- Mosquito by Akhmet Baitursynov (with translator Jake Zawlacki)
Show Notes:
This week, Jake Zawlacki joins Cameron to talk about his translation of Akhmet Baitursynov's Mosquito. Although it's appearing in English now for the first time, the collection itself is more than a century old--originally published in 1911, Mosquito is a clarion call to the Kazakh people. Living in land still subject to the Russian empire, Baitursynov's collection is a political tract, an appeal for unity, a sorrowful reflection on their world and a hopeful verse for the Kazakh future.
Buy a copy of Mosquito from Academic Studies Press here (https://www.academicstudiespress.com/9798897831616/) or get it wherever you buy your books.
Jake Zawlacki is a writer, translator, and scholar, and currently teaches writing at the University of San Diego. He is the editor of Conversations with Todd McFarlane and Conversations with Denys Cowan as well as the translator of the first English-language translation of Akhmet Baitursynov’s Mosquito. Zawlacki holds degrees from Louisiana State University, University of San Diego, and Stanford University, and his creative work has been published in The Saturday Evening Post, The Journal, Citron Review, and Roanoke Review.
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
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Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands50m - Aug 28, 2026 - Sofia Petrova by Lydia Chukovskaya
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron (finally) dives into Lydia Chukovskaya's Sofia Petrovna. A novel about the Great Terror written during the Great Terror, Chukovskaya's eponymous character lives a fairly comfortable Soviet life -- until her son is arrested for an unspecified crime.
Splitting its time between prison lines and a workplace growing rife with denunciations and arrests, Sofia Petrovna memorializes a moment most people would rather forget. It turns a mirror on the people who lived through the Great Terror and asks, too, "Who were you?"
Some works referenced in this episode:
Stalin, Vol. II, Waiting for Hitler, 1928-1941 by Stephen Kotkin
"Did Stalin Kill Kirov and Does It Matter?" by Matt Lenoe: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/343411
On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics by Sheila Fitzpatrick
Fear and Belief in the USSR's 'Great Terror': Response to Arrest, 1935-1939 by Robert W. Thurston: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2499175
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 33m - Aug 14, 2026 - For Your Consideration: John Williams' Butcher's Crossing (and why I don't think we should compare it to Blood Meridian)
Show Notes:
This week, on For Your Consideration, Cameron dives into John Williams' 1960 novel, Butcher's Crossing, a cautionary tale about how reading Ralph Waldo Emerson can drive you into buffalo-murdering madness.
It's not uncommon to see the novel compared to Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West, but after reading both...he's skeptical. It seems that they don't share much more than a genre.
This episode has a two-fold purpose: 1) To cover Butcher's Crossing's adept take on the Western and 2) Why we should all be more skeptical about the act of comparing things, especially these two novels.
Butcher's Crossing: The Husks and Shells of Exploitation by Jack Brenner: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43017669
Pragmatist Individuals and the Nineteenth-Century American West in Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose and John Williams's Butcher's Crossing by Gregory Alan Phipps: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27117925
The Influence of Jacob Boehme's Aurora on Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian by Lydia R. Cooper: https://doi.org/10.1080/00144940.2025.2608966
Aurora the Day Spring Or Dawning of the Day in the East Or Morning-Redness in the Rising of the SUN by Jacob Boehme: https://jacobboehmeonline.com/assets/docs/AURORA.18693240.pdf
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 23m - Jun 12, 2026 - The Last Letter (2002) by Frederick Wiseman + What Vasily Grossman and Life & Fate mean today
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron dives into Frederick Wiseman’s 2002 film “The Last Letter,” a dramatization of one chapter of Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate: the final letter Anna Semionova writes her son, Viktor Shtrum, from a Jewish ghetto.
We’ll get into how Wiseman adapts this troubling, poignant chapter into film, why I think this chapter is the best encapsulation of Grossman’s ideas in Life and Fate, and some thoughts on why he remains so provocative today.
Quick note: At one point in this episode I misspeak and say that the Vlasovite Russian Liberation Army was entirely Russian, which was not the case. It was primarily made of of Russian former Red Army soldiers, but did include Soviet defectors of other ethnicities more broadly.
