January 01, 2023

Why No 2023 Calendar?


Why No 2023 Calendar?
Resistance is not futile. Eugene Sergeev

We have fielded plenty of calls in the past month from customers asking if we were publishing a Russian Life calendar for 2023.

We are not.

We suspect many were calling to confirm their suspicions, since they had not seen any ads. But the interesting thing is that so few have asked why.

Our answer is simple: “because of the war.”

Because, as with our magazine, this is no time to be celebrating Russian culture, landscapes, historical buildings, or beauty.

It is a time to be celebrating those who battle oppression, who stand against the war, the Kremlin, the horrendous laws against free speech, assembly, and a free press. Those who, against the odds, resist.

Resistance comes in many guises. As a friend wrote from Moscow, "while there are many heroes who openly resist Evil, there are also plenty who just stubbornly do their jobs. Not as if nothing was happening, but in spite of what is happening."

To work “professionally, with quality, without lies and exaggerations, and stretching oneself to complete a task – that too is resisting,” they wrote. It is “much easier for those who have stayed behind to do their job because of those who left and are able to speak openly and without censorship. Both are for the same thing.

“Each person does what they can, but they resist… no, not tanks (this we cannot do), but devastation, despondency, entropy, and lies… And it is not in two or three places, but all around us. Look closely, it's everywhere. Kindness, mercy to loved ones, and even courage are often quiet, they do not yell.

“Not everyone is ready to go to prison, but very, very many are ready to defend their dignity, to live without putting their conscience up for sale. Everyone who loves and does not hate, everyone who does not lie, everyone who has not confused white and black, everyone who simply remains human, is practicing this simple thing: resistance to violence and evil.

“And they are growing, growing underground. They are an invisible green grass, a yellow-breasted flower. And one day they break through the asphalt.”

So that is why we did not publish a calendar for 2023. And that is also why we continue to publish Russian Life, to search for and tell the stories of the green grass, of the flowers that will one day break through the asphalt.

It is our hope and prayer that 2023 will be an awakening from the nightmare that was 2022, that Russians will begin to claw back their freedoms and their country (as Ukraine did nearly a decade ago), to once again give us a reason to celebrate Russian culture.


Here, by the way, is a nice calendar of Ukraine, in which all the profits are being sent to Ukrainian relief. And be sure to check out our page with links to support meaningful aid to Ukrainians.

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Some of our Books

Steppe
July 15, 2022

Steppe

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.

A Taste of Chekhov
December 24, 2022

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices
May 01, 2013

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.

White Magic
June 01, 2021

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka
November 01, 2012

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.

Marooned in Moscow
May 01, 2011

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas
October 01, 2013

The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas

This exciting new trilogy by a Russian author – who has been compared to Orhan Pamuk and Umberto Eco – vividly recreates a lost world, yet its passions and characters are entirely relevant to the present day. Full of mystery, memorable characters, and non-stop adventure, The Pet Hawk of the House of Abbas is a must read for lovers of historical fiction and international thrillers.

 

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

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