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PODCAST

The Slavic Literature Pod

The Slavic Literature Pod

The Slavic Literature Pod is your guide to the literary traditions in and around the Slavic world. On each episode, Cameron Lallana sits down with scholars, translators and other experts to dive deep into big books, short stories, film, and everything in between. You’ll get an approachable introduction to the scholarship and big ideas surrounding these canons roughly two Fridays per month.

arts books

All Episodes

77:31

The People Immortal by Vasily Grossman

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/09/26

Show Notes:This week, Cameron returns to Vasily Grossman, covering his first novel of World War II, The People Immortal. I’ll write more later, but it’s almost 5 a.m. and I have to be at work in four hours. Womp womp. 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 | FacebookQuestions, comments, want to hear your voice on a bonus

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79:59

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky and Delicious Hunger...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/09/16

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

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12:18

An update, a reason to podcast, a look through October

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/09/12

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

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70:52

For Your Consideration: War Diary by Yevgenia...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/08/29

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

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5:57

A message from Matt

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/08/22

There is no description.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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73:29

Lucky Breaks by Yevgenia Belorusets & The Things They...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/08/08

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

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123:41

Alindarka's Children by Alhierd Bacharevič & Ceremony...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/07/18

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

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63:52

Europe Central by William T. Vollmann & Norwegian...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/06/27

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into William T. Vollmann’s Europe Central and Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood. The uniting theme this week: reflection and memory. Both novels cast a long shadow over his life, so it’s time to untangle exactly why that is. Can Europe Central be cleanly read as a series of parables? Is it appropriate to turn Hitler into a sort-of fairy tale? Is it a red flag that Cameron has read Norwegian Wood six times? Tune in to find your answers. “Shostakovich in Love:

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109:44

Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me by Teffi & In The...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/06/13

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives solo into two books: Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me by Teffi and In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien. He’ll pull apart their authors’ mutual love for taking a creative license to their own lives.Major themes: Emotional truth, social expectations, VietnamThe interview with Tim O’Brien I read from.The documentary on My Lai I mentioned.Seymour Hersh’s article on My Lai The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka

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129:25

The Story of Sonechka by Marina Tsvetaeva (w/ Inessa...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/06/06

Show Notes:Pick up a copy of The Story of Sonechka here.This week, Cameron dives into Marina Tsvetaeva’s The Story of Sonechka, a recollection of her relationship with the actress Sonia Holliday in Moscow, 1919. The story — one of the clearest examples of queer literature we’ve had on the podcast — reflects not only Marina and Sonia themselves, but also questions on relationships, memory and how we understand each other. Joining him to talk about the novel is Inessa Fishbeyn and C. D. C. Reeve, who

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5:01

A look forward to June

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/05/31

A quick look forward to our June episodes plus a little apology for the delayed episode this month. If you'd like to join our monthly book club, you can join our discord here. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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82:17

The Moscoviad by Yuri Andrukhovych (w/ Dr. Vitaly...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/05/02

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych’s The Moscoviad, a picaresque-cum-magical realist novel following the poet Otto von F. as he spends one day trying to accomplish a few chores around Moscow: a visit to a meeting, a reunion with a sort-of girlfriend, and a gift for his friend’s children. This journey takes him to beer halls, into the sewers, into the attention of the KGB and beyond. Set in the very late Soviet Union, Andrukhovych tackles the place of

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104:28

I Live I See by Vsevolod Nekrasov (w/ trans. Bela...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/04/21

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into the poetry of Vsevolod Nekrasov, joined by Bela Shayevich and Ainsley Morse who collected and translated works spanning much of his life in I Live I See: Selected Poems.Born in the USSR in 1934 and writing—mostly unofficially—through the end of his life in 2009 now in the Russian Federation, Vsevolod Nekrasov’s work is largely minimalist and deploys repetition like a musical motif. Some works span pages, while others are no more than a word reflecting itself

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84:28

Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/04/04

Show Notes:This week, Cameron ascends into the towering heights of imperial politics in Yaroslav Barsukov’s Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory by Yaroslav Barsukov. The novel follows Shea Ashcroft, an imperial minister whose refusal to gas protesting citizenry has earned him a reassignment to a border region to oversee a fantastical military project. With no one truly on his side and managing strange technologies, Ashcrofts finds himself increasingly out of his depth.Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory

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61:28

Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy (w/ Dr. Tatyana Gershkovich)

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/03/21

Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives back into the work of Leo Tolstoy to talk about one of his later works, Hadji Murat. He’s joined by podcast returnee Dr. Tatyana Gershkovich, whose book Art in Doubt analyzes Tolstoy and Vladimir Nakokov’s approaches to skepticism, to talk about the work, Tolstoy’s work What is Art?, and discuss how his approaches to “true” and “untrue” art affect the novel. Gershkovich is the William S. Dietrich II Associate Professor of Russian Studies at Carnegie Mellon

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67:45

To Hell with Poets by Baqytgul Sarmekova (w/...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/03/06

Pick up a copy of To Hell with Poets from the Tilted Axis Press website. Show Notes:This week, Cameron revisits Baqytgul Sarmekova’s To Hell With Poets with the help of the collection’s translator, Mirgul Kali. Together, they’ll dive back into how Sarmekova explores both Kazakh society and more universal themes through violence, disappointment and hope. Plus, learn a little more about Sarmekova herself as well as some of the peculiarities of translating from Kazakh into English. Mirgul Kali is a

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95:50

I Burned at the Feast by Arseny Tarkovsky (w/...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/02/21

Buy a copy of I Burned at the Feast here.Show Notes:This week, Cameron dives into the collection I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky. You have almost certainly heard of virtuosic filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, but his father might be less familiar to you. Yet, you may still have heard his work — Tarkovsky the younger includes recordings of Arseny reading his own poetry in Mirror and Stalker. To get into the nitty-gritty of Arseny Tarkovsky’s ranging poetry about life, death, WWII,

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98:15

Cecil the Lion Had to Die by Stiazhkina (w/...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/02/07

Show Notes:This week, Cameron will dive into the novel Cecil the Lion Had to Die by Ukrainian historian, journalist, and novelist Olena Stiazhkina — a novel diving into the intricacies of family life and identity formation through the late Soviet Union, the chaotic years following, and into the early years of the war. He’s joined by Dominique Hoffman, who translated the novel, and has a great wealth of knowledge to share about the book, its characters, Olena herself and the context of its

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3:51

A Look Forward

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/01/31

Cameron pops in at the end of the month to talk about episodes you can expect in the coming months.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

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73:33

The Talnikov Family by Avdotya Panaeva (w/ translator...

The Slavic Literature Pod ·

2025/01/03

Pick up a copy of The Talnikov Family from Columbia University Press!Show Notes:This week, Cameron gets into Avdotya Panaeva’s The Talnikov Family with its translator Fiona Bell. The novel, set in 1820s St. Petersburg, follows Natasha Talnikova’s life in an abusive household, setting readers into some of the lesser-read side of Imperial Russian life. Bell is a writer and scholar from St. Petersburg, Florida. She has published English-language translations of the Russian filmmaker Nataliya

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