Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron kick off their longest series ever: Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. This episode they’ll be reading Part 1 of Book 1 (don’t worry there are only four books and two epilogues) and get into the nitty gritty of peace. But at risk of engaging with too many clichés, the maneuvers of peace (and mostly the soiree) can be just as complex as war. Grab your koumiss and tune in! Interested in the video version of this podcast? Find it here . Major themes: Big Heineke...
Jan 13, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron sit down with author Bob Blaisdell to talk about his new book Chekov Becomes Chekov: The Emergence of a Literary Genius . Bob was a wonderful person to chat with and learn from - and we hope you all take as much away from the conversation as we did. Bob Blaisdell is Professor of English at the City University of New York’s Kingsborough Community College and also the author of Creating Anna Karenina . He is a reviewer for the the Los Angeles Review of Book...
Jan 06, 2023•48 min
Shownotes: This week, Matt and Cameron discuss the imminent future of the podcast and spend some time reflecting on two years of Tipsy Tolstoy. 03:41 - Our Linktree . Find the link to our Discord there. 05:51 - Third Space Theory 20:53 - Find our TikTok here , now with content! 21:35 - I’ve been informed by some TikTok users that this is simply called an “audio.” Fascinating. The music used in this episode was “soviet march,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Y...
Dec 09, 2022•31 min•Ep. 10
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron sit down with Robert Chandler, a prolific translator of many authors including our own beloved Grossman. Robert Chandler’s translations from Russian, mostly for NYRB Classics and Vintage Classics, include works by Alexander Pushkin and Nikolay Leskov; collections of stories and memoirs by Teffi; and novels and stories by Vasily Grossman, Andrey Platonov and Hamid Ismailov. He is the main translator of three anthologies of Russian literature for Penguin Cl...
Nov 25, 2022•37 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron bring you a shorter one (finally)! They’ll be covering - at long, long last - “The Shot” by Aleksandr Pushkin. Tune in to hear stories of officer intrigue, duels fought and left unfought, and the existential terror of being cornered at a party by the a dude whose main hobby is shooting handguns into his own wall. Switch out the beer for a kvass or water for this one because - say it with me - alcohol and firearms don’t mix. Enjoy! Major themes: Psychologi...
Nov 11, 2022•36 min
Show Notes : Matt and Cameron have finished reading Stalingrad, but they aren’t yet done with Grossman. This week, they tackle his short story “The Sistine Madonna.” Written before the publication of Stalingrad and after he began to write Life and Fate , “The Sistine Madonna” is a piece about beauty, desperation, and hope for the future. Oh, and thermonuclear war. It covers a lot of ground. Grab your Bibles to track the religious analogies and tune in! Major themes: Non-religious Christianity, A...
Nov 04, 2022•40 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron finish up Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad as we close the story of Rodimtsev’s embattled Guards Regiment in the city of Stalingrad and close out (for now!) the stories of the people we’ve been following for months now. We’ll be talking about Feminist perspectives on the work, de-mythologization of warfare, and spending some time drinking our feelings out about our favorite character, Pyotr Vavilov. Grab your copy of Stalingrad , your preferred celebratory dr...
Oct 21, 2022•1 hr 32 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron close in on the end of Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad and talk about the actual battle in the city. We jump around from the Soviet reinforcements crossing the Volga to Wehrmacht soldiers celebrating their victory a little too early. As always, the story of war is really the story of the humans there and Grossman will never let us forget that. Find some looted booze and tune in! Major themes: Byzantium Marxism and Postmodernism Oh My!, Political alienation, ...
Oct 21, 2022•1 hr 20 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron continue on to the Third and Final part of Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad! After 800 pages, we finally approach…the Battle of Stalingrad. Well, the best things come to those who wait. Grab your wartime moonshine of preference, get a move on toward the city, and don’t forget to tune in! Major themes: Labyrinth of plots but make it depressing, Defamiliarization in art, The Origin of Tomatoes 00:51 - Check out Puppet Combo’s Night Shit ! Since it’s now October...
Oct 07, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron finish out Part 7 of Stalingrad, learning more about the emotional aftermath of the Shaposhnikov family and friends’ losses - and, naturally, are introduced to an entirely new character. It’s time to learn about coal mining, babey. Grab your helmet-mounted flashlight, a boring tool, and get ready to get deep into some soot. Major themes: Tank Corps time babey, Legendary pettiness, Grossman’s Cement , 06:24 *sister for being bad at art 10:45 - Vasily Gross...
