Word: russian
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There is of course some irony in the Russian passion for books. Knowing the power of written words, Russian authority has for centuries accorded books the brutal compliment of suppression. It has slain books by other means than fire. Book publishing first flourished in Russia under Catherine the Great, and yet it was she who used local police, corrupt and ignorant, to enforce the country's first censorship regulations. Czar Nicholas I conducted a sort of terrorism against certain books and writers. He functioned as personal censor for Pushkin and banished Dostoyevsky to Siberia. Revolution only encouraged the Russian candle...
Vladimir Nabokov carried his love of Russian into exile: "Beyond the seas where I have lost a sceptre,/ I hear the neighing of my dappled nouns,/ Soft participles coming down the steps,/ Treading on leaves, trailing their rustling gowns...
Especially strong are the performances of Laurence Thomsen and Maria Catherine Troy, who play the befuddled Dr. and Mrs. Zubrisky, leading citizens in the small Russian town in which the play is set. Thomsen is a clever actor, deftly mixing deadpan and ham. Similarly, the utterly natural theatrical poise with which Troy plays her part is admirable...
...Russian Judge...
Shmelyov is participating in a program organized by the Russian Research Center that brings Soviet economists to Harvard to discuss contemporary economic issues in the USSR...