Lecturers of MSLU being Russian culture ambassadors at 2022 Kolkata Book Fair

On March 13, the Kolkata International Book Fair terminated. Russia has already become a guest of the global largest book event for the fifth time. On the first day of the Fair, a Russian booth was solemnly launched; it was organized by ANO “Institute for Literary Translation” and the Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Kolkata.

A permanent lecture hall was operating at the booth throughout the Fair, where philologists, writers and translators told visitors about their projects, research and works. It is pleasant to note that according to the results of the Fair, the Russian booth was considered to be the most visited one, and the long-term interest of Indians in Russian culture and literature remained unchanged.

The presentation of Maxim Demchenko, Indologist, Associate Professor of the Department of Linguistics and Professional Communication in Media Technologies (MSLU) kindled particular interest in the visitors. He presented his book of translations “Pushp Vatika. Garden of Poetry” which is an anthology of medieval bhakti poetry and philosophical texts translated from Hindi, Awadhi and Bhojpuri.

Moreover, Anna Moreva, Lecturer at the Department of Media Communication Technologies (MSLU), introduced the visitors of the exhibition to the outcomes of the translation of a Bengali writer Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay’s novella. Tarasankar is known in India as a “singer of the Bengali village”. The novella is highly rich in details, which were extremely difficult to translate considering both the realities of the Bengali language and the peculiarities of the Russian reader’s cultural code.

As part of the field work of the Russian booth, the largest universities of Kolkata hosted educational lectures, workshops and a presentation of the project “Gagarin’s Lesson” of the Russian Union of Journalists. The delegation visited the Rabindra Bharati University and the Artsacre Foundation art gallery, where the delegates talked with the students of Sister Nivedita University.