Meeting with Artur Givargizov

We all know what we need to do for our children to feel that Russian is their native, rather than a “foreign”, language, and that is to expose them to the everyday communication, books, texts, literature which is not “studied” but read, listened to, loved and enjoyed.

Last Saturday the CRA students and parents had a school visit which brought them exactly this – the encounter with the live word of literature. The CRA’s guest, the writer Artur Givargizov, presented to the audience which span from the youngest listeners to mums and dads his poems, short stories and plays.

Artur teaches music as well as writes books. His texts resemble miniature musical improvisations, each of them revealing its whimsical rhythmic pattern and unexpected twist of the melody. Or, there might be a motley array of sounds and musical instruments popping up here and there across the lines, be that a singing worm or a grand piano in a subway.

There was a feeling of a lively and upbeat connection with the audience. Artur recounted humorous episodes from his childhood and his recent years of being a writer, and the children asked him what it was like to be an author, what things he found easy and hard, and what did you need to do to become a writer. It transpired that some of the CRA students had already been dipping their toes in the literary waters but were finding that they could not escape some doubts about the worth of their writing. Artur encouraged the aspiring writers and advised them to keep at it – and to carry on being dissatisfied with what they are writing as this is the mark of a true author.

Good literature changes perception of the mundane, and the words reveal their less obvious meanings, while the readers suddenly start noticing what had previously escaped their attention. Adults, be they teachers or parents, can help the children to discover the joy of reading by passing on their own passion for books.

CRA asked Artur to share his recommendations on the recent children’s books in Russian to ease the navigation of the modern literary expanse, and he offered a reading list for the audience “from 5 to 200” for which we are very grateful to him, and which, we hope, our students and parents might find helpful:

Marina Moskvina
Ksenia Dragunskaia
Valerii Popov
Nikolai Nazarkin
Pavel Kalmykov
Maria Boteva
Natalia Evdokimova
Galina Diadina
Marina Boroditskaia
Mikhail Yasnov
Valentina Dyogteva
Mikhail Esenovskii
Sergei Sedov
Eduard Verkin
Mariam Petrosian
Narine Abgarian
Tim Sobakin