24 September - 3 October
Over 40 events covering dance, film, music, poetry, theatre and visual art will take place across Hampstead and Highgate. The programme includes Matthew Hurt’s 'Lightening Conductor' a dramatic profile of Diaghilev (played by Simon Callow) as well as classical music concerts focusing on the composers who worked with Diaghilev and an exhibition of photographs of Ballets Russes dancer Tamara Karsavina.
There will also a series of events entitled ‘Russian Voices’ which focus on Anton Chekhov (Jonathan Miller), Leo Tolstoy (Zinovy Zinik), the Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy and Anna Akhmatova’s cycle of poems, ‘Requiem’, read by Glenda Jackson.

Academia Rossica and the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication invite you to take part in a competition to think up a slogan for the Russian stand and for the Russia Market Focus programme at the London Book Fair 2010.
We need your help to come up with a biright, contemporary and effective slogan which will place Russian literature and the Russian publishing industry at one of the most prestigious international publishing forums. The slogan will be used at the Russian stand on all marketing material - press releases, brochures, banners, etc.

The International Lounge at the Moscow International Book Fair is a space where the Russian publishing world can form links with the international book industry. Alongside the extensive programme of seminars and roundtables, it is a place for networking and deals, as well as being an information centre on international collaboration. The International Lounge is organised by Academia Rossica with the support from the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication and the Moscow International Book Fair. The programme of seminars and presentations is focused on the preparation for Russia Market Focus at the London Book Fair 2011.

4th Russian Film Festival, 29 October – 7 November Dear Friends! The Russian Film Festival is getting ready to present London with this year's best premieres in Russian cinema. The Main Programme As always, the main festival programme showcases the best Russian films, award-winners at major international and Russian film festivals. These films include, 'Silent Souls' (Ovsyanki), directed by Alexei Fedorchenko and winner of three prizes at the Venice Film Festival, 'How I Ended This Summer' by Alexei Popogrebsky, awarded prizes for best actor and best cinematography at the Berlinale, 'One War' by Vera Glagoleva, Grand Prix winner at Sofia International Film Festival and Russia's nomination for the Oscars and Svetlana Proscurina's latest film 'The Truce', winner of the main prize at Kinotavr. As in previous years, guests include directors, producers and actors who come to London specially to present their films at the festival. Documentaries – 'Noughties Art' This year's documentary programme sums up the last decade with screenings of the ten best Russian documentary films, one for each year. The programme is presented by the great director and documentary maker, Vitaly Mansky, president of the ArtDocFest. Animation Alongside the main programme and documentaries, we have also put together a comprehensive and diverse programme of animation. As part of our festival 'Astral dogs Belka and Strelka' take a trip to outer space captained by director Inna Evlannikova, while Irina Evteeva, famous for her graceful and original style, brings 'Little Tragedies' to the screen. These films will capture the hearts of adults and childen alike. As well as an extensive programme of full length animation, we will be screening a special programme for our young audiences, presenting the best of award-winning Russian animated films of recent years Special Screenings This year's film festival also includes a retrospective of the great actor and director Sergei Bondarchuk's films and the works of Leo Tolstoy on film, as well as a retrospective of masters of Soviet and Russian animation. Venue For the fourth year in a row the Russian Film Festival will take place at the Apollo Piccadilly, one of London's best cinemas.

Yume Pictures and Academia Rossica are delighted to invite you to a special screening of the film 'A Room and a Half' at 8pm on 10 May at Cine Lumière, South Kensington, London, SW7 2DT, followed by Q&A with director Andrey Khrzhanovsky and actress Alisa Freyndlikh. It is a beautifully mesmerising film based on the life of the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky.

Winner of the Rossica Young Translators Award 2010 announced! On 21 April the winner of the RYTA was announced by judges Oliver Ready and Robert Chandler at a special ceremony in the PEN Literary Café at the London Book Fair. The winner is: Leo Shtutin for his translation of an extract from Mikhail Shishkin's novel Letter-Book (Письмовник) Leo Shtutin receives £500 and an invitation from Academia Rossica to travel to Moscow to take part in a Translators' Congress in September 2010. The Congress will be a high-profile event which will take place during the International Moscow Book Fair and in which more 100 translators of Russian literature will take part.

