Serge Gregory with Douglas Smith — 'The Sirens of the Hotel Louvre'

Third Place Books is thrilled to welcome filmmaker, photographer, and Anton Chekhov scholar Serge Gregory to our Ravenna store for a discussion of his new book, . The actress Lidia Yavorskaya and the writer Tatiana Shchepkina-Kupernik overcame moral and social boundaries to assert themselves as successful artists. Their lives intersected with practically all the major theatrical entrepreneurs and artists of the period in Moscow and St. Petersburg, most notably Anton Chekhov. Gregory will be joined in conversation by historian and translator Douglas Smith. This event is free and open to the public.

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Combining history and biography, The Sirens of the Hotel Louvre focuses on the intimate relationship and professional collaboration between two creative women in Russia's Silver Age (1880s–1920). The actress Lidia Yavorskaya and the writer Tatiana Shchepkina-Kupernik overcame moral and social boundaries to assert themselves as successful artists. Their lives intersected with practically all the major theatrical entrepreneurs and artists of the period in Moscow and St. Petersburg, most notably Anton Chekhov.

The opening in the 1880s of private theaters in Moscow and St. Petersburg resulted in an extraordinary flourishing of the dramatic arts, exposing theatergoers to the latest works by both Russian and Western European playwrights. In The Sirens of the Hotel Louvre, Yavorskaya and Shchepkina-Kupernik serve as guides to this remarkable artistic and literary world. Serge Gregory shows how their success in fashioning independent careers reflects the emergence of the theater as one of the few professional paths available for educated women in nineteenth-century Russia who wished to escape the constraints of traditional family life.

Serge Gregory is the author of Antosha & Levitasha: The Shared Lives and Art of Anton Chekhov and Isaac Levitan. He has contributed chapters to two books: Chekhov’s Letters and Chekhov in Context. Gregory has also curated two evenings of staged readings at ACT Theatre as part of the Great Soul of Russia series organized by Seattle’s Seagull Project. His two-act play Sweet Lika, based on the correspondence between Anton Chekhov and Lidia Minizinova, premiered at ACT in June 2017. Gregory has a PhD in Russian Language and Literature from the University of Washington.

Founded in 1998 in Lake Forest Park, Washington, Third Place Books is dedicated to the creation of a community around books and the ideas inside them. With locations in Lake Forest Park and Seattle's Ravenna and Seward Park neighborhoods, Third Place Books is proud to serve the entire Seattle metro area. Learn more about their event series at thirdplacebooks.com/events

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