Romanian director Radu Jude discusses I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians (7/19/19)

07/19/19 • 58 min

Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York

“I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians!” These were the words spoken by Romania’s military dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu in the Council of Ministers in the summer of 1941 that started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. Taking these words for its title, director Radu Jude’s latest feature (Romania’s official selection for the 2019 Academy Awards) chronicles a young theatre director’s efforts to stage an accurate re-enactment of the Odessa Massacre in which Romanian soldiers slaughtered tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews, despite the municipal government’s attempt to censor the director’s efforts. Join us for a discussion of “I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians” with Radu Jude in this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI.

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Dr. Michael E. Webber talks about his book Power Trip: The Story of Energy. (7/16/19)

In his book “Power Trip: The Story of Energy,” professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Michael E. Webber describes how the rise of the world’s most successful societies can be told largely through the story of how they managed the energy sources to them. “Power Trip” explores how energy has transformed societies of the past and offers wisdom for today's looming energy crisis. We examine how the history of one kind of power is intrinsically linked with another, in this edition of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI.

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Aaron Lake Smith of Harper's on the greatness of underread Russian writer Vasily Grossman (7/22/19)

A celebrated Russian journalist and author during WWII, after Vasily Grossman completed his masterpiece “Life and Fate” which sharply criticized the Soviet system, the KGB confiscated his manuscript. The book was eventually smuggled out of Russia and published, but not until long after Grossman’s death in 1964. The prequel to that book, “Stalingrad,” has just been republished with a new English translation. In the July issue of Harper’s Magazine, Aaron Lake Smith reviews three of Grossman’s books currently in print in English and a new biography called “Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century” by Alexandra Popoff. Aaron Lake Smith on Vasily Grossman, in this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI.