Reading, talking and playing literature: community literary practices of the UK Russian-speaking diaspora
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Date
07/12/2021Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
07/12/2023Author
Theocharis, Angelos
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Abstract
This thesis is an ethnographic study of the Russophone community literary life in
Britain focusing on the Waterstones’ Russian Book Club (WRBC), the largest book club of its
kind in the country. The WRBC began its monthly Russian literature-focused meetings in
London at Waterstones Piccadilly in March 2017, having developed out of a long tradition of
small, in-house gatherings. Four years later, the book club numbers almost 1700 members
bringing together Russian-speaking readers from inside and outside Britain. The aim of this
work is to examine the role of literature and specifically community literary practices in the
construction of transnational Russophone identities in the UK. The data collection was
conducted through offline participant observation of the WRBC literary gatherings, virtual
ethnography of online activities, as well as semi-structured and in-depth interviews with the
book club members and visiting writers. Drawing on this data, I contend that shared reading
practices offer an entry point to the global Russian-speaking ideoscape to post-Soviet
migrants and contribute to the survival of Russian literaturocentrism in the diaspora, the
formation of a long-distance relationship with the cultural homeland, and the creation of a
global reading community.