Now – 24 October
At the ICA, Chto delat?, a Russian collective made up of artists, philosophers and writers, presents an exhibition and associated season of activity which extends their identity as ‘a self-organising platform for cultural workers’. Revolving around the publication of a new issue of their newspaper, a gallery display centred on the group’s videos and a programme of talks, screenings and performances Chto delat? articulate the potential for constituting new forms of living and learning.

The Russkiy Mir Foundation in collaboration with Academia Rossica is launching a programme of grants for literary translation from Russian into English. This programme aims to promote Russian literature internationally and facilitate cultural and intellectual links between Russia and the English-speaking world. We invite publishers and translators to apply for funding to translate works from Russian into English. We are particularly keen to support projects that aim to bring original literary projects and works by contemporary Russian writers to a wider English audience. On the whole, priority is given to translation of contemporary fiction and poetry; literary non-fiction titles and new translations of classics may also be eligible if they are exceptional in terms of literary value. The scheme supports only translations from the original Russian text.

The BOOKS FROM RUSSIA stand was held at the London Book Fair for the third time by the Russian Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication in collaboration with Academia Rossica. Building on the success of last year, publishers were offered even greater opportunities for creating and expanding business links with the fast growing Russian book market. This was of particular important this year as part of the lead up to the 2011 London Book Fair, where Russia will be the Guest of Honour. Despite being affected by the unexpected volcanic activity, as was the entire London Book Fair, we were very pleased to see that the BOOKS FROM RUSSIA stand was one of the liveliest at the fair.

Monday 7 June, 7pm
Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre Courtauld Institute, Somerset House
Chaired by Elaine Feinstein
The Bolshevik Revolution produced a mass exodus of Russia’s aristocracy and educated bourgeoisie. In the years following 1917 many of Russia’s most talented writers, artists, composers, scientists, professionals,

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.

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

The Debut Prize was instituted in 2000 by State Duma Deputy Andrei Skoch, creator of the humanitarian foundation Pokolenie (Generation). Skoch originally conceived of Pokolenie as a medical charity to help provincial Russian clinics, sick children and pensioners. The Debut, Pokolenie’s only cultural project to date, has become a prize of national renown. The Debut has a strict age limit: entrants may not be over the age of 25. Members of the Russian literary establishment were skeptical at first. They doubted that writers so young would have something to say to readers. Young writers might try their hand at poetry, they argued, but they didn’t have enough life experience to write a story or a novel. However, the Debut has shown that a person’s life experience at any age is complete in and of itself. What a person knows about the world at 20 has been forgotten by the time he is 30. What he could have written at 20 he will no longer write at 30. He will write something else. Strangely enough, most writers live without their first book: it remains in their minds, in drafts. The Debut inspires young Russian writers to complete that first book. The Debut prompts them to commit to literature their unique experience, what might be described as the shock of their first encounter with grown-up life. Not just their new existential status, but daily events. Suddenly a person is faced with bank applications, having to pay rent and buy insurance; no one will fill out the forms for him, no one will answer for him. And he suddenly feels horribly alone in the world. This sort of loneliness, like any other, has a huge creative potential. The Debut brings in the first literary harvest of the writing generation — and it does so every year. 2010 marks the first year of Debut’s international program. Funded by Pokolenie, the program aims to present the works of Debut finalists and winners to the foreign reader. Collections of these works will be translated and their authors will be sent to international book fairs and festivals. This year’s collection appears in English and Chinese. Future collections will be brought out in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and so on. Since the number of Debut finalists and winners is only increasing, as is their level and mastery, publication of their works in English will continue.

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.

NON/FICTION 11, Stand G-2 December, 2-7. Central House of Artists Dear friends and colleagues, Academia Rossica in partnership with The London Book Fair, Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications and British Council invite you to Russia Market Focus 2011 Stand and would be very glad to see you at various events we are running during this fair.

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.

Izbavi Bog i nas ot etakikh sudei

A few weeks ago something strange happened. Someone sent me, through the post, ten million printed words – I’ll repeat that, in case you weren’t concentrating: ten million words – nearly half of them in a difficult foreign language. I was told to get reading them.

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).

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).

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.”

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.

The Yeltsin Foundation undertakes a broad range of educational, scientific, scholarly and cultural projects. It strives to promote humanitarian and cultural cooperation and an open exchange of ideas and information between Russia and the West. They publish political, analytical and historical research and support literary translation from Russian into other languages.

The Bridges of Culture / Gesharim is large publisher of Jewish books written in Russian, publishing academic books on Judaism; the memoirs of Jewish cultural figures; the revival of Jewish nationalism; literature from Israel and its diasporas; art albums of Jewish cultural monuments; reprinted books about Jewish history and culture.

Interros launched a Publishing Programme in 2001. The purpose of this humanitarian project was to participate in educational and cultural progress by publishing books. In eight years the Interros Publishing Programme has released over 30 books on history, arts, culture and philosophy. Books are central to the educational activities of the programme.