Sep 23, 2022•1 hr 25 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron finally arrive to the subject of the book Stalingrad - which is, of course, the actual battle of Stalingrad. It only took us a breezy 500 pages to get here. Oh! But I forgot - we have about 50 more pages of the war from the German perspective first. Grossman doesn’t let you have anything easily. Get your drink, find shelter from the bombs, and tune in! Major themes: Sponsored by water, Perspectives on Nazi-era Germany, 08:57 - Some examples from our much ...
Sep 09, 2022•1 hr 17 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron get a little over halfway into Grossman’s Stalingrad , covering more themes from the homefront - spending more time with Pavel Andreyev the factory worker and Marusya Shaposhnikova, organizational investigator. Learn a little more about the place of art in the USSR and how every unhappy family is unlike in their own way in Part 5 of our series on Stalingrad. Grab your thoughts on the two truths, sit down, and tune in! Major themes: Cement 2: Grossman Boog...
Sep 02, 2022•1 hr 23 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron dive back into the family life of the Shaposhnikovs, so we’ll call this episode “Mothers and Daughters.” Also…well, Viktor meets someone on the side in Moscow. We’ll see how that goes. Grab your drink of choice when family dinner is getting contentious and tune in! Major themes: Cowboy movies and Soviet Literature, x, r/menwritingwomen 14:40 - It is in fact the largest tank battle of all time! All in all, there were 8,000 tanks involved, not counting troo...
Aug 19, 2022•1 hr 30 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron continue on with the set-up to the siege of Stalingrad, following more of Viktor Shtrum as well as Commissar Nikolai Krymov in their respective adventures in Moscow and on the Eastern Front. We’ll be getting into the nitty-gritty on the idea of Grossman as a “soviet Tolstoy” so grab your finest wartime moonshine and tune in to hear our incendiary hot takes! Major themes: Soviet Tolstoy(?), Genuflecting Grossmans, What Makes the Soviet Union? Take a look a...
Aug 12, 2022•1 hr 17 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron continue to dig their trench and get ready for the oncoming siege of Stalingrad in Part 2 of their 10 Part series on Stalingrad. We’ll be learning a little more about Grossman’s life and will follow Grossman’s masterful depiction of the first years of World War 2 on Soviet territory. Get the hidden moonshine out of the cellar, fry up the last of the Doktorskaya kalbasa, and tune in! Major themes: Erasure of civilians in war, Call of Duty, Ideology and sci...
Aug 05, 2022•1 hr 11 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron kick off their biggest podcast series ever with one of the most obscure choices possible for such a venture: Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman. Stalingrad is the first book in a dilogy, followed by the much more famous Life and Fate , which covers the siege of the city of Stalingrad by the German Wehrmacht in World War 2. We’re going to be dealing with a whole cast of characters here and their varied experiences of the war so get a pencil and paper, get ready...
Jul 22, 2022•1 hr 14 min
Show Notes : Follow Dr. Vegara’s twitter here , check out his website , and don’t forget to pick up a copy of his new book, All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature. This week, Matt and Cameron are joined by Dr. José Vergara to talk about - drum roll please - two books: Envy by Yuri Olesha as well as All Future Plunges to the Past: James Joyce in Russian Literature by Dr. Vergara. We had a wonderful chance to go over the plot of a neurotic would-be clerk in Envy , while ...
Jul 08, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Show Notes: Check out our illustrator Caryoln's Instagram , YouTube , and portfolio ! This week, Matt and Cameron talk though some updates for the podcast and reflect on the journey that's taken them here. The music used in this episode was “bella ciao,” by Toasted Tomatoes. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube . Our links: Website | Discord Socials: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands...
Jun 27, 2022•31 min
Show Notes : Kristina's Website , The Orchard This week, Matt and Cameron do something a little unusual - for once, they’re intentionally talking around a work rather than examining it in detail. That’s because - in a Tipsy Tolstoy first - we’re being joined by the author of The Orchard , Kristina Gorcheva-Newberry. We had a wide-ranging conversation that covers her journey as an author, the inspirations and thoughts that led to The Orchard in its current form, as well as what’s next for Gorchev...
Jun 24, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron wrap up part 3 of Eugene Onegin with the help of the Gothic (in research focus) Dr. Katherine Bowers. Not only will we be wrapping up Parts 7 and 8 of this novel in verse, Dr. Bowers will also be covering Tatyana’s dream from our previous episode. The topics will be wide-ranging and the education, constant. Be sure to tune in and have as much fun as we did recording this. Major themes: Onegin is a simp, All Gothic All the Way Down, Buy Dr. Bowers' Book Mo...
