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.

Mario has published numerous poetry books and pamphlets, including: Shrapnel and Sheets, Bosco, Heavy Water, Half Life, Fearnought (poems for Southwell Workhouse), along with translations of Catullus, Sappho and Montale. Lepidoptera is a hybrid book of long poetry and short prose, while his illustrated collection The Stamina of Sheep (the unique result of an innovative public and educational arts project for Havering, the Thames and Essex) captured the Essex Book Award for Best Fiction Publication (2000-2002). Flowers of Sulphur was published in 2007. Mario is currently working on two further collections, Monte Cassino and i tulips.

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).

by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Translated by Hugh Aplin
Hesperus Press, 2008, pp. 155
From one of the world's greatest prose writers, this is a remarkable psychological novel examining the duality of the human consciousness. Velchaninov, a rich and idle man undergoing a moral crisis, is confronted in St. Petersburg by Trusotsky, the loyal husband of Velchaninov’s former lover.

11-24 July 2008
BFI Southbank, London
Garri Urban survived the holocaust and the Gulag, while maintaining self-respect and refusing to become a victim of his harrowing life as a polish Jew in the 20th Century. Garri and his son, two-time BAFTA winning director Stuart Urban, returned to the former Soviet Union in 1992 to claim his KGB file and prove his incredible history.

Rumiantsev’s Arc – Library of a Nation
If the book lies at the heart of Russian culture, then the most vital, life-preserving institution in Russian culture is the library. This issue of ROSSICA focuses on the remarkable history and collections of Russia’s largest library: originally called the Rumiantsev Museum, later the Lenin Library (Leninka) it is now the Russian State Library.

Russian Nights
‘Russian Nights’ Festival is the largest, most ambitious and most varied festival of Russian culture ever to be staged in London. It brings a remarkable range of music and theatre, painting and poetry, photography and architecture to the capital.

Russian Nights
‘Russian Nights’ Festival is the largest, most ambitious and most varied festival of Russian culture ever to be staged in London. It brings a remarkable range of music and theatre, painting and poetry, photography and architecture to the capital.

Rumiantsev’s Arc – Library of a Nation
If the book lies at the heart of Russian culture, then the most vital, life-preserving institution in Russian culture is the library. This issue of ROSSICA focuses on the remarkable history and collections of Russia’s largest library: originally called the Rumiantsev Museum, later the Lenin Library (Leninka) it is now the Russian State Library.