Condensed Milk By Varlam Shalamov

"My writing is no more about camps that St-Exupéry's is about the sky or Melville'southward, about the sea. My stories are basically advice to an individual on how to act in a oversupply... [To be] not just farther to the left than the left, but too more than real than reality itself. For blood to be true and nameless.".

Varlam Shalamov

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On April 20-21 Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies (UCRS, Sweden) hosts an international symposium "The Gulag in Writings of Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov: Fact, Certificate, Fiction" (xiv april 2017)

The symposium is organized past the UCRS, Dalarna Academy and University of Oslo. For more than information encounter the Programme of the Symposium.

Yasha Klots: "From Avvakum to Dostoevsky: Varlam Shalamov and Russian Narratives of Political Imprisonment" (23 february 2017)

Thus, in an extended sense, the entire tradition of Russian prison-camp writing since Avvakum is likened to a file of prisoners beating a path through the snowfall. Every author in this literary procession is also leap to play the role of a reader – of those who came earlier him, of times and places where southward/he has not been. Throughout his own works, Shalamov consistently invokes his literary precursors and refers not merely to Dostoevsky, as well equally tsarist-fourth dimension revolutionaries such as Vera Figner and Nikolai Morozov, merely as well to Avvakum, whose trace he follows in i of his near memorable poems, "Avvakum in Pustozersk".

Josefina Lundblad-Janjic's inquiry on Varlam Shalamov's i of the most important poems: "Аввакум в Пустозерске" (18 baronial 2014)

Shalamov considered his 1955 poem «Аввакум в Пустозерске», composed 2 years later on his return from the camps of Kolyma, one of his most important poems. He too considered the verse form, written in amphibrachic dimeter and equanimous of xxx seven four-line stanzas, to unite the "historical figure" of the seventeenth-century schismatic archpriest Avvakum with elements of "the author'south biography." Read as an allegory, the poem appears to deal with the violent oppression in the twentieth century which Shalamov personally experienced: the terror under Stalin. A cocky-proclaimed atheist, Shalamov endows the historical figure of Avvakum non solely with religious but besides with political significance: the archpriest of his verse form becomes a prominent representative of Russian resistance to the abuse of power. Through the employ of allegory, "a place where the political can meet the aesthetic," Shalamov creates a lyric which, every bit Avvakum did through his Autobiography three hundred years prior, presents not only a challenge to contemporary society simply also an alternative perspective on its most recent past.

Josefina Lundblad's Business relationship of the 2013 Conference in Prague (18 may 2014)

«This year's International Shalamov Conference made the daring move from theory to practise in a most literal fashion: from discussing literary works about the Gulag to visiting the concrete site of an bodily camp, Vojna, an experience that left all of us deeply moved».

Robert Chandler: "The verse of Varlam Shalamov (1907-82)" (21 march 2014)

Varlam Shalamov'south Kolyma Tales is more often than not recognised — at least past Russians and readers of Russian — as a masterpiece of Russian prose and the greatest piece of work of literature almost the Gulag; this thou-folio bike of stories draws mainly on Shalamov'due south experiences as a prisoner in Kolyma, a vast area in the far northeast of the USSR that, throughout most of the Stalin era, was in effect a mini-State run past the NKVD; most of the inmates of its hundreds of camps were either felling trees or mining coal or gold. Shalamov'due south poetry, yet, yet has few readers fifty-fifty in Russia, although he himself seems to have valued it higher up his prose.

Lysander Jaffe, a educatee at Williams College (Us) compares ii English translations of Shalamov in his article "Writing as a Stranger:" Two Translations of Shalamov's "The Snake Charmer" (20 june 2013)

"What does it mean, then, to retell "The Ophidian Charmer" in another language? For translators, this challenge has proven formidable, non to the lowest degree because of the original text's long, convoluted history of publication. "The Ophidian Charmer" and other Kolyma Tales first appeared in the Russian émigré journal Novyi Zhurnal in 1967, and was not re-published until 1978. The 1967 version differs drastically from all subsequent versions, omitting significant portions of Shalamov's prose. John Glad first translated this and other Kolyma Tales into English in 1980, and his translation reflects many of these omissions. Glaring inaccuracies also consequence from the many typos in the 1967 version; the nearly unfortunate of these is the line "Эх, скука, ночи длинные," written as "Эх, скука, ноги длинные" in the first publication, and rendered by Glad equally "It's and then tiresome my legs are getting longer." (my italics) Information technology may exist argued that on a pocket-sized scale, Glad was working from a different original than Robert Chandler and Nathan Wilkinson, who re-translated "The Snake Charmer" almost 30 years later."

A panel entitled "Shalamov every bit a Revolutionary" has been accepted for the ASEEES 45th Annual Convention, which will be held in Boston in Nov 2013 (6 april 2013)

The following scholars will participate in the console: Elena Mikhailik (University of New South Wales, Australia), Olga Cooke (Texas A&Yard Academy, USA), Josefina Lundblad (Academy of California at Berkeley, USA), Michael Nicholson (Oxford University, UK), and Reed Johnson (University of Virginia, USA). The conference will accept identify November 21-24 in Boston, MA

"Shalamov", Valery Esipov's new book, is now available in stores nationwide (14 august 2012)

Start capacity are presented online at russ.ru.

The "Duck", translated past Robert Chandler & Nathan Wilkinson (v june 2012)

"It had been very difficult for the man to take a decision himself, to act independently, to practise something his daily life had not prepared him for. He had not been taught to hunt ducks. That was why his movements had been helpless, clumsy. He hadn't been taught to remember almost the possibility of such a hunt — his brain couldn't come upwards with correct answers to the unexpected questions life posed. He had been taught to live differently, without needing to have decisions of his own, with another will — someone else'south will — in charge of events. It is exceptionally hard to meddle in one's own fate, to 'refract' fate. And peradventure that's all for the best — a duck dies on a patch of water, a man in a banter."

Robert Chandler's & Nathan Wilkinson's translations of three curt stories past Shalamov (9 may 2012)

In the tardily 70s, Robert Chandler has published translations of several short stories past Shalamov (including "Sherry Brandy", "Berries" and "Duck") in magazines "Index on Censorship" and "Bananas". In the album "Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida" (Penguin Classics, 2006) he has included the post-obit new translations on which he collaborated with Nathan Wilkinson: "Through the Snow", "Berries", "The Ophidian Charmer", "Duck".

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The copyright to the contents of this site is held either by shalamov.ru or by the individual authors, and none of the fabric may be used elsewhere without written permission. The copyright to Shalamov'southward work is held past Alexander Rigosik. For all enquiries, delight contact ed@shlamov.ru.