How Creative Writing Courses Changed Russian Literature Today

In the late 2010s, creative writing courses experienced a real boom in Russia, which significantly changed the image of modern Russian literature. The lecture focuses on the impact of mass literary education on post-Soviet Russian literature (in particular, the plots and content of recent novels), book publishing, the system of literary awards as well as Russian university programs.

 

Maya Kucherskaya is a Russian writer, literary critic and literary scholar. She received her first PhD in Russian Literature from the Moscow State University of 1997. In 1999, she received her PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA. Maya Kucherskaya is the author of many novels, collections of stories, and various scholarly articles and book reviews. Her first book Sovremennyi paterik. Chtenie dlia vpavshikh v unynie (translated into English as Faith and Humor: the Notes from Muscovy in 2011 by Alexei Bayer) was awarded the Bunin Prize in 2006.  In 2013, her novel Tetia Motia [Aunt Motia] was included in the short list of the Big Book Award and the Yasnaya Polyana Award. In 2021, Kucherskaya published a biography of Nikolay Leskov titled Prozevannyi genii [The Missed Genius]. The book received second place in the Big Book Award and was shortlisted for the Reader Award — a literary award from the Russian library community. Kucherskaya is also a co-author of Donna Tanya. Sto let schast'ia — a documentary film about the granddaughter of Nikolai Leskov, ballerina Tatyana Leskova. In 2015, Kucherskaya founded Creative Writing School in Moscow, and in 2017 she opened an MA program in Creative Writing at the HSE University. Currently, she teaches Russian Literature and Creative Writing at the HSE University.