Original text by the Editorial Team of Os Fazedores de Letras. English translation by the Redaction Team. Poster by Mikhail Karasev.
Dear Russian-speaking Readers,
Os Fazedores de Letras is the student magazine of the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon, in Portugal. It was founded in 1993, and has had a long and varied history, and now it is preparing to publish, in around two months’ time, it’s 89th issue. We are a publication devoted to the arts and humanities and we publish essays, columns, fiction, poetry and art about any topic of interest to students and scholars of Arts and Humanities in general, which includes literature, philosophy, religion, cinema, music, architecture, painting, etc.
For our 89th issue, we are seeking to publish, among other things, a themed dossier of texts and art about Russian literature and culture, from cinema to music, from folklore to painting, etc. We eagerly welcome submissions of material relating to that, and we especially encourage submissions in Russian language from Russian-speaking writers, university students, academics, etc. We absolutely reject the tendency, lately common in Western Europe and America, of boycotting Russian culture and literature (and Russian artists) due to the current political situation. We believe harmony and peace is reached through patient dialogue, not censoring or boycotting art. Likewise, we think culture – and especially a culture so rich as that of Russia and Russian-speaking or Russian-influenced countries – is of international interest, and that we all become poorer if we amputate a part of our common cultural heritage. Lastly, we think culture and art constitute a universal language of humanity and a path for dialogue and, consequently, for mutual understanding. Therefore, we view it as of highest importance at this juncture in History, to seek to learn about the culture of other peoples and not to wilfully ignore it by, as the English proverb says, “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”.
So we sincerely wish to publish the work of Russian and Russian-speaking authors and creatives and students. Those of you who wish to submit texts and other items for this edition can do so until 29th January 2022, by sending them to our general e-mail address, osfazedores@gmail.com , or the e-mail address of our editorial team: direccaofazedoresdeletras@gmail.com . After we receive your text, it will be carefully revised to ensure highest quality, and quickly sent back to you for eventual modifications that might be need and for approval of its final form. After we receive from you the final version, in will then be published, likely in the first half of December. If you have any questions or doubts, you can also contact us through those e-mail addresses and we will do our best to respond quickly and helpfully. We look forward to reading your work!
We take this opportunity to sincerely thank Dr. Vladimir Iaroshevskii, cultural counselor of the Russian Embassy in Lisbon, who has already collaborated with us in the past in the making of our issue no. 86 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Dostoievsky’s birthday last year, and who agreed to spread this call for papers in Russia. We also would like to thank Dr. Marina Iaroshevskaia, his wife and a teacher of Spanish in Lisbon, who has agreed to be in charge of revising and proof-reading any text written in Russian that is sent to us for publication in this issue. We would also like to thank our other Russian-speaking friends and past (and current) collaborators: Kirill Chernov, Mikhail Titarenko, Vsevolod Sokolov and, recently, Mikhail Karasev. They have been generous and amiable company in the adventure of editing a magazine!
Lastly, we invite you to consult our website and our past editions, where you will find many interesting texts in Portuguese, Russian, English and French. We also invite you to follow us on Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, where we regularly post updates about our activity and other interesting news!
Our sincere thanks to you all,
With best wishes,
The Editorial Team
osfazedoresdeletras.com 