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.

AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN RUSSIAN TO ENGLISH LITERARY TRANSLATION We are delighted to announce that entries for the Rossica Translation Prize 2011 are now open. The Rossica Prize is the only prize awarded for the best new translation of a high-quality Russian literary work into English. Literary work must be written in Russian by any author, present or past, and published in English in 2009 and 2010. The prize is open to works published in any country. The value of the prize is £5,000 divided between the winning translator and the publisher.

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

Sergei Lukyanenko, born in Kazakhstan, is one of the foremost Russian science-fiction writers and has received tremendously high acclaim abroad. Originally studying as a psychiatrist, Lukyanenko turned to science-fiction writing with the monthly publication of Where the Mean Enemy Lurks in 1988. However, the works that shot him to the dizzying heights that he now occupies were Knights of the Forty Islands, which won best heroic-romantic fantasy and science-fiction award in 1995, and The Nuclear Dream.

Andrey Rodionov is one of Moscow’s most conspicuous poets. He was born in the town of Mytischi outside Moscow, and his sometimes harsh, gritty poetry describes the reality of this small-town upbringing. He was lead singer of a punk band for some years and, although he is no longer a musician, performance has remained important as and element of his poetry: he regularly performs his poetry live and is conscious of his need for and audience’s response to his reading.

Maria Galina is one of the most interesting authors among those who made their names in the turbulent 1990s. She writes both literary and science fiction (with ten SF books to her credit). She is also a noted poet, a thoughtful critic, and translator of English and American science fiction, in all of which she excels. She is a winner of many important prizes for her prose and poetry and her critical essays.

Sergei Lukyanenko, born in Kazakhstan, is one of the foremost Russian science-fiction writers and has received tremendously high acclaim abroad. Originally studying as a psychiatrist, Lukyanenko turned to science-fiction writing with the monthly publication of Where the Mean Enemy Lurks in 1988. However, the works that shot him to the dizzying heights that he now occupies were Knights of the Forty Islands

Maria Galina is one of the most interesting authors among those who made their names in the turbulent 1990s. She writes both literary and science fiction (with ten SF books to her credit). She is also a noted poet, a thoughtful critic, and translator of English and American science fiction, in all of which she excels. She is a winner of many important prizes for her prose and poetry and her critical essays.

Red Pyramid
Russian Literature from the 21st Century
In this literary edition of ROSSICA, we are delighted to present the first English translations of new works by nine leading Russian writers. ROSSICA 19 introduces their work through extracts from six novels, recently published in Russia, and three short stories especially written for this anthology.

26 May
Moscow
On the 26th of May, the names of the writers shortlisted for the 'Big Book' literary prize were announced. 13 authors have been shortlisted. Two of the shortlisted books were entered into the competition as manuscripts: Mariam Petrosyan's 'The House Where'and Andrei Baldin's 'The Extension of the Full Stop'.

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.

The first day ended with an evening with Dmitry Bykov and Bridget Kendall at Waterstone’s, Piccadilly. Bykov entertained the large audience with, along with everything else, a joke. It went like this: “At birth you get a label put on your arm, after death, it’s put on your foot. If someone gets the same number both times, they win a prize – a pressure cooker.”

Maria Galina is one of the most interesting authors among those who made their names in the turbulent 1990s. She writes both literary and science fiction (with ten SF books to her credit). She is also a noted poet, a thoughtful critic, and translator of English and American science fiction, in all of which she excels. She is a winner of many important prizes for her prose and poetry and her critical essays.

Maria Galina is one of the most interesting authors among those who made their names in the turbulent 1990s. She writes both literary and science fiction (with ten SF books to her credit). She is also a noted poet, a thoughtful critic, and translator of English and American science fiction, in all of which she excels. She is a winner of many important prizes for her prose and poetry and her critical essays.

Alexander Arkhangelsky was born in Moscow in 1962. He graduated in pedagogy and wrote a dissertation about Pushkin. At different times he has been a radio-journalist, written for literary journals and political newspapers, and has taught.

