UCL Festival of Culture: The Hero that Never Saw the Kremlin

In the early 1970s a ‘poem in prose’ called Moskva–Petushki spread in Moscow samizdat (underground circulation of forbidden manuscripts). The name of its author Venedikt Erofeev was known only to a very small circle of Moscow intellectuals. The book describes a train journey by an alcoholic, Venichka Erofeev – the hero’s name replicates that of his author – from Moscow towards the small town of Petushki. The virtuosity of use of the Russian language was breath-taking. Erofeev’s grotesque masterpiece, with its sharp satire and brilliant humour, ending in nightmarish mystical tragedy, left its readers shaken, perplexed and fascinated. It transformed Russian literature and its readership forever.

In discussion of this extraordinary oeuvre and its enduring legacy will participate Dr Svetlana McMillin (UCL SSEES), Professor Andrei Zorin (Oxford), Dr Oliver Ready (Oxford), London based Russian writer Zinovy Zinik and Profesor Mikhail Epstein (Emory University, USA).

Image: © Igor Avgiev, 1968