Please join Sophie Pinkham for a conversation with Tom Parfitt about The Oak and the Larch: A Forest History of Russia and its Empires. Her fascinating book brings a new perspective to the histories, cultures and identities of the region, and explores how the forests have made – and resisted – Russia’s many empires. 

The endless forest as a symbol of Russia is quite accurate; there are more trees in Russia than stars in our galaxy. Yet the Northern Eurasian forests have shaped a multiplicity of civilisations that date back far earlier than the Slavs. Stone Age Siberian cultures were nourished by the forest, and trees lay at the root of pagan rituals and folklore. The forest was an irreplaceable home for animals and humans alike, but also an enemy territory to conquer and exploit. Throughout history it has been a tool of empire, a means of resistance, and other times a victim of colonial violence from the North Caucasus to Ukraine.

The Oak and the Larch also follows the ideological battle for the forest. Artists and writers – from Adam Mickiewicz and Leo Tolstoy to Andrei Tarkovsky and Varlam Shalamov