Leicester Square Theatre
9 & 16 March
£12/£10
‘A Sense of Delicacy’, one of Chekhov’s best comic stories, comes to the London stage, performed by the Romanian actor Mihai Arsene. Actor Mihai Arsene was born in Pitesti, Romania. He studied Performing Arts at the University of Craiova, where he graduated in 2001. Just before graduation, he was awarded The Best Actor Award for the role Mr. Bogoiu in "The Holiday Game" by Mihail Sebastian, which was part of the Student Actor Festival in Iasi, Romania.

Maria Galina is one of the most interesting authors among those who made their names in the turbulent 1990s. She writes both literary and science fiction (with ten SF books to her credit). She is also a noted poet, a thoughtful critic, and translator of English and American science fiction, in all of which she excels. She is a winner of many important prizes for her prose and poetry and her critical essays.

Aleksandr Ilichevsky was born in Sumgayit, near Baku, in 1970. A graduate of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, he worked in research in Israel and the United States from 1991 to 1998, and has lived in Moscow since 1998. Ilichevsky's published prose works include Klein's Bottle (Butyl'ka Kleina, 2005), and the novel Matisse (2007). ‘The Sparrow', which is included in Klein's Bottle and received the prestigious Yury Kazakov short story prize in 2005, is devoted to the famine which followed the introduction of grain requisitioning by the Soviet government in 1932 and which is thought to have killed some five million peasants. Matisse, by contrast, gives a panoramic picture of Moscow and Russia in the 1990s, taking as its protagonists two vagrants and a physicist who decides to join their number. Despite puzzling many readers and critics with its title, it was awarded the Russian Booker Prize in 2007.

Dmitry Novikov, born in 1966, began writing prose in his early thirties, after studying medicine at university and then entering business. He lives in Petrozavodsk, Karelia. In 2007 he received the New Pushkin Prize for his third book of stories, Longing (Vozhdelenie, 2005, 320pp). ‘The Toads of Revenge and Conscience', which reflects the author's love of the North, and especially the White Sea, is taken from this collection.

26 January 2009
Moscow
Olga Slavnikova, won the 2009 Kazakov prize for best short story. The prize was awarded for her story, 'The Cherepanova Sisters', part of a collection entitled 'Love in the seventh carriage'. Olga will be visiting London in April to talk at Academia Rossica's 2nd Russian Literature Week.

25 November 2008
Moscow
Vladimir Makanin was awarded first prize for his novel 'Asan'. Liudmila Saraskina received second prize for her bibliography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Rustam Rakhmatulin was presented with third prize for his collection of essays entitled 'Two Moscows, or the Metaphysics of the Capital'.

May 2008
Cannes, France
It seems that for Russian cinema, good things come in threes: the Russian film industry suitably showcased at the first ever Russian film pavilion; leading Russian production and distribution companies present their best creations at the International Marché du Film; and stunning triumphs for first-time feature film directors Sergei Dvortsevoy and Valeria Gai-Germanika!

24 January
Park Kultury, Moscow
'Wild Field', Mikhail Kalatozishvili's stunning debut film, which won the audience prize award at Academia Rossica's 2nd Russian Film Festival in London, was awarded a Golden Eagle in Moscow. Ksenia Rappaport received two best actress awards, one of which was for her role in Serebriannikov's thought-provoking study on modern Russia, 'Yuri's Day'.

Maria Galina is one of the most interesting authors among those who made their names in the turbulent 1990s. She writes both literary and science fiction (with ten SF books to her credit). She is also a noted poet, a thoughtful critic, and translator of English and American science fiction, in all of which she excels. She is a winner of many important prizes for her prose and poetry and her critical essays.

Deputy director of the RAN Institute of Economics
This year, he was awarded a European prize for his ‘Contribution to Economics’. With R.S. Greenberg, he co-founded the concept ‘Economic socio-dynamism’, about which more than 10 studies have been published, both in Russia and abroad.

Deputy director of the RAN Institute of Economics
This year, he was awarded a European prize for his ‘Contribution to Economics’. With R.S. Greenberg, he co-founded the concept ‘Economic socio-dynamism’, about which more than 10 studies have been published, both in Russia and abroad.

