Russian literature

And this week I'm very happy to introduce you to someone that I've known and admired for a number of years, Dr. Naya Lekht.

Naya was born in the Soviet Union, came to the United States with her family, eventually got her PhD in Russian literature at UCLA.

became involved in Jewish education and research, founded an organization called Stop Anti-Zionism, and has also been a colleague of mine at ISCAP, the Institute for the Study of Global Anti-Semitism and Policy.

She's here in the studio with me in New York.

It's not at the periphery.

Why did you create the organization? Are there other organizations doing this? Why the need?

So look, David, I got a PhD in Russian literature.

My dream was really to write about

But you can see my bookshelves here.

So I've got all the classics, the Russians, the English, the Americans, the Spanish.

So

no, I don't create content around what people would

That was the first thing.

But, um, having read in my early 20s, having literally not read a book, um, at school, I'm ashamed to say, but I read the Russians in my mid-20s, which sounds very highbrow, but I think if you've read War and Peace and Anna Karenina, you can only, only really ever write a love story.

[laughs]

So, I mean, the, the, the gestation of the book itself, I started writing it actually in about 2019 on sort of trains and in airport lounges and that sort of thing.

Yes, yes.

No, it's wonderful.

You told a really lovely story during the Art Salon evening, which explains how you, as you put it, why would an SAS vet, powdered wig courtier, choose to write about love? [laughs] And you said it was, it was the inspiration of the Russians.

But tell us the story of, of handing out the, the, the books.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

The Significance of Russian Literature.

Significance is an imposing word.

It is also a vague one.

It may mean merely meaning.

Probably it is most at home and therefore most serviceable when it stands for something between the two.

Let us say then that significance is important meaning and that in trying to discuss the significance of Russian literature, we are trying to elucidate the meaning it has which is of importance to ourselves.

And here again, we may easily be vague.