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 36m - May 3, 2026 - PREP WORK: The Last Letter (2002) by Frederick Wiseman
Show Notes:
This week, you and Cameron get into some PREP WORK for an upcoming episode about Frederick Wiseman’s 2002 film “The Last Letter,” which dramatizes a chapter of Vassily Grossman’s Life and Fate.
In preparation for that episode, we’ll read that dramatized chapter — Part 1, Chapter 18, Anna Semyonova’s final letter to her son, Viktor Shtrum — along with two other letters Grossman wrote to his mother after her death.
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands51m - Apr 3, 2026 - A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov (w/ Dr. José Vergara)
Show Notes:
This week, Dr. José Vergara returns to the podcast to talk about Sasha Sokolov’s A School for Fools. The novel, first published in English in 1977, follows student so-and-so (and his double) as he attempts to tell events of his life. The novel doesn’t follow a linear plot — or even an easy-to-distinguish narrator — and puts you on your toes as you meander between stories.
Dr. Vergara is an associate professor of Russian in the Bryn Mawr College’s Department of Russian. He is the author of All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature, a co-editor of Reimagining Nabokov: Pedagogies for the 21st Century, and aa co-editor of the digital annotated edition of Sasha Sokolov’s Between Dog and Wolf.
Link to Encyclopedia of the Dog: https://encyclopediaofthedog.com/
The Embodied Language of Sasha Sokolov’s A School for Fools by José Vergara: https://doi.org/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.97.3.0426
Sasha Sokolov: ‘Here Comes Everybody’ Meets ‘Those Who Came’ by José Vergara: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv1fkgbqh.9
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 5m - Mar 20, 2026 - Chevengur by Andrei Platonov, Chapters 25-43
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron takes on the back half of Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur, covering chapters 25-43. As our characters finally arrive in the town of Chevengur, we go from a picaresque romp around the newly-Soviet countryside into the dirty work of actually building Communism.
“Danger and Deliverance: Reading Andrei Platonov” by Angela Livingstone
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 45m - Mar 6, 2026 - Zvenihora (1928) directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron returns to the beginning of Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Ukrainian Trilogy with “Zvenihora.” The film, released in 1928, explores a thousand years of Ukrainian history — spanning from Varangian invasion to the rise of the Soviet Union. The film is a fascinating take on Soviet film, mashing together Ukrainian culture and the new, Soviet reality.
You may have noticed this episode is two hours long….so, I decided to look into why I was finding inconsistent information on Dovzhenko’s life in the episode on “Earth.” Turns out, there’s a good reason for that. Oh, boy, do we get into that in this episode.
Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s 1939 autobiography
My notes on George Liber’s Alexander Dovzhenko: A Life in Soviet Film
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 52m - Feb 13, 2026 - Anton Chekhov, Earliest Stories (w/ editors Rosamund Bartlett and Elena Michajlowska)
Show Notes:
This week, we see that every author starts somewhere in Anton Chekhov, Earliest Stories: Stories, Novellas, Humoresques, 1880-1882. To talk about Chekhov’s earliest published stories, Cameron sits down with Elena Michajlowska and Rosamund Bartlett. The pair not only edited the collection, but also oversaw the unusual editing process that involved 83 other translators across the world.
They’ll talk about where Chekhov was this early in his career, the editing process and what kinds of stories we find among this juvanalia.
Book tickets for Rosamund and Elena’s event at Pushkin House here.
Follow the Anton Chekhov Foundation on Instagram @antonchekhovfoundation
Read more on the foundation’s blog here.
Check out their website antonchekhovfoundation.org
Learn more about the Early Chekhov Translation Project here
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 9m - Jan 21, 2026 - My five favorite films of the year + Sayat Nova, dir. by Sergei Parajanov
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron talks a little bit about director Sergei Parajanov’s “Sayat Nova” (also known as The Color of Pomegranates), and five other films he really liked this year.
Want to see the video version of this episode? Check it out here: https://youtu.be/khXaVt0ilFc
Also, sorry, the name of the theater is Dreamland Cinema. I forgot to say that in the video.
