A year passes, and, according to the impatient world, a decade passes . What trends appeared in the literature, what did it manage to explain to us about the world and about itself? The editors of Shelf, helping themselves with strong drinks (New Year!), remember the most important thing - in prose, poetry, theater, non-fiction .
The Possessed is a novel that some understand as a political pamphlet, others as a terrible and come true prophecy about the Russian revolution . Some understand it as a space where the writer’s favorite metaphysical ideas collide. The editors of Polk decided to discuss Dostoevsky's novel on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth .
Viktor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin are one of the stable couples, "eternal companions" of Russian literature . The editors of "Shelf" discussed "The Invincible Sun" and "Russian Folk Proverbs and Sayings" Sorokin's folklore .
Polk podcast revisits how Russian literature speaks of idleness . From the blissful bliss of romantic poets to the pathological inactivity of Oblomov . From moralizing verses of Marshak and Barto to the real trial of the "parasite" Brodsky .
Latvia: Migration of Cultures is the name of the first collection of scientific works devoted to multicultural environment that has emerged on the territory of Latvia since the moment when the first inhabitants began to inhabit it . What is the migration of cultures, what are its causes, types, goals and participants - we talk about this in the program "Nature of Things" with Anita Rozhkalne, Doctor of Philology, leading researcher at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia .
This year, archives related to the Nobel Prize of Alexander Solzhenitsyn were opened . According to the charter of the prize, detailed information about each of its awards has not been available for 50 years . In the near future, the "Shelf" is expected to feature material on the history of the Nobel 1970 .
Yuri Saprykin and the editors of the Polka project are discussing one of the main Russian books . "A Hero of Our Time" as a colonial novel, can Pechorin be called a perverse narcissist, toxic relationships in the time of Lermontov .
To the 120th anniversary of Andrei Platonov, Polk editors Varvara Babitskaya, Lev Oborin, Polina Ryzhova and Yuri Saprykin are discussing . Why do his books look more modern today than ever? Is he a Soviet writer? And what is the Soviet project for him? What is the peculiarity and strangeness of his language?
"Shelf" discusses the work of literary memory: how the authors of memoirs preserve the details of literary life and what it means to "lie like an eyewitness" in relation to texts about Akhmatova and Mandelstam, Mayakovsky and Yesenin . How do some memoirists create myths about great writers, while others debunk these myths?
Does literature help develop empathy? Are we always ready to let the author bring us to tears? Are there win-win topics that are guaranteed to evoke pity in the reader? Grushnitsky and Pippi Longstocking, clerk Korotkov from "The Diaboliad" and Jude from "Little Life"