I've taken a long break from posting here, but wanted to just briefly check in. I believe my break from this blog, and from my almost single-minded focus on Russian history and literature, was a result of COVID. During the first year of the pandemic, I felt like I need a change and so dived into many non-Russian literary rabbit holes. At first, I just read all of George Eliot novels, which certainly took a long while, but then I read all sorts of things, including Greek and Roman history, non-Russian classic novels, etc.
But this week I will teach a topic course in the Russian Revolution and I've decided to finally tackle Trotsky's classic book(s), The Russian Revolution. So far, so good! I loved Trotsky autobiography, and even tried to visit his home in exile when I visited Turkey a couple of years ago, although I don't think I actually found his home even though I was wondering around the right island.
Of course, I never veer too far away from Russia. I recently read Creating Anna Karenina: Tolstoy and the Birth of Literature's Most Enigmatic Heroine, for instance, a wonderful biography and piece of literary criticism about Tolstoy's life at the time he was focused on Anna Karenina. I've posted about this book, and some other works related to Russia, on Goodreads, but I hope to get back to posting here more regularly too.