Actor, 12
In 1990 he debuted as a film director with the film «Crazy», which was awarded the Grand-Prix of The Young European Filmmakers Festival in Angers (France).

The winner of Russian Booker Prize 2006. Director of “Debut” Prize. Grew up in Yekaterinburg in the Urals where she majored in journalism. A literary editor and critic, Slavnikova is the author of three widely acclaimed novels: A Dragon-fly the Size of a Dog, short-listed for the Russian Booker Prize (1997); Alone in the Mirror, short-listed for the Anti-Booker and winner of the Pavel Bazhov Prize; and Immortal, awarded the Critics' Academy Apollon Grigoriev Prize and short-listed for both the Belkin Prize and the National Bestseller Prize.

Novelist and broadcaster. He was born in Moscow in 1945. He studied art and later geometrical topology at Moscow University. He emigrated in 1975 and worked as a theatre director for a student theatre group in Jerusalem. Since 1976 he has lived and worked in London. He regularly contributes to BBC Radio, the Times Literary Supplement and to other periodicals. He is editor and presenter of West End, a weekly radio show for the BBC Russian Service. Zinovy's seven novels have been translated into a number of European languages. His novel The Mushroom Picker was made into a film for BBC Television in 1994. His novel Russian Service, as well as a number of his short stories, were adapted for BBC Radio 3 and for Radio France. During the 1990s three of his novels in Russian were nominated for the Russian Booker in Moscow. Zinik's dramatic farce Here Comes the Tiger, set to music by Gerard McBurney, was first performed by The Gogmagogs at the London City Festival in 1999. His radio documentary on Berlin, After the Wall, (with Claudia Sinnig) was awarded the Bronze Medal at the New York International Radio Festival in 2001. His documentary radio drama My Father's Leg was broadcast by BBC Radio 3 in 2003. Zinik's recent collection of short stories Mind the Doors was published in 2002 by Context Books, New York. Zinovy is a member of The Colony Room Club in Soho.

Orlando Figes is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. He is a reputable writer of works on Russian history, most notably A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924 (1996), for which he was awarded the Wolfson Prize; Natasha's Dance (2002) and The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia (2007), all of which have been reviewed to international acclaim and translated into many foreign languages. He has appeared on many television and radio broadcasts, commenting on events in Russia and on Russian cultural and historical issues, and he is a regular book reviewer for the New York Review of Books. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. It is a great privilege to have Orlando as a speaker at Russian Literature Week.

Born in 1960. Poet, critic, translator, and science fiction writer with ten SF books to her credit. A graduate from Odessa University majoring in marine biology she took part in several sea expeditions. She has been a professional writer since 1995. She has won many prizes for both her prose and poetry. Her fiction contains a strong element of magic realism while gender issues have always been the focus of her attention.
She has been nominated for the Russian Booker and short-listed for the Russian Critics Academy Award. Iramifications was awarded the International Portal Prize.

Born in 1967, Dmitry Bykov is a prolific, award-winning prose writer, whose works almost invariably give rise to heated debates in the literary press. He is also a widely published poet of some eight collections of poetry and he recently published an impressive, detailed new biography on Boris Pasternak, for which he was awarded the ‘Big Book' prize in 2007. Since the 1990s, Dmitry Bykov has produced a constant stream of newspaper articles, reviews and essays on a wide range of subjects from literature to politics. He has also hosted a weekly radio show and some television discussion programmes. Bykov goes out to court controversy and stimulate discussion, as can be seen in his recently published novel Zh.D., taken from two Russian letters of the alphabet: ‘It's going to be fiercely Russophobic and fiercely anti-Semitic,' he said just before the novel's publication. He went on, ‘It depicts both Russians and Jews as virus nations, which bring misfortune and decay to whatever they're trying to colonize. It's the best book I've ever written, it's actually the best book that can possibly be written today, and it's very, very funny.' Whatever else he might do, Dmitry Bykov is sure to cause a lively debate by his audacious originality!

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

Interpreting Russia
This issue is dedicated to the short-listed finalists and the Winner of the first Rossica Prize.