Writers at the Flashpoint: New Russian Writing & the Riddle of the Caucasus May 31, 2012

Part of the Festival of Russian Arts 2012

Caught between West (Russia) and East (Iran), between Christianity (Armenia and Georgia) and Islam (Azerbaidzhan, Dagestan, etc.), home to hundreds of ethic groups and cultures, the Caucasus has for centuries been a political and military powderkeg. In recent times, it has surpassed the Balkans as a danger zone where myriad conflicting ethnic and religious elements come together in a potentially explosive brew. Young authors from the Caucasus, writing about the Caucasus, form one of the most exciting and visible components of the Russian literary scene today. Their Russian brethren have answered the call, making the volatile region on Russia’s southern borders a central theme of Russian literature. At stake is the identity not only of the myriad peoples of the Caucasus, but of Russia itself, with its multinational, ethnically diverse civilization, the legacy of its imperial past. Three of the most interesting and important of those voices belong to winners and finalists of our Debut Prize.

Arslan Khasavov was born in Ashkhabad in Turkmenistan in 1988. He studied at Moscow University (Oriental and African studies) and at the Literary Institute. His work has been published in a number of important Russian journals. He is a popular blogger, has a newspaper column and, in particular, writes for the Russian BBC bureau on Chechnya, where his family lives. Khasavov is a Muslim by faith and is intimately tied to Chechnya: he has said that “although I’ve never lived there for a single unbroken period, still, like it or not, it’s my native land… five generations of my ancestors lie in the Braguny cemetery.” Two of Khasavov’s stories have been published in English – in the Glas collection “Squaring the Circle” – and his novel, “Sense,” is coming out in English translation this spring.

Alisa Ganieva is a native of Dagestan who has become a noted Moscow critic while still studying at the famous Literary Institute. In 2009, her “Salam, Dalgat” became a stunning and controversial literary mystification. The tale was published as the work of Gulla Khirachev, a fighter in the war-torn Russian Caucasus. It exploded onto the literary scene and Khirachev was a star – until the Debut Prize awards. Khirachev was declared the winner and called to the podium, but in place of an rough and unkempt rebel in khakhis or camouflage, up to accept the award strode the slender and refined Ganieva… Ganieva’s literature continues to revolve around her Dagestani world, for which she is the leading voice in Russia. Traditionally, the Caucasus in Russian writing is a place of wild natural beauty and romantic adventure; Ganieva has come under attack in Dagestan for revealing the problems of her country to the Russians.

Sergei Shargunov is the son of a priest who was also a social activist. He is a native Muscovite and, while still a student at Moscow State University, he sent his stories to Russia’s most established literary journal, Novy Mir… and they were accepted. He has established himself as one of the most important voices of his generation – as a writer, a journalist, and a sharply controversial political figure: he was the head of the youth wing of the “Homeland” party – until he was “delisted” for unflattering comments aimed at Vladimir Putin. His response? “I am glad this nightmare has ended and I can return to my extremist writings.” His views on contemporary literature are as combustible as his political ideas. He writes for numerous periodicals, political and literary, and hosts several radio programs. Shargunov has written a number of pieces on the problems of the Caucasus, especially Chechnya.

Causa Artium is honored to have WRITERS AT THE FLASHPOINT moderated by Catharine Theimer Nepomnyashchy, the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Russian Literature and Culture and chair of the Slavic department of Barnard College. She is a former Director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and is currently a member of its Executive Committee. Nepomnyashchy has served as President of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Language (AATSEEL). She has also served on the Advisory Council of the Kennan Institute and on the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (now ASEEES). She has chaired the Executive Committee of the Slavic Division of the Modern Language Association and served a number of terms on the MLA Delegate Assembly. She currently serves on the editorial boards of Slavic Review, Novyi zhurnal (the New Review), and La Revue Russe.

Professor Nepomnyashchy’s research and teaching interests include twentieth- and twenty-first-century Russian literature and popular culture (including television and dance), Russian women’s studies, and the works of Alexander Pushkin, Andrei Sinyavsky, and Vladimir Nabokov. She received the 2011 AATSEEL Award for Outstanding Service to the Profession.

Official Website: http://www.debutprize.com/ai1ec_event/writers-at-the-flashpoint-new-russian-writing-the-riddle-of-the-caucasus/?instance_id=130