“Rails-Ties, Rails-Ties, Which make a long track, Up on it, running, running, The train oh! so late, and ever so funny! “Why funny?” asks Nanny, ‘Cause of its last car, The peas were rolling out, To meet a boy scout. The cackling Hens, frolicking and playing, Came and ate all the peas. Then Ducks went…
I have just finished reading the book “Empire of the Czar” (A Journey Through Eternal Russia in 1839) by the Marquis de Custine, Copyright @1971 Princeton University Press, Published by Doubleday, New York, 1989. Listen to the song Old Russia The book was banned in Russia, where even discussion of it was forbidden. Why? Because…
A central issue in “Russian Ark” is the spread of enlightenment through and the rise of the nation-state, and with it various forms of nationalism. Accompanying the age of the nation-state-first its emergence from under the tutelage of Empire, and second its ferocious return after the fall of Soviet-styled socialism – there has been an…
Vitas- reads a poem Such a comment I got last night from Kseniya and today I am putting it into my post. Here it is a portrait of Bella Akhmadulina. Dear Valentina! First I would like to thank you for your warm reception, for your hospitality and openness. For that energy and fullness of the…
First I would like you to listen to the song with the lyrics on poem by a great Russian poetess Marina Tsvetaeva “And on leaving I will say” to attune your ear to poetry . А напоследок я скажу Then I wrote a letter to Canadian poet John Woodsworth and he answered me, both letters…
My interlocutor today is Ivan Semyonovich, a big politics fan and literature admirer and we are talking about Mark Twain (1835-1910) and Dostoevsky ( 1821-1881), about America and Russia. I.S. A cosmic Plutarch writing “The Parallel Lives of Great Nations” could not find a more rewarding subject. Perhaps it could be called Mark Twain or…
Listen to Vitas We stopped in front of the too celebrated statue of Peter the Great, placed on its rock by the Empress Catherine, then St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Winter Palace; another mighty result of human will applying human physical powers in a struggle with the laws of nature, severe Northern climate in winters and…
Bryansk High Female School #1, Russia,1947. There as we were schoolchildren we were hurrying with our pencil-boxes and books to meet our first teacher starting from grade 1 till grade 7 (completion of Junior High), our strict, fair and beautiful Nina Nickolaevna Ledneva. For seven years she united us in a spirit of intense learning,…
Whether you are a Tsar or a noble person, or a peasant. In times of sorrow, need, sufferings we become as little children before the heavenly thrown, heaven knows not rank, status, position or wealth. It only knows what is in your heart: are you humble or are you charitable, are you caring, do you…
A Conversation with Ivan Maximovich, a Connoisseur of Russian Literature and Culture. I.M. You said that the great Russian poets are the Ryabinins and what about Pushkin, our national pride, the verses of whom we were taught starting from the school bench. V.N. Do you know what? Definitely, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799-1837) was a great…