Four mini-mini-reviews of recent and upcoming publications which scrutinize the RuNet from various disciplinary angles.

   images from Olga Lialina's Anna Karenina project (discussed by Vlad Strukov in the kultura issue in question)Henrike Schmidt has already blogged about the German version, but since yesterday the English version is available as well: 'Notes From the Virtual Underground. Russian Literature and the Internet', the first 2009 issue of the online journal of Russian cultural life kultura, is now online, available in full-text format for free. Conceived by the Russian Cyberspace team, 'Notes From the Virtual Underground' is a thematic kultura issue focusing entirely on the production and consumption of Russian literature on the Internet. As Henrike wrote, it complements the contents of our own first journal, 'Virtual Power: Russian Politics and the Internet', with explorations of the cultural and literary spheres - think analyses of electronic libraries (Schmidt), of deconstructions of the literary canon in net art (Strukov), the specificities of Russian literary blogs (Rutten), and interviews with Pavel Protasov and Aleksandr Kabanov, on copyright issues and local Internet mythologies, respectively.In her entry Henrike also pointed out the links between this and earlier kultura issues, which zoomed in on Russian libraries and the nexus between Russian language and social change, among other topics. For those interested in the latter, I would like to add another link, to Landslide of the Norm, the Bergen-based research project on interrelations between Russian linguistic liberalisation and literary development in - mainly - the post-Soviet period. Not only was Landslide of the Norm the forerunner of the emphatically new-media oriented research project The Future of Russian: Language Culture in the Era of New Technology (in which yours truly is involved since March 1, and about which you'll hear more in this blog in the future) - but the Landslide team itself also devoted considerable attention to the question how linguistic identity and linguistic norms are performed online. If you want to know more, have a look not just at the site, but also at the ensuing book publication, Landslide of the Norm: Language Culture in Post-Soviet Russia. (Lunde & Roesen, eds., Bergen 2006). The 'Landsliders' are currently preparing another book, on post-Soviet (linguistic) norm negotiations, which will contain additional RuNet-related material. We'll keep you updated, ofcourse; but for the moment, that publication is still in the making.ER

                                                                         picture of the FoR lecture announcement, tanyant's userpic, RL's PushkinLast week, the Future of Russian project kicked off with two guest lectures on the RuLiNet - the Russian literary Internet. Roman Leibov (Tartu) and yours truly (Bergen) met with students and staff for a two-hour lunch session on the early RuNet, writer's blogs, and more.Accompanied by sounds of crunching foccaccia and bursting cherry tomatoes, Roman Leibov led off with an overview of the fifteen-year old history of Russian online literature. For the entire lecture, do download the podcast - it is fun to hear, and the speaker knows what he is talking about as Russia's alleged first blogger (that RL was not literally the first Russian-speaking blogger is another story). But for those who prefer a written summary: among other things, Roman discussed the link between perestroika and digital developments; the role of diaspora and samizdat culture in the RuLiNet's early stages; and digital culture's impact on Russian reading habits - think the popularity of blogs, and short or visually oriented posts in particular - and on the literary production process. In a lively discussion, the speaker was implored to 'tell us how to become a famous blogger and web writer!' The answer? Gee, I forgot.After a break - and more foccaccia and tomatoes - I talked about Tat'iana Tolstaia's blog tanyant. Again, the podcast (& PPT) will tell you more; but alternatively, here is another mini-synopsis. Tolstaia's blog, I argued after introducing her prose, may seem radically innovative at first: the author avidly toys with its multimedia potential and explicitly conceives of it as a discursive space where linguistic laconism is de rigueur. But if you look closer, TT the writer and TT the blogger are not that far apart: not only do tanyant's posts become purely text-oriented with time; but the language errors that she promises to make in advance, lack in practice. Ultimately, in her blog, as in her print writing, Tolstaia is a professional writer to the bone, who meticulously crafts even as mundane a text as a cake recipee. More vivid discussion, on Tolstaia's son Tioma Lebedev's highly popular blog, among other things, followed. With a look at his blog and site, the session ended and all went their own way - an 'own way' which my co-speaker managed to transform into a genuine digital travelogue ('Пойду что ли опять на знаменитый рынок гад морских нюхать. Они, с родным простившись дном, лежат там в морге ледяном. Впрочем, пять часов нюхать тоже устанешь'), interactive and richer with multimedia elements than tanyant ever was.But then such an extensive blog report is not surprising for someone who was an ultra-active RuLiNet-chik from the start. If the hypertext Roman is perhaps Leibov's most famous online project, then his Pushkin Page is at least as intriguing. Visitors of this site's ssylki page are treated to a frighteningly large number of links to Pushkin-devoted pages... which are hidden under quotations from the poet's work. 'Cybermocking' the adoration of the Great Writer, the Pushkin Page parallels other web projects which, in Dmitrii Golynski's words, 'sarcastically take up arms against the figure par excellence of the Russian classical tradition: the national poet Alexander Pushkin.' For examples, go see net artist El' zelenaia's Winking Pushkin page, where users can alter the poet's face with their mouse, or Sergei Teterin's site devoted to Cyber-Pushkin - a machine generating cyberpoetry based on Pushkin's lexicon and style.For me, the session - and my digitalized talk - evoked thoughts about the phenomenon of podcasting. Not only scholars, but writers, too, can be heard and seen in a rapidly growing amount of digital mp3 and video files. On the where and what of that development, more soon.ERhttp://www.uib.no/rg/future_r/nyheter/2009/03/future-of-russian-podcasts