RUSSIANIST

A blog dedicated to Russian culture, literature, and art from the 19th century onward. Glory to Ukraine. Free Palestine.

[metamorphesque]

"Nature Morte.", Joseph Brodsky (tr George L. Kline)

[al-norton]

Ukrainian Letter of Solidarity with Palestinian people

[papenathys]

- Lyudmilla Ignatenko, the wife of deceased firefighter Vasily Ignatenko, Voices from Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexeivich (transl. Keith Gessen)

[dostoyevsky-official]

Today marks 15 years since Anna Politkovskaya’s murder, meaning the statute of limitations expires. Her killer is still at large. She wrote about human rights violation in Russia, specifically, in Chechnya, during the Chechen Wars.

Today is also Putin’s birthday. More than 150 Russian journalists have been murdered since he took office.

[dostoyevsky-official]

Anna Politkovskaya was perhaps the most high-profile journalist in Novaya Gazeta’s history, well-known not only in Russia, but worldwide. Some others killed in the line of duty include Anastasia Baburova, who worked on Russian neo-Nazis, Igor Domnikov, and Victor Popkov, who also worked on Chechnya. All in all, 5 journalists working for Novaya were murdered.

Elena Kostyuchenko reported for Novaya from the front lines in Kiev, Odessa, and Mikolaiv over the last month. Her complete, uncensored work is available in translation on n+1.

Жизнь бесценна. Правда бессмертна

[prorochestvo]

yefim ladyzhensky, wedding under chestnut trees, odesa series

[weepingwidar]

Viktor Tsoi (Soviet/Russian, 1962-1990) - Rock Concert (1980s)

[lionofchaeronea]

Ivan the Terrible and the Souls of His Victims, Mikhail Petrovich Klodt (1835-1914)

[sovietpostcards]

“Pushkin Square” by Georgiy Nissky (1967)

[sovtime]

«Пушкинская площадь». Художник: Георгий Нисский. 1967 год.

[my-russia]

Illustrations for Russian fairytales by Ivan Bilibin

[megairea]

“Gentle twilight, slumber-lidded twilight,”

— Fyodor Tyutchev, from Twilight; A Treasury of Russian Verse (ed. by Avrahm Yarmolinsky)

[profetizamos]

Embroidered icons made by Ukranian women imprisoned in the Soviet gulags, by Olga (surname unknown), 1946, and Hanna Protskiv-Liven, 1949.

As Dr. Oksana Kis, scholar of Ukranian women in history, describes, “There was...a need for religious rituals, although this was strictly prohibited in the gulag. The women managed to make thin ropes from rye bread and little crosses from toothbrushes and embroider little icons on some scraps of cloth, to which they prayed as if it were a genuine church image. They conducted group prayers on Sundays and improvised liturgies on major feasts. The women themselves performed the liturgical roles of the priest and the deacon, which is absolutely ruled out for women in customary life. In those conditions, their need for the Divine Service was stronger than principles of the church canon.”

The women would make the embroideries for and present them to their friends, for whom the embroidered entreaties beg for freedom and mercy.

Source

[russiawave]

[illustration-alcove]

Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Illustrations by Orest Vereysky.

[damnmuse]

Sochi 2014 Closing ceremony | Russian literature

[moonlitfey-blog]

Natasha Rostova’s first ball -  Illustration for Leo Tolstoy’s novel ‘War and Peace.’ (1893)

Leonid Pasternak (1862 - 1945)

[russkayaliteratura]

Lev and Sofia Tolstoy. 1895.

instagram.com/litrussa

[theapplepielifestyle]

“We don’t know how to say goodbye: we wander on, shoulder to shoulder. Already the sun is going down; you’re moody. I am your shadow.”

— Anna Akhmatova, trans. Stanley Kunitz & Max Hayward, in Poems of Akhmatova (via a-pair-of-ragged-claws)