Guest Speakers

Vladimir Alexandrov: Greatest Russian Writers<br/>May 30 - June 10, 2012

Vladimir Alexandrov: Greatest Russian Writers
May 30 - June 10, 2012

Vladimir Alexandrov is the B. E. Bensinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University and a specialist in Russian literature and culture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Professor Alexandrov has published four books and several dozen articles on various aspects of Russian literature and literary theory; a number of these have been translated into Russian.

Lecture topics:

  • Dostoevsky’s “Death”
  • Tolstoy’s Death
  • Love in Nabokov
  • Bulgakov and Stalin
Dr. Thomas Berry: The Heritage of Russian Tsars<br/>June 28 - July 9, 2012

Dr. Thomas Berry: The Heritage of Russian Tsars
June 28 - July 9, 2012

Dr. Thomas Berry is a retired Professor of Russian Language and Literature. He lectures for John Hopkins University, the Smithsonian Institution, the Russian Cultural Center of the Russian Embassy in Washington DC. and on numerous international cruise lines.

Dr. Berry will present lectures on following topics:

  • Russian Culture during reign of Ivan the Terrible: icons, literature and architecture.
  • Peter the Great’s European Tour & Development of Russian Art and Literature.
  • Catherine the Great: the Winter Palace and the Hermitage Art Collection
  • Russian Literature of Nineteenth Century: Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky
  • Russian Ballet and Opera during Reign of Nicholas II (Diagilev & the “World of Art”)
Geoffrey Hosking: Russian History in the XX Century<br/>July 11-22, 2012

Geoffrey Hosking: Russian History in the XX Century
July 11-22, 2012

Geoffrey Hosking (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hosking) - emeritus Professor of Russian History at University College London, author of History of the Soviet Union (1992), Russia and the Russians: from Kievan Rus to Russian Federation (2001), and Rulers and Victims: the Russians in the Soviet Union (2006).

On board the Volga Dream Geoffrey will present 4 lectures:

  • Reform and revolution in Tsarist Russia, 1861-1917
  • The turbulent rise of the Soviet Union, 1917-1945
  • The unexpected decline and fall of the Soviet Union
  • The Russian Federation: the legacy of the past and the perspectives of the present