Alexander Arkhangelsky’s Authorial Series: Classics Reading

Eight great books. Eight meetings. Not a single boring lesson.

Come to the Sheinkin 40 studio in the very center of Tel Aviv and, together with the amazing Alexander Arkhangelsky, rediscover texts we once read “because they were assigned.” Here, you can argue, laugh, ask questions, and unexpectedly turn your own understanding of familiar books upside down.

After these meetings, you will look differently not only at Pushkin, Gogol, and Bulgakov, but also at today’s world…

The number of places in the studio is limited—choose your book or come to the entire series.

September 6

18:00 — The Captain’s Daughter

Two impostors and one love

How should it be read: a user manual?

Everyone remembers that it is about Pugachev, Grinyov, and Masha. But why did Pushkin write not a historical novel, but a story of growing up? And how did a book we read at school become, today, almost a guide to life?

20:00 — Don Quixote

The Quiet Don and the Loud Sancho Panza

How do you stop fighting windmills?

Don Quixote fought windmills. Few people remember why, and almost no one remembers that this novel is one of the funniest books in human history. Why does a book written four hundred years ago still help us distinguish madness from dreams, and loyalty to oneself from mere stubbornness?

September 7

18:00 — The Master and Margarita

Moscow, burned to the ground

Why is it dangerous to talk to strangers?

It seems that everyone has read this book. But each person remembers something different: Woland, love, Pontius Pilate, or the talking cat. We will try to reconstruct the novel and understand why, almost a century later, it continues to provoke debate—and why one really should be more careful with strangers.

20:00 — A Hero of Our Time

That’s one way, but not quite that way

The third is not superfluous.

Pechorin is conventionally disliked and impossible to forget. Why does a man who destroys other people’s lives remain one of the most compelling heroes in Russian literature? And what did Lermontov understand about human nature long before the emergence of modern psychology?

September 8

18:00 — The Government Inspector

An inspector in someone else’s coat

How do you get to the truth?

It seems that Gogol wrote a comedy about government officials. But why, almost two hundred years later, do we continue to recognize ourselves in it? We will talk about fears, self-deception, and the astonishing ability of people to believe any lie if it sounds convincing enough.

20:00 — Woe from Wit

A foolish matter is easily done

What do you do if someone has fallen out of love with you?

We were taught that this play is about a conflict between generations. But perhaps, above all, it is a story of unhappy love? Why is intelligence no guarantee of happiness, and why do people continue to feel sorry for Chatsky while disliking him at the same time?

September 9

18:00 — Chukovsky–Kassil–Marshak

Not-So-Childish Tales

A Jewish childhood and a Soviet old age.

Moidodyr, The Post, and The Conduit with Shvambrania are characters from universally known children’s books. But we know almost nothing about the people who created them. How did Jewish boys from the Russian Empire become classics of Soviet literature? And what can their books tell us about the twentieth century—no less than a history textbook?

20:00 — Shakespeare

Youth gangs against the backdrop of great love

The Word of the Lad in English literature.

A story of the streets, teenagers, family wars, and a world in which adults stopped listening to children long ago. Yes, this is Shakespeare too! We will discuss a play in which love turns out to be merely the tip of a much larger conversation about violence, honor, and choice.