An Analysis of the Color of Pomegranates by YouTuber Blythe
Sinners and the Death of Black art by YouTube F. D. Signifier
Goodnight Irene, dir. by Sterlin Harjo
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands42m - Jan 1, 2026 - Earth (1930) directed by Oleksandr Dovzhenko
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron dives into the final entry into Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s Silent Trilogy, “Earth” (1930). The film’s deceptively simple plot—of a tractor delivery to a collectivizing village in Ukraine is followed by the murder of a local Bolshevik organizer—doesn’t hinder its avant-garde stylings, employing a montage of loose logical associations better described as dream logic, moving from people to fruit to threshing in a way that demands your attention.
Yeah, that’s right — I’m arguing that a socialist realist work about tractors is super interesting. A novel concept for the podcast, I know.
You can watch Earth (1930) in excellent quality here: “Earth” (1930) x biju
Offscreen Dreams and Collective Synthesis in Dovzhenko’s Earth by Elizabeth A. Papazian
All in the Foreground: A Study of Dovzhenko’s Earth by Gilberto Perez
Dovzhenko: Folk Tale and Revolution by Gilberto Perez
Death and life on Alexander Dovzhenko by Jonathan Rosenbaum
The Dovzhenko Papers by Marco Carynnyk
Who is Hidden behind the Figure of a Genius? The Context of Dovzhenko’s Work by Anna Tsymbal
Subversions in Dovzhenko’s Earth by Romana M. Bahry
“Ukranian masterpieces: Earth (1930) - Dovzhenko”
Earth: Analysis of Film Form, Auteur Characteristics and Context
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 13m - Dec 5, 2025 - Not Russian by Mikhail Shevelev (w/ Ally Pitts, host of A Russian & Soviet Movie Podcast)
Show Notes:
This week, Ally Pitts — host of A Russian & Soviet Movie Podcast — joins Cameron to talk about the book Not Russian by Mikhail Shevelev. The book follows veteran journalist Pavel Vladimirovich as an old friend’s sudden reappearance at the head of a terror attack forces him to reflect on his history as a Russian journalist and how things turned out this way.
You can find Ally on his Twitter @Alistair_Pitts and on Instagram under @ally_pitts_movies_etc. You can find A Russian & Soviet Movie podcast anywhere you listen to your audio.
Our prior episode with Ally on Anna Karenina film adaptations.
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 53m - Nov 21, 2025 - Chevengur, chapters 1-25, by Andrei Platonov
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron dives into Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur, covering chapters 1 through 25. Through the late Russian Empire into the early Soviet Union, Sasha Dvanov is finally orphaned when his fisherman father drowns in an attempt to understand his all-knowing, deathless fish. Growing up in the shuffling shadow of the new world, he joins the Bolshevik party and seeks to spread communism.
This episode covers his adventures trying to find out if the peasants have, after the abdication of the Tsar, suddenly begun to embrace communist lives. From anarchist militias to a Bolshevik Fyodor Dostoevsky, he finds little to approve of in the countryside.
Check out our old episode covering The Cow and the Third Son.
A Companion to Andrei Platonov’s “The Foundation Pit” by Thomas Seyfrid.
Time out of line: Sequence and plot in Andrei Platonov’s Chevengur by by Hallie A. White
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 11m - Oct 27, 2025 - The People Immortal by Vasily Grossman
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron returns to Vasily Grossman, covering his first novel of World War II, The People Immortal. The novel follows the Red Army through the early days of the war: losing battles, ceding ever more ground, and quickly losing hope.
Although this novel doesn’t contain the philosophical and critical heights of his later two novels, The People Immortal yet captures Grossman’s foundational commitment to telling the truth. The truth of the Red Army being beaten back, the fact that some—tired of the abuses of the Soviet Union—welcomed the invaders, and what awaited people overtaken by the Wehrmacht.
An early work, less mature, and yet one well worth reading.
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 17m - Sep 26, 2025 - Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky and Delicious Hunger by Hai Fan
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron dives into Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic and Hai Fan’s Delicious Hunger, trying to probe the question plaguing recent episodes: “What is the value of art during wartime?”
