Between the sell-out production of Eugene Onegin at the Barbican and the production of Tchaikovsky’s opera at Covent Garden, join Professor Simon Franklin of Cambridge University to find out more about the single most beautiful work of Russian literature.  In English, with some readings in Russian.

Simon Franklin is Professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of the British Academy. His publications range from the history and culture of early Rus to 20th-century Russian poetry. His books include: Writing, Society and Culture in Early Rus, c. 950-1300 (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and , with Emma Widdis, National Identity in Russian Culture: an Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2004), both of which have also been translated and published in Russia. In 2008 he was awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences - the Academy’s highest honour. For many years he lectured on 19th-century Russian literature, with particular emphasis on Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol and Tolstoy. He is currently working on a major book on the cultural and social aspects of information technologies in Russia between 1450 and 1850. From 2004 to 2009 he was Chair of the Pushkin House Trust, overseeing the move to Bloomsbury Square.