Being a writer under Putin: Reflections on Two Decades of Literary History
Descriptif de la manifestation scientifique
This symposium aims to provide an overview of literary life in Russia from the late 1990s to the present day, putting contemporary upheavals into perspective in the light of the war: what does it mean to be a writer under Vladimir Putin in 2024, compared with 1999, 2011, 2014? The aim is to give a context and a history to the Russian literary positionings aroused by the start of the war: February 24, 2022, rightly experienced as a major rupture, is also part of a longer history that has seen state pressure intensify and cultural production diversify in Russia.
The languages of the symposium are English and Russian.
Scientific event program
THURSDAY, MARCH 6, 2025: 2022 IN GESTATION?
8.45-9am: Registration and coffee
9.00-9.30am: Introduction to the conference
9.30-10.45am: WRITING IN THE FACE OF VIOLENCE
Chair: Hélène Mélat (Sorbonne Université)
- Florence Corrado (Université Bordeaux Montaigne), Dire la guerre. Poetic form of the infigurable in Maria Stepanova's The War of Beasts and Animals (2015)(RU)
- Valery Kislov (literary translator), The counter-utopia of the 2000s: fiction versus reality(RU)
10.45-11.00am : Break
11am-12.15pm: LITERARY AND IDEOLOGICAL TRAJECTORIES
Chair: Hélène Mélat (Sorbonne Université)
- Domenico Scagliusi (Sorbonne Université), Dmitri Bykov, Zakhar Prilepine en miroir: Twenty years of "justifying" Soviet terror(UK)
-
Anthony Qualin (Texas Tech University), Sergei Shnurov and Vladimir Putin: Two faces of Twenty-
First Century Russia (EN)
12.15-1.30pm: Lunch break
1.30pm-2.45pm: PUBLISHING STRATEGIES
Chair: Daria Sinitchkina (Sorbonne Université)
- Juliette Faure (FNRS, Université libre de Bruxelles), From Extremism to Mainstream: The 2002 Mister
Hexogen Controversy (EN) - Bella Ostromooukhova (Sorbonne Université), Writing war in Russia today: writers' strategies and editorial practices (UK)
14.45-16.00pm: LITERARY INSTITUTIONS
Chair: Daria Sinitchkina (Sorbonne Université)
- Anna Shcherbakova (Rennes 2), The School of Literary Practices and the "White Zones" of Russian Literature (UK)
- Alexey Lukashkin (Sorbonne Université), Contemporary Russian Literature in the Scholastic Canon (UK)
4.00-4.15pm : Break
4:15-6:15pm: GUEST SPEAKERS (KEYNOTE SPEAKERS)
- Ilya Kukulin (Stanford University), Authors and their audiences in the late USSR and post-Soviet Russia: From the 1970s to 2022(EN)
- Evgeniya Vejlyan(literary critic, literary sociologist, poet), In search of explanation: Russian literature around 24.02.2022 (RU)
FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2025: THE TURNING POINT OF 2022
9.30-10.45am: EVOLUTION OF STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES
Chair: Sylvia Chassaing (Inalco)
- Larisa Muraveva (Bard College Berlin), Russian-language autofiction and the transgenerational transmission of trauma (EN)
- Elena Gordienko (Inalco), Russian dramaturgy in wartime: anonymity, allegory, autofiction (RU)
10.45-11.00am: Break
11:00-12:15am: ANTI-IMPERIALIST DISCOURSES
Chair: Sylvia Chassaing (Inalco)
- Julie Bonin (Inalco), The return to lost languages in Russian-language poetry (EN)
- Liliya Dyachenko (University of Geneva, Sorbonne University), The motif of land and anti-imperialist discourse in Russian-language queer and feminist literature of the 2020s (RU)
12.15-13.30pm: Lunch break
1.30-2.45pm: POST-2022 GENRES
Moderation: Antoine Nicolle (Inalco; Université Clermont Auvergne)
- Martina Mecco (MODERNITAS Research Center - ULB), "I have my own map of Russia, a map of empty hearts". Le reportage dans la Russie de Poutine : formes et stratégies (EN)
- Ekaterina Nevskaya (Université Côte d'Azur), The kingdom of the absurd: poetic and political analysis of the new anti-war poetry (RU)
14.45-15.15pm : FINAL DISCUSSION
Organization
- Sylvia Chassaing (CREE, Inalco)
- Antoine Nicolle (CREE, Inalco ; Université Clermont Auvergne)