Is Tolstoy Alive? Vladimir Tolstoy in conversation with James Meek Monday 19 April, 6.30pm at Waterstones Piccadilly* Vladimir Tolstoy is the great great grandson of one of the biggest Russian writers – Leo Tolstoy. Since 1994 he has been the director of the Leo Tolstoy museum in Yasnaya Polyana. Vladimir is often seen as the official representative of Leo Tolstoy’s cultural heritage. In 2001 he made a famous appeal to the Russian Orthodox Church, petitioning the repeal of the excommunication of his famous ancestor – a historical event that in Vladimir Tolstoy’s view turned out to have a fatal effect on the whole of Russian society. Under Vladimir Tolstoy’s guidance Yasnaya Polyana has been set up not only as a museum documenting Leo Tolstoy’s life and literary work, but also as a place to keep the spirit of the great writer alive. Writers and intellectuals are regularly invited to take part in seminars and discuss the fundamental questions of life that for the great Russian writer were of such high importance. The museum also runs its own publishing house and offers translation grants to support new translations of Leo Tolstoy’s books. James Meek is a writer, critic and reporter living in London. He is the author of four novels and two collections of short stories. Between 1991 and 1999 he lived in Ukraine and Russia, where his 2005 novel The People's Act of Love was set. In 1994 he visited Vladimir Tolstoy at the ancestral Tolstoy estate in Yasnaya Polyana. His most recent book, We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, was awarded the Prince Maurice Prize. * Tickets to this event are £3, redeemable against purchase of any book. Call Waterstones Piccadilly on 020 7851 2400 to book tickets in advance

Now in its second year, the Rossica Young Translators Prize is hard on the heels of the success of the main Rossica Prize. Through this prize we would like to encourage young people under 25 who are passionate about Russia, literature and translation to enter into the world of professional literary translation. We hope that this award will help to nurture a new generation of Russian to English literary translators, as well as further cultural dialogue between Russia and the English-speaking world. The Winner will be announced on 21 April at the London Book Fair. The winning translator will receive £500 and the opportunity to travel to Moscow to take part in a Translators' Congress in September 2010. All shortlisted translators will be invited to a special programme of events at the London Book Fair and introduced to writers and publishers. If you would like to take part in this competition, please translate one of the three extracts in this brochure. They are taken from new novels written by Russia’s foremost contemporary novelists: Leonid Yuzefovich’s “Журавли и карлики”, Mikhail Shishkin’s “Письмовник”, and Viktor Pelevin's "t". The deadline for submission is 1 April. The translations will be judged by prominent translators and winners of the Rossica Prize – Robert Chandler, Amanda Love Darragh and Oliver Ready. It is an exciting opportunity for young translators to enter into the professional world of literary translation.

When Academia Rossica approached me to serve on the jury for their translation prize, I was excited and intrigued. What would the field be like, how many entries would there be, were there still publishers around in the West willing to produce translations of serious Russian works? The classics apart, was there more to Russian literature for English-speaking people than penguins and historical detectives? My caricature of the average Western reader's view of Russian literature today can perhaps be excused in part by my own education.

I was delighted and astonished when I received the invitation to be one of the judges of this year’s ‘Rossica’ Translation Prize. Delighted – because, by accepting, I would be able to indulge myself with a clear conscience in reading (or, as it often turned out, rereading) many works of Russian literature rather than doing what I all too often do – reading works about Russian literature (and various other things). Astonished – because I am not a prolific or high-profile translator of Russian literature, so I was unsure about why I had been chosen. However, not being known for false modesty, I did feel that I was reasonably well qualified for the work ahead.

I see Russia’s future in the brightest of hues. Admittedly, this sort of statement does not befit a dystopian writer like me, who is supposed to make dire predictions, though for some what I am going to tell you will sound as bad as an anti-utopia (while I see it as an almost ideal outcome).

Along with the 45 Indian authors arriving in London next week to take part in the book fair's India programme will be a smaller touring party of Russian writers. Like the Indian promotion, Russian Literature Week is based at the fair but also takes in central London - there are nightly discussions with authors at Waterstone's, Piccadilly, starting on Monday - and events around the country.

4 September 2009, 7pm
Hammersmith Apollo
The famous Russian singer Valery Meladze with only one live performance! Tickets are now on sale! 2 weeks before, on 21 August 2009, prize draw to win free tickets to Valery Meladze concert! To take part, simple register on our website, and you will enter price draw automatically. Register to receive information about our future events.