Deaf Republic tells an all-too-familiar parable of a town under occupation, subjected to abuse and murder, and how the people there chose their own forms of resistance to occupation.
Delicious Hunger tackles the issue from another angle: Hai Fan is the pen name for Ang Tiam Huat, a guerilla who fought for the Malaysian Communist Party for over a decade. His book fictionalizes the stories and struggles of his comrades during their years in the rainforest.
Hai Fan’s interview during Ethos Books’ launch party for Delicious Hunger.
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 19m - Sep 16, 2025 - An update, a reason to podcast, a look through October
We were supposed to talk about Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic and Fan Hai's Delicious Hunger today, but the episode's audio is trapped on a dead computer. You can look forward to listening to (a probably re-recorded) episode on Monday.
Since we have the time, I wanted to take a step back and discuss the ever-evolving reason for this podcast. It's hard to talk about "just" literature right now. But I think it's still worthwhile. We'll go over that and what's coming up next.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands12m - Sep 12, 2025 - For Your Consideration: War Diary by Yevgenia Belorusets & The Time of Doves by Merce Rodoreda
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron continues speaking about Yevgenia Belorusets’ work with War Diary and also explores the experience of women living through war in Merce Rodoreda’s The Time of Doves.
War Diary catalogues the first 40 days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, capturing the turbulence and violence while never forgetting to focus on the human element. Belorusets’ writing is a powerful call against apathy and a reminder to not forget what is human in man.
The Time of Doves follows Natalia, a Catalan woman in a new marriage in the years prior, during and after the Spanish Civil War. Rodoreda’s writing depicts the anxiety of being a woman — subject to an overly-expectant husband, keeping house and kids while earning rent money. The flow-of-consciousness style gives you an intimate look into Natalia’s experiences, sometimes blatantly and sometimes merely hinting at the things in her subconscious.
Read the entries of War Diary at https://www.isolarii.com/kyiv
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 10m - Aug 29, 2025 - A message from Matt5m - Aug 22, 2025
- Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belorusets & The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Show Notes:
This week, Cameron talks about unreliable narrators in Yevgenia Belorusets’ Lucky Breaks and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, posing an unusual argument: what if lying to your reader was a good thing?
Belorusets is a Ukrainian writer whose work focuses on the people marginalized by society and takes that eye toward the East, writing stories of women from the Donbas region after war broke out in 2014. Her work brings a light to stories often left untold — and even poses questions about the morality of doing so.
Yevgenia Belorusets Focus On Ukraine, Creative Horizons (video, 2024)
One Day More — Yevgenia Belorusets’ visit to Brussels
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands1h 13m - Aug 8, 2025 - Alindarka's Children by Alhierd Bacharevič & Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Show Notes:
This week, in For Your Consideration, Cameron dives into Belarusian writer Alhierd Bacharevič’s Alindarka’s Children and Laguna-Pueblo-American writer Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony. Both novels explore people native to a land that is now, in different ways, hostile to them.
Alindarka’s Children follows Avi and Sia’s fairy tale-like journey escaping a camp where they’re fed “vitamins” and taught to speak the correct Lingo, rejecting their own language. Their trip is beset by an unstable father, who insistantly passed their native Leid, a forest witch, a “corrected” hunter and other dangers. Written in both English and Scots to capture the Russian and Belarusian of the original, the novel challenges the reader’s understanding of linguistic and cultural preservation.
Ceremony is downstream of Marmon Silko’s brief attempt to write a humorous story about the native WW2 veterans of her childhood, who often drank heavily to deal with their trauma. As the wrote, though, she found that it really wasn’t very funny at all. Her exploration of Tayo’s PTSD, and the struggle to find a way forward, is a profoundly empathetic approach to everyone involved.
Alhierd Bacharevič: “Belarus is the place where literary subjects are just lying under our feet.”
Special Problems in Teaching Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony” by Paula Gunn Allen
I have lost everything: The impact of homeless sweeps - Propublica
The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube.
Our links: Website | Discord
Socials: Instagram | BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Questions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus episode? Send us an email at slaviclitpod@gmail.com.
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands2h 3m - Jul 18, 2025
