Russian Taster Session - "Russian Literature Speaks"

Russian culture is famous for its big novels... but what did its literature do during the eventful twentieth century? Its political significance meant that it was exposed to the full force of political control -- and yet literature bore, and continues to bear, witness to Russia's political upheavals and their aftermath. In this way it preserved individual voices and experiences in all their immediacy. This presentation gives an overview of the twentieth century and ends by considering how Russian literature acts as an outlet for dissenting views of the current Russian regime's war against Ukraine.