I see Russia’s future in the brightest of hues. Admittedly, this sort of statement does not befit a dystopian writer like me, who is supposed to make dire predictions, though for some what I am going to tell you will sound as bad as an anti-utopia (while I see it as an almost ideal outcome).

Along with the 45 Indian authors arriving in London next week to take part in the book fair's India programme will be a smaller touring party of Russian writers. Like the Indian promotion, Russian Literature Week is based at the fair but also takes in central London - there are nightly discussions with authors at Waterstone's, Piccadilly, starting on Monday - and events around the country.

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Terekhov was born in June 1966 in the provincial town of Tula in Central Russia. After serving in the army he graduated in journalism from the Moscow State University. He soon won acclaim as a writer with his stories about his army experiences and about the early perestroika chaos he was witnessing.

by Nikolai Erdman
Translated by Moira Buffini
Faber and Faber, 2007, pp.116
Hallway-dwelling Semyon is unemployed and disheartened with life. When his last hope for self-respect disappears, Semyon decides to take his own life. But word gets out and he finds himself inundated with sympathetic visitors - begging him to die on their behalf.

by Maria Galina
Translated by Amanda Love Darragh
Glas; 2008; pp. 368
The central theme of "Iramifications" is the eternal misunderstanding between East and West. Misconceptions and the notion of identity are explored on a journey from Odessa to the symbolic Oriental city of Iram, via the complexity of friendship and the blurring of borders between fantasy and reality. Tales are woven, deserts are crossed, and battles are fought. East and West are worlds apart...or are they?

by Alexandr Terekhov
Translated by Natalie Roy and B.T. Gall
Alma Books; 2008; pp. 347
Rats and human beings aren't that far apart from each other in "The Rat-Killer". As the political intrigue of phantasmagorical post-communist reality develops into nightmare, the greed, cunning and malice of the humans more and more resemble the behaviour of the large communities of destructive rodents, while the rats acquire more and more human features.

27&28 September
Apollo West End
This year, the Russian Film Festival is collaborating with London’s unique venture, Open Rehearsal, to take the British public behind the scenes of contemporary Russian filmmaking. The weekend will see highly-renowned Russian filmmakers and film critics take to the stage to give UK audiences a unique insight into Russian cinema.

Russia, 2007, 90 min
Dir. Alexander Gornovsky
This dynamic and ironic work comes from the award winning scriptwriter of Pavel Lungin’s ‘The Island’. The film follows a day in the life of Moscow businessman Andrei, as events take ever more dramatic turns with each cigarette that he smokes.

Now - July 18 2008
RS&A Ltd. Gallery, London
Entry Free

Moscow art collecive of four, AES+F, presents video installation and porcelain work in their first solo exhibition in the UK. 'First Riot' brought new prominence to their already illustrious careers, when it met with sensational success at the Venice Biennale in 2007...

Norman Stone has been described as ‘a legendary teacher’ when he was professor of modern history at Oxford University. Always controversial and never dull, his outspoken views on many aspects of European and Russian history are always thought-provoking and guaranteed to stimulate fierce debate. He is the prize-winning author of books on the First World War and Hitler. He was professor of modern history at Oxford from 1984 to 1995, from where he moved to take up the post of director of the Russian-Turkish Centre at Bilkent University, Ankara. For the last ten years he has divided his time between Oxford and Turkey, and he believes that living abroad there has given him a new perspective on Europe, and particularly on Russia, about which he has said, ‘When you realise that Tatar-Turkey dimension, you understand the thing an awful lot better.’ It is a privilege to have Professor Norman Stone as a guest at our Russian Language and Literature Week and audiences will not fail to be stimulated by his erudition and originality of thought.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION
This special issue is devoted to the Rossica Translation Prize, awarded in 2007 for the second time

Professor of International Politics, Norman Stone has been described as ‘a legendary teacher’ when he was professor of modern history at Oxford University. Always controversial and never dull, his outspoken views on many aspects of European and Russian history are always thought-provoking and guaranteed to stimulate fierce debate. He is the prize-winning author of books on the First World War and Hitler. He was professor of modern history at Oxford from 1984 to 1995, from where he moved to take up the post of director of the Russian-Turkish Centre at Bilkent University, Ankara.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION
This special issue is devoted to the Rossica Translation Prize, awarded in 2007 for the second time