Russian literature: some troubling news from Moscow

[Chernetsky, Vitaly A. Dr.]

Dear Colleagues,

I wanted to draw your attention to some troubling news from Moscow (echoing events from a few years ago when Vladimir Sorokin was attacked for his novel _Goluboe salo_). A group of faculty from the filologicheskii fakul'tet of Moscow State University wrote an open letter demanding that the writer Viktor Erofeev be tried for "russophobic propaganda" and his book _Entsiklopediia russkoi dushi_ (originally published in 1999) be banned. The letter can be found on a conservative website stoletie.ru, with the approving response to it from Nikolai Gubenko, the last Minister of Culture of the USSR, also known as an actor and film director. 

On the official blog of the dean of filologicheskii fakul'tet, Marina Remneva, a video has been posted in which she denies having signed that letter but expresses agreement with its contents (to give just one quote, Remneva believes that "Viktor Erofeev prinosit vred russkoi kul'ture i russkomu cheloveku").

The letter can be found here:

http://www.stoletie.ru/obschestvo/kogda_ischezajet_narodnyj_jazyk__2009-09-07.htm

The dean's blog can be found here:

http://www.philol.msu.ru/faculty/deans-blog/

Sincerely,

Vitaly Chernetsky

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Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky
Assistant Professor
Dept. of German, Russian & East Asian Languages
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
tel. (513) 529-2515
fax (513) 529-2296
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