Welcome to London, Tanya
Could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for British Council?
I'm Tatiana Ilyina and I'm Head of Arts at the British Council in Russia
and among other thing I'm responsible for
programming our work in literature
Could you tell us a little bit about some of the literature work you've been doing recently?
We've been doing literature work for years and it's one of the most active areas of our work in Russia
and recently, I think, the most interesting example of our work is UK-Russia Year of Language and Literature
which was in 2016
and it was a year long programme which allowed us to introduce to Russia about 40 new UK authors
so that was really exciting
The Year of Language and Literature involved a number of different types of project
Yes
Could you talk in a little more detail about maybe a couple of the projects,
and sort of why you chose them and how they fitted in with our work generally in Russia?
Yes for us, working in Russia and given that it's a big country, for us it's very important that we
work large scale and long term, so we try on the one hand to do projects which reach wider audience,
on the other hand we want to create opportunities for more professional
and in-depth connections between professionals in Russia and the UK,
so when we programmed our Year of Language and Literature we tried to come up with
ideas for projects which would be really big
and on the other hand, smaller scale projects which allowed more in-depth collaboration
so one of the examples I can give you is a big non-fiction book fair
it's a Russian annual book fair which we partnered with which allowed us to introduce
new writing to Russian readers, so given that the book fair is really big it gives us access to
many people in 4 or 5 days, and we delivered various sessions with authors at the book fair
as well as we took a number of writers to the universities where they could meet with students,
we did creative writing workshops, we did some work with kids around book design
and creating your own book
we did a lot of media work around that and it gave us an opportunity to expose new writing from the UK
to millions of people in Russia.
Another example of a project where we are helping to develop more professional connections
is our exchange with Scottish poetry library, where we had 3 Scottish poets coming over to Russia,
to Moscow and St Petersburg, where they worked with our Russian poets,
and wrote sonnets, in response to Shakespeare - because last year we also celebrated 400 years
since Shakespeare's death
it was a really interesting, smaller scale but very deep engagement project
because it allowed poets to work for 3 days with each other very closely
and as a continuation, Russian poets are going back to Scotland later this month
to share their experience, to reflect on what they did recently, and to continue their partnership
and hopefully begin to publish a pamphlet with their works and there will be legacy,
after this project and so we have very much hope that poets continue working together once
our programme is over.
So this is how we continue to establish relationships and ensure there is something which
continues after we finish the programme.
At British Council we do work in quite a lot of place which people may regard as 'difficult' countries to work in
and Russia is one of them.
Could you talk a little bit about what the advantages are and rewards for
British literature organisations and authors for working somewhere like Russia,
and how we support them in doing that?
Well Russia is a very interesting country and it is a very safe...
No matter what people say and think
And we do take very good care of everybody who we invite and before organising a visit
we do a lot of research about authors that we want to invite,
and literature organisations that we want to work,
and try to create opportunities that are most interesting for them.
Professionally it's a very rewarding place to work, in Russia,
and from the organisational point of view we do provide a lot of support
and advice on how to better prepare for your visit, if you start well in advance
and do some research on your side as well, and come prepared, that will help you make
the most of your visits, so I think it's mutual work on both sides that is required
but I just want to encourage everybody to come and have some experiences
For some people it has been a really life changing experience,
and from my long-term work with the British Council I have seen a lot of relationships develop
from visits to Russia, which in the first place were not so obvious for authors
and what we also do is, when preparing for the visit,
is we try to find out from organisations or writers what they are particularly interested in
so that we could come up with ideas how they can enrich their experience
to put them in touch with Russian authors,
or publishers,
or literary organisations, translators,
so that they talk to people in their professional community and find ways if they
are interested in working together in the future
what we also do is we try to provide opportunities for institutions in Russia and in the UK
to partner with each other
and you have quite a lot of examples of really good relationships
which we contributed to developing to in the past.
So finally
what do you find most rewarding about your job?
Most rewarding?
Well I think that working in arts and culture is rewarding as such,
because arts and culture is what helps build relationships between people,
between countries,
and culture creates opportunities which may not be available at other levels
and continuing cultural dialogue, cultural conversation, in the contemporary world is
very important
and I think literature works very well because both Britain and Rusisa has
strong literary tradition and people in both countries admire literature
that is why I think that it is really fruitful ground for developing conversations
for starting conversation and for developing conversation about culture,
about relationships, and I think that
talking to each other
Talking about culture, talking about literature,
and talking to each other is a way forward and I think that literature provides
a really good platform for that.