Jun 10, 2022•1 hr 14 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron dive into one of the greatest duels in all of Russian literature* in Part 2 of Aleksandr Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. We’ll be examining the particulars of dueling etiquette of the era as well as Pushkin’s relationship to his contemporary poets - it’s always exciting in the 19th Century, babey. Grab your finest winter-time wine and tune in! * According to Matt, anyway. Major themes: Pushkin teaches us PUA, Dueling etiquette, “Russian to the core” 06:54 - *200...
May 27, 2022•50 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron kick off a mini-series to get the mood up with Chapters 1 through 3 of Eugene Onegin ! In it, we’ll be following…well, some of Eugene’s story as the narrator wanders back and forth between explaining our protagonist’s life and the narrator’s own lost loves (both in terms of people and passions). Get ready for your soirees tonight, use all 30 brushes in your cabinet, and grab a drink for this entertaining read! Major themes: Terpsichorean foot, Russian Nob...
May 13, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron are joined by the knowledgeable Dr. Kate Holland to cover the epilogue of Crime and Punishment as well as discuss some of the overarching themes of the book as a whole. After the dark, dark time that is Part 6, we finally get to kick back and spend some time with Raskolnikov in Siberia and his ups, his downs (mostly his downs) as he and the people around him try to figure out what comes next. Grab your choicest homebrewed booze and tune in! Major themes: ...
Apr 29, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Show Notes : Content warning for this Episode: Child abuse, pedophilia, sexual assault, and suicide. This week, Matt and Cameron are happily joined once again by Dr. Kaitlin Shirley to cover the final part of Crime and Punishment (minus the epilogue!). And wow is her expertise needed to cover this whopper of a section. Among a bucket of unpleasantry, we’ll be wrapping up Svidrigailov’s story and start to bring Raskolnikov’s own story to its conclusion. Normally I’d make a joke here, but I’m not ...
Apr 15, 2022•1 hr 21 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron slow things down a bit and attend a funeral in part 5 of Crime and Punishment. This time we’ll start by recommending that you grab your cheapest wine or liquor because we are going to be spending some significant time in Luzhin’s POV in this part. Pay attention to the things that he, ironically, doesn’t. Perhaps it would be crass to tell you to enjoy this part - but kick back and tune into this wake gone very, very wrong anyway! Major themes: Self-Decepti...
Apr 01, 2022•55 min
Show Notes: This week, Matt and Cameron spend some time with unpleasant people in Part 4 of Crime and Punishment as Svidrigailov appears and everything is worse now. Awkward family dinners, debating your fiance into loving you, and telling your only friend to drown herself ahoy! Many things get weird in this part. Sit down, find the light of God as Dostoevsky would want, and turn in! Quick note: the section between 28:40 - 30:05 is an advertisement. Subscribe to LingoPie here! And you can purcha...
Mar 18, 2022•52 min
Some ways you can support the people of Ukraine: For Refugees - Ukrainian Relief Efforts are fundraisers which GoFundMe has collected in one place after verifying that the money is going where the fund claims that it is. These funds have a variety of purposes, so you can look for an individual organization or purpose. - The International Rescue Committee works to assist refugees all over the globe. This link will support the IRC infrastructure currently on the ground in Poland. - Polish Humanita...
Mar 04, 2022•52 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron continue with Part 2 of our Crime and Punishment series, now with a very heavy emphasis on punishment. Grab some black tea and a beer, then join us as we discuss Raskolnikov’s psychosomatic torture and his attemps to confess all while Razumikhin continues to be the best friend alive. And you know it wouldn’t be Dostoevsky without a death or two in the mix! Don’t forget to read “ Dostoevsky at 200: The Novel in Modernity ," a collection edited by Katherine...
Feb 18, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron are kicking off our Crime and Punishment series in a bloody fashion! They’ll be speaking with Dr. Katherine Bowers - an associate professor at the University of British Columbia and vice-president of the North American Dostoevsky Society- about Crime and Punishment’s relationship to narrative, to contemporary crime reporting, and oh so much more! Dostoevsky is an author that absolutely needs no introduction, so grab a stakan of vodka and start dreaming ab...
Feb 04, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Show Notes : This week, Matt and Cameron are joined by Dr. Ian Garner to cover “The Polykhaevs” by Pavel Nilin, a work that Dr. Garner had originally translated for his upcoming book, Stalingrad Lives . The Polykhaevs follows the story of an elderly couple who are seeing their grandson for the first time in the better part of a decade after he was evacuated from Stalingrad during World War 2 - although now grown, he is a stranger to them. As they get to know their grandson, memories of the war b...
Jan 21, 2022•50 min
