him Posted by josefina on Apr 5, 2008
I’ve lived here for over 3,5 years (on August 30th 2008 it will be 4 years since I came to Russia) but I’ve only spent one day in Moscow, not counting all of those innumerous times that I’ve traveled through the capitol by plane or train. On the one day I spent in Moscow I…
The Community Project Posted by josefina on Apr 4, 2008
Some of the more attentive readers (or probably just about everyone who reads this) might have noticed that there’s a new feature to this blog – a little something called ‘Community Project’. After writing for this blog for about five months now I couldn’t help but to become aware of the good, sometimes even exceptional…
Russian Realia, or Текст для чтения Posted by josefina on Apr 1, 2008
I know that there was a frequent practise of publishing smaller texts in Russian on this blog before I arrived, and I have thought about whether or not to countinue this tradition myself. After long consideration (about five months) I have decided to give it a try. I will only touch upon subjects regarding a…
Where In Russia Is It Possible To Live? Posted by josefina on Mar 29, 2008
Good question! Of course there’s more to Russia than the Red Kremlin of Moscow and the bridges of Saint Petersburg, though you sometimes tend to forget about the rest, especially if you haven’t been there (which I suppose most tourist haven’t, only in those cities located along the railroad going east from the capitol). Russians…