On November 18, the Boston University Castle welcomed Russian poets Sergey Gandlevsky and Katia Kapovich for a reading and conversation titled “Poetry in an Age of Totalitarianism.” Moderated by Daria Khitrova, Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages at Harvard University, the evening also featured Philip Nikolayev, another prize-winning poet who, alongside his wife, Kapovich, is an […]
Few theatrical creations of the 20th century are as mythically iconoclastic as Victory Over the Sun. Concocted by the trans-rational poet Aleksey Kruchenykh, the messiah of painterly abstraction Kazimir Malevich, and the avant-garde composer-painter Mikhail Matiushin, Victory was nominally called an opera. In fact, it was an anti-operatic, anti-theatrical, anti-literary piece of performance art, intended […]
“They believe it will soon be over if they weaken the weakest. But one day soon, change will come.” Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler wrote “The Mother” at a moment of extreme political upheaval. The Nazi Party was gaining power in Germany, and Brecht and Eisler would soon have to flee. The Mother reflected […]
The Mother: A Cantata for Ferguson Based on Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler’s “The Mother” Wednesday, November 19, 2014 at 8 PM Marsh Chapel at Boston University “They believe it will soon be over if they weaken the weakest. But one day soon, change will come.” What does political opera mean to us today? Do […]
On Wednesday, November 20, with thanks to the Center for the Humanities, the Jewish Cultural Endowment, the Department of Modern Language and Comparative Literature, and Zephyr Press for their generous support, the Center for the Study of Europe hosted Russian Voices, a day-long celebration of Russian poetry, music, and culture. The event coincided with the […]
Join us for a talk by Center for the Study of Europe Visiting Researcher Anna Winestein. The Rite of Spring, which premiered one hundred years ago this year, was one of the seminal choreographic and musical compositions of the 20th century, and centenary celebrations have been taking place around the world. But 1913 was an […]
Join us on Wednesday, November 20, for Russian Voices: Readings and Conversations with contemporary Russian poets Polina Barskova, Anna Glazova, and Maria Stepanova. This event celebrates the release by Zephyr Press of Relocations, a new anthology of Russian poetry, and brings together the three poets whose works are collected in the book and two of […]
During the fall of 2013, our focus at the Center for the Study of Europe is on Russia. The Russian Voices Film Series is intended to complement our forthcoming Russian Voices Symposium and Philosophical Cabaret. The poets, musicians, and filmmakers featured in the series are each, in their own way, engaged in re-thinking oppositions such […]