The Centre of Slavic Cultures Moscow has traditionally organized the Festival of Slavic Cultures on the occasion of the Day of Slavic Literacy. This year it took place in hybrid form, partly live and partly remotely. The festival also included a round table dedicated to new Russian editions in the Hundred Slavic Novels collection.
The festival of Slavic cultures was attended online by Slovenian writer Drago Jančar and the Croatian author Robert Perišić, who spoke about his novel Our Man in Iraq. This, in his opinion, has, among others, persisted for so long because it deals with human intimacy, which no social situation can completely destroy.
Drago Jančar, who joined the discussion from Hribar’s library in Vila Zlatica, the new home of the FSK, presented his book Mocking Desire, in which he ironically discusses the encounter of Central European melancholia with American dynamics. About the project Hundred Slavic Novels he said: “The project Hundred Slavic Novels is not only an exceptional opportunity for information on literary trends in individual national literatures, it has also its own cultural significance. Unfortunately, relations between individual Slavic nations are burdened by historical misunderstandings and political conflicts, even wars. But we have always read literature. We have read each other and got to know the human, historical, cultural characteristics of other Slavic nations. There is no better way to understand each other than reading books. I myself have discovered some excellent novels in this collection that have broadened my literary and all sorts of horizons. I am predicting a bright future for the Hundred Slavic Novels project.”
The Croatian author Renato Baretić also joined the participants with a video address, presenting his book The Eighth Commissioner, the Russian translation of which was also published in the collection. The Festival of Slavic Cultures, where the moderator and editor of the Russian edition of the Hundred Slavic Novels collection, Julia Sozina, was joined by translators Nadezhda Starikova, Larisa Saveleeva and Sergei Borisov, ended with the reading of excerpts from the translated novels.
