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Author: Ani Kokobobo

Violence and War in Sevastopol Sketches and Cossacks: Reverberations in Contemporary Pop Culture

An upper-level course on the writings of Tolstoy at the University of Kansas recently asked students to reflect on how depictions of violence and war in Sevastopol Sketches and Cossacks relate to more contemporary treatments of war in popular culture.

Ani Kokobobo December 4, 2019December 4, 2019 Personal Reflection No Comments Read more

Vasily Grossman and Leo Tolstoy, by Robert Chandler

It is difficult to pick up a thick volume titled Life and Fate, learn that it includes a great many characters and is about a war between Russia and another European country – and not think of War and Peace. 

Ani Kokobobo April 26, 2019April 28, 2019 Personal Reflection No Comments Read more

Interview with Donna Orwin on her new book, Simply Tolstoy

Interview with Tolstoy expert Donna Orwin (University of Toronto) We heard that Donna Orwin had just published a new book on Tolstoy, Simply Tolstoy, and had to find out all about it. Ani Kokobobo: Donna, first of all, congratulations on a

Ani Kokobobo April 29, 2018April 29, 2018 Personal Reflection No Comments Read more

THE ANNA KARENINA DIARIES

By Robert (Bob) Blaisdell, Professor of English at Kingsborough Community College (CUNY) Preface The first time I read Anna Karenina, I was eighteen and it took me a little less than three days. I mention that not as a matter

Ani Kokobobo March 30, 2018March 30, 2018 Personal Reflection No Comments Read more

Return to Innocence in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych by Randy Landers

I have heard the song “Return to Innocence” by Enigma many times, and it expresses a soothing ideology. But just what does this mean and is it possible? In Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych, Ivan Ilych changes from

Ani Kokobobo March 11, 2018March 11, 2018 Personal Reflection No Comments Read more

Call for Papers MLA 2019

Tolstoy as a Modern Social Thinker Tolstoy’s ideas about the workings of society and state; his national and global interventions. Are they relevant today? 200-word abstract and 3-page CV by March 15; Edyta Bojanowska (edyta.bojanowska@yale.edu).​

Ani Kokobobo March 2, 2018 Personal Reflection No Comments Read more

Bees and War and Peace by Michael A. Denner

This essay was originally published in the 2018 AATSEEL newsletter. A beekeeper sits in front of “Petersburg hives” (invented in 1814 by Pyotr Prokopovich) in the background, and log hives in the foreground. (Makovsky’s At the Aviary, На пасенке, Александр

Ani Kokobobo February 26, 2018February 26, 2018 Literary Crticism, Personal Reflection No Comments Read more

Scylla and Charybdis: Steering Between Tolstoy Translations

Muireann Maguire is a lecturer in Russian at the University of Exeter, UK. She writes the Russian Dinosaur blog where this post originally appeared. When, three years ago now, I was invited to review two new translations of Tolstoy’s great 1877 novel

Ani Kokobobo January 9, 2018January 10, 2018 Personal Reflection No Comments Read more

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Match Game of 1812: A Sketch by Emily Szpiro and Emma Makin

McGill University students Emily Szpiro and Emma Makin wrote and performed the following skit parodying Tolstoy’s War and Peace for a Tolstoy course taught by Professor Anna Berman. Setting: 70s-style match game Tolstoy: Tonight, live from burning Moscow, we have a lovely bachelorette

Ani Kokobobo November 21, 2017 Personal Reflection No Comments Read more

Call For Papers TSJ

Dear Colleagues, The Tolstoy Studies Journal, a peer-reviewed publication issued by the North American Tolstoy Society ​is accepting submissions for the 2018 issue beginning now and continuing until June 1, 2018. We welcome scholarly essays in the 7000-8000 word range about a variety of topics that advance the

Ani Kokobobo November 16, 2017 Personal Reflection No Comments Read more
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Recent Posts

  • Violence and War in Sevastopol Sketches and Cossacks: Reverberations in Contemporary Pop Culture
  • Vasily Grossman and Leo Tolstoy, by Robert Chandler
  • Interview with Donna Orwin on her new book, Simply Tolstoy
  • THE ANNA KARENINA DIARIES
  • Return to Innocence in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych by Randy Landers

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