Of Translation, Identity, Journalism, and More – Russian Roulette Episode #40

In another excellent episode of Russian Roulette, Olya and Jeff sit down with Keith Gessen, a founding editor of n+1 magazine, a non-fiction writer, a novelist, a professor, a translator, and a hockey enthusiast, for a wide-ranging conversation we think will be quite the treat for our listeners. We start with the high-brow, covering Soviet literary culture, the challenges of translating Russian writing, and the Russian literary landscape today (including what hasn’t been but should be translated).

Our conversation switches to more political themes at around 29:25. We discuss what it’s like to cover the countries of the former Soviet Union today as a journalist, Ukrainian national identity and nationalism, the role of the media in the Ukraine conflict, Volga Germans in Kazakhstan, and much, much more.

To learn more about Keith, you can view his bio and publications, here: https://journalism.columbia.edu/faculty/keith-gessen . You can check out n+1 magazine here: https://nplusonemag.com/

For those who are curious, Kirill Medvedev garnered 11% of the vote in his district in Russia’s September 16th elections. Although a solid showing, this was not enough to garner the poet and musician a seat on Moscow¹s City Council.

As always, keep sending us mailbag questions! If you would like to have your question answered on the podcast, send it to us! Email rep@csis.org and put “Russian Roulette” in the subject line. And, if you have one, include your Twitter handle, so we can notify you publicly when we answer your question (or, if you don’t want us to, tell us that). We look forward to hearing from you.