By Ricky Ghosh Dastidar
The 2nd Russian Film Festival was held in London recently by the cultural organisation Academia Rossica. Known for their work in promoting the best of Russian arts, the festival comprised screenings of feature films and documentaries, as well as discussions and masterclasses.

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.

One of the most versatile of post-Soviet writers, Aleksei Slapovsky (b. 1957) has flourished in the new cultural habitat described by his narrator, A.N. Anisimov. As a novelist, Slapovsky occupies a seemingly permanent slot on the shortlists for all literary prizes; as a screenplaywriter and dramatist, he has reached millions of viewers in Russia and abroad, through his script for the sequel to Eldar Ryazanov's classic comedy, Irony of Fate (1975). All Slapovsky's creative work is of a piece, displaying a fertile tendency towards cross-‘adaptation', but the author himself attaches particular significance to his novels (the complete absence of which in English translation is as remarkable as it is distressing). They include: The First Second Coming (Pervoe vtoroe prishestvie, 1993), which adapts the Gospel narrative to the life of a provincial Russian and has been singled out by many critics for particular praise; The Day of Money: A Picaresque Novel (Den' deneg. Plutovskoi roman, 1999), set in the author's native town of Saratov, like many of Slapovsky's works; and two novels that focus on the glamourous and less than glamourous aspects of contemporary (and often criminal) Muscovite society: Quality of Life (Kachestvo zhizni, 2004, 220pp) and They (Oni, 2005). His most recent novel is The Phoenix Syndrome (Sindrom feniksa, 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.

Dina Rubina was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1953, studied music in the Tashkent Conservatory, moved to Moscow in the mid-1980s, and then to Israel in 1990. She returned to Russia for three years at the turn of the 21st century as Israel's cultural liaison, and now resides in a suburb of Jerusalem. Rubina is one of the most widely read Russian writers of today. Her recent novel, On the Sunny Side of the Street (Na solnechnoi storone ulitsy), won first place in Russia's Radio Booker Literary Award (2007), third place in the Big Book Literary Prize (2007), and was short-listed for the Russian Booker (2006). Her dozens of other books include the novels The Syndicate (Syndikat, 2004) and Here Comes the Messiah! (Vot idet Messiya!, 1996), and the collection On Upper Maslovka (Na Verkhnei Maslovke, 2001). Her newest novel is Leonardo's Handwriting (Pocherk Leonardo, 2008). Her work has won awards in Uzbekistan, Israel, and France, and has been translated into 12 languages. Her novel, Here Comes the Messiah!, is available in English translation by Daniel M. Jaffe, as are several of her shorter pieces.

Venice Film Festival, 2008
Another success of a young Russian filmmaker at one of the most prestigious European film festivals. Alexey German's Jr.'s Silver Lion as best director with his recent film, 'Paper Soldier', once again confirms that Russian cinema is reappearing on the world cultural map.

by Mikhail Aizenberg
Translated by J. Kates
Zephyr Press, 2007, pp.108
Mikhail Aizenberg has lived and breathed and had his being at the heart of the last generation of poets that came to maturity under the regime of the Soviet Union. He has been not only one of its most eloquent practitioners, but also its chronicler and interpreter.

by Mikhail Bulgakov
Translated by Hugh Aplin
One World Classics, 2008, pp. 456
As a mysterious gentleman and self-proclaimed magician arrives in Moscow, followed by a most bizarre retinue of servants - which includes a strangely dressed ex-choirmaster, a fanged hitman and a mischievous tomcat with the gift of the gab - the Russian literary world is shaken to its foundations.

by Ivan Bunin
Translated by Hugh Aplin
One World Classics, 2008, pp. 324
One of the great achievements of twentieth-century Russian émigré literature, Dark Avenues - the culmination of a life's work of unrelenting challenge to Soviet dogma - took Bunin's poetic mastery of language to new heights.

By Ricky Ghosh Dastidar
The 2nd Russian Film Festival was held in London recently by the cultural organisation Academia Rossica. Known for their work in promoting the best of Russian arts, the festival comprised screenings of feature films and documentaries, as well as discussions and masterclasses.

Director of the Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow
Kirill is an internationally renowned film critic and lecturer in directing and script writing at the Institute for European Culture in Moscow.

Director of the Institute of Cultural Studies, Moscow
Kirill is an internationally renowned film critic and lecturer in directing and script writing at the Institute for European Culture in Moscow.

Now - 31 August 2008
Modern Art Oxford Gallery
Entry Free

Thursday, 17 April, 6.30 pm
Waterstone’s Piccadilly, 5th Floor, £3
A portrait of one of the most influential Russian writers in the contemporary European cultural context , presented by Irina Prokhorova (New Literary Observer), Professor Alexander Pyatigorsky and Andrei & Nadezhda Prigov. (with video) In English and Russian