The talk will compare the three Sevastopol sketches. Ms. Orwin will discuss the narrative structure of all of them with an eye to whether or not the point of view of the narrator changes. Who is this narrator in each sketch, and what is his attitude towards war in general and the particular situation in each sketch?

Donna Tussing Orwin is professor emerita in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at the University of Toronto. She is a specialist on Leo Tolstoy and Russian psychological prose. She also works on war and Russian culture and has edited an anthology on the subject for Bloomsbury Press. Professor Orwin is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.  She is a recipient of the Pushkin Medal, awarded April 30, 2008, for contribution to the rapprochement and mutual enrichment of different people’s cultures and the study and popularization of Russian language and culture.