Recording Russia

 Nineteenth Century Russian intellectuals seemed to possess a singular obsession with “the people.” Who were the “people”? What was to be learned from their “voices” and their “silences”? It was as if the masses held some closely guarded secret, some essence of Russia itself. You can hear it if only you listened close enough. So what did these intellectuals hear? What did they record? We turned to Gabriella Safran to discuss her book Recording Russia: Trying to Listen in the Nineteenth Century to uncover what writers, folklorists, linguists, and foreign travelers discovered from listening to the voice of the people. Guest: Gabriella Safran teaches in the Slavic Department at Stanford, where she is the Eva Chernov Lokey Professor in Jewish Studies. She is a specialist in late imperial Russian and Yiddish literatures, folklore, and lexicography. Her recent books include Wandering Soul: The Dybbuk’s Creator, S. An-sky, the co-edited volume The Whole World in a Book: Dictionaries in the Nineteenth Century, and Recording Russia: Trying to Listen in the Nineteenth Century published by Cornell University Press. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/euraknot  Knotty News: https://eurasianknot.substack.com/ The Knot’s Nest: https://eurasian-knot.sellfy.store/  Website: https://euraknot.org/