Canberra Pushkin Club

A new community of shared interest within Manning Clark House

Manning Clark House has always been a home for a diverse range of cultural interests.

The Pushkin Club is a new initiative created by a small group of MCH members. We invite MCH members and those interested in Russian literature, music and history to join this new MCH cultural group. The only requirement for membership of the Pushkin Club is that you are or become a member of Manning Clark House. Alternatively, those who simply want to attend an event organised by the Pushkin Club will be charged a small entrance fee.

The Club has a wide range of activities. These include poetry and prose readings in Russian and English, movie events, musical evenings, Russian conversation gatherings, history, language classes and general interest talks by members and/or guest speakers. For example, talks on recent visits to Russia and tours of Russia post COVID. Much in the program will depend on the sorts of proposals and ideas members might put forward.

The group is apolitical in nature, while starting from a basic position of interest in Russia, its diverse peoples and cultures, and the Russian language. Russia is one of the great world root cultures, as Manning and Dymphna Clark always well understood. The Clark’s daughter, Katerina Clark, is a leading world scholar on Soviet-period literature and literary criticism. She is a senior academic at Yale University.

The club will operate mostly in English, but we hope that participation will encourage people to learn some Russian as we go along.

We think there is a hunger in the Canberra’s community for a venue for informed apolitical conversations about Russian history, literature, culture and language. So much mainstream writing on Russian culture is negatively politicised. Precedents that might be considered for the group’s apolitical intentions include the Alliance Francaise , the Dante Alighieri Society and the Goethe Society.

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