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OLGA SLAVNIKOVA’S NOVEL WINS “RUSSIAN BOOKER” PRIZE

INTERNATIONAL PROJECT “WHISTLER AND RUSSIA”

OLGA SLAVNIKOVA’S “2017” WINS “RUSSIAN BOOKER” PRIZE

The results of this year’s competition left the jury and its president – the writer Alexander Kabakov – satisfied. Russian literature, he said, is seeing a golden age and the novel, as the most complicated and important literary genre, is flourishing, both in terms of textual quality and thematic variety. Any of the novels that have made it to the finals can well trigger a sensation on the European market.

Olga Slavnikova comes from the Ural city of Yekaterinburg and her talent was discovered by the Russian Booker Competition nine years ago, when her novel, “A Dragonfly Magnified to the Size of a Dog”, hit the list of finalists. And even though the book won no prize then, the name of Olga Slavnikova became known and her books were translated into English, French and Italian.

The scene in the novel is set in the year 2017, one hundred years after the October Revolution, which established Communist rule and changed the course of both domestic and world history. Olga Slavnikova fearlessly casts a glance at the past from the future.

“I am not scary of the future, - the writer says, - because I don’t see fear as a productive or right state of mind. But the year 2017 does make me uneasy, because in this year we’ll have to answer for the century that has passed and account for it”.

Consequently, Russia has finally seen a problem-raising serious novel about its historical past and future that has scored victory at the Russian Booker Competition. The novel got the backing of both the official jury of professionals and the unofficial jury of philology students. This means, Alexander Kabakov says, that we have been right for both today and tomorrow.

INTERNATIONAL PROJECT “WHISTLER AND RUSSIA”

According to the Director of the British Council’s art department, Andrea Rose, Whistler was a genuinely international artist. He was born in America, grew up in Russia, studied in France and chose Britain as a place of permanent residence. He was fond of all sorts of mystifications and always made it a point that his birthplace was Russia. And even though that was not true, he loved Russia and gave it his heart.

James Whistler spent six years of his boyhood in Russia. His father, a military engineer, took part in the construction of a railway between St.Petersburg and Moscow at the invitation of Emperor Nicholas I. Having revealed a passion for drawing the young Whistler spent several years studying at the Petersburg Academy of Arts. From his mother’s diary we learn of the unforgettable impressions he had of visiting the Hermitage, Tsarskoye Selo and art galleries. A particularly strong impact was left on him by the great Russian masters Karl Bryullov and Ivan Aivazovsky.

Whistler enjoyed success and popularity throughout the whole of his creative life. He had a style of his own and an inimitable manner of painting. His style was distinguished by the absence of a subject, the well-honed “musicality” of lines and the harmony of colour. Even his works’ titles sound musical, like “Symphony in White №1” – the silhouette of a young lady by a blossoming tree, or “Nocturne in Black and Gold” – spectacular fireworks.

For signature the artist put a monogram in the form of a butterfly – the symbol of an artist prophesying “pure art”. It is no wonder then that in Russia James Whistler won the greatest acclaim with members of the “World of Art” Association of Artists at the turn of the 20th century. Works by many Russian symbolists echoed with Whistler’s pictures. For this reason Russian museums are displaying both a rich collection of Whistler’s etchings and works by his Russian colleagues.

12/20/2006

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