{"id":12335,"global_id":"camruss.com\/en?id=12335","global_id_lineage":["camruss.com\/en?id=12335"],"author":"14","status":"publish","date":"2025-08-24 14:42:21","date_utc":"2025-08-24 13:42:21","modified":"2025-08-28 17:30:15","modified_utc":"2025-08-28 16:30:15","url":"https:\/\/camruss.com\/en\/events\/vasily-grossman-after-life-and-fate-with-robert-chandler\/","rest_url":"https:\/\/camruss.com\/en\/wp-json\/tribe\/events\/v1\/events\/12335","title":"Vasily Grossman After Life and Fate with Robert Chandler","description":"

\"\"

Grossman\u2019s grave at the Troekurovskoye Cemetery, Moscow (from Robert Chandler\u2019s personal archive)<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

Vasily Grossman may always be best known as the author of his two great novels centered on the Battle of Stalingrad. His last, shorter works, however, are equally remarkable. If <\/span>Stalingrad<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Life and Fate<\/span><\/i> are comparable to Shostakovich\u2019s symphonies, the short novel <\/span>Everything Flows<\/span><\/i> and the stories Grossman wrote in his last three years are like Shostakovich\u2019s quartets\u2014more concise, more enigmatic, more abrupt in their transitions of tone and subject matter. The short novel <\/span>Everything Flows<\/span><\/i> is a quarter of the length of <\/span>Life and Fate<\/span><\/i>, but its historical and moral scope is still broader.<\/span>
\n<\/span>The story <\/span>\u201cThe Road\u201d<\/span><\/i> (1961\u201362)\u2014the long winter campaign culminating in the Battle of Stalingrad told from the perspective of an Italian artillery battery mule\u2014is a poetic distillation of <\/span>Life and Fate<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>\u201cMama\u201d<\/span><\/i>\u2014based on the real-life story of the adopted daughter of Nikolay Yezhov, head of the NKVD at the height of the Purges\u2014takes us still deeper into the heart of evil. Once again, though, the perspective is unusual. We see Yezhov from the perspective of a small, loving girl and her peasant nanny, who has no understanding of the mass murders being carried out in the country but who feels pity for Yezhov, thinking that \u201chis eyes looked confused, pathetic, lost.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span>Three of these last stories contain pointed repetitions of the phrase <\/span>life and fate<\/span><\/i>. The words are like markers\u2014or like tolling bells, telling the reader how much the loss of his great novel dominates Grossman\u2019s thoughts.<\/span><\/p>\n

When: Wednesday, 24 September, 18:30-20:00 <\/span><\/b>(BST)
\nWhere: <\/b>Trinity Hall, Main Lecture Theatre, Trinity Lane, Cambridge CB2 1TJ
\nLanguage:<\/strong>\u00a0English
\nFormat:<\/strong> In-person & Online via Zoom
\nIn-person tickets:<\/strong> \u00a39 \u2013 Standard, \u00a36 \u2013 CamRuSS Members and Concessions
\nZoom tickets: <\/strong>\u00a35 \u2013 Standard, free \u2013 CamRuSS Members, and Students
\nAccess to the video recording is included with all ticket purchases<\/strong>
\nVideo recording only:<\/strong> \u00a35, free \u2013 CamRuSS Members
\nThis event will be followed by a drinks reception.<\/strong>
\nPlease\u00a0book\u00a0via\u00a0AllEvents<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"

Robert Chandler (right), Grossman\u2019s daughter Katya Korotkova-Grossman (center), and the Italian scholar Pietro Tosco (left) at a Grossman conference in Moscow, 2014 (from Robert Chandler\u2019s personal archive).<\/p><\/div>\n

Robert Chandler<\/strong><\/a> first began learning Russian at the age of 15. At 20, he spent a year in Voronezh as a British Council Exchange scholar\u2014the city where Andrey Platonov was born and where Osip Mandelstam was exiled. It was there that he first read these two writers, who have remained central to his work and life.<\/span>
\n<\/span>Among the many authors he has translated are Sappho, Apollinaire, Alexander Pushkin, Teffi, Andrey Platonov, Vasily Grossman, the Uzbek novelist Hamid Ismailov, and the underappreciated poet Lev Ozerov, a Russophone Jew from Ukraine. Chandler has also edited and co-translated three anthologies for Penguin Classics: of Russian poetry, Russian short stories, and further Russian poetry.<\/span>
\n<\/span>In addition to his translation work, he runs workshops in London, teaches at an annual summer school, and has mentored younger translators. Before committing to translation full-time, he worked for eight years as a teacher of the Alexander Technique\u2014a discipline focused on voice, breath, and movement.<\/span><\/p>","excerpt":"","slug":"vasily-grossman-after-life-and-fate-with-robert-chandler","image":false,"all_day":false,"start_date":"2025-09-24 18:30:00","start_date_details":{"year":"2025","month":"09","day":"24","hour":"18","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"end_date":"2025-09-24 20:00:00","end_date_details":{"year":"2025","month":"09","day":"24","hour":"20","minutes":"00","seconds":"00"},"utc_start_date":"2025-09-24 17:30:00","utc_start_date_details":{"year":"2025","month":"09","day":"24","hour":"17","minutes":"30","seconds":"00"},"utc_end_date":"2025-09-24 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His last, shorter works, however, are equally … <a href="https:\/\/camruss.com\/en\/events\/vasily-grossman-after-life-and-fate-with-robert-chandler\/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\\n","url":"https:\/\/camruss.com\/en\/events\/vasily-grossman-after-life-and-fate-with-robert-chandler\/","eventAttendanceMode":"https:\/\/schema.org\/OfflineEventAttendanceMode","startDate":"2025-09-24T18:30:00+01:00","endDate":"2025-09-24T20:00:00+01:00","location":{"@type":"Place","name":"Trinity Hall Cambridge, Trinity Ln, Cambridge CB2 1TJ, UK, Cambridge","description":"","url":"","address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"Trinity Hall Cambridge, Trinity Ln","addressLocality":"Cambridge","postalCode":"CB2 1TJ"},"telephone":"","sameAs":""},"performer":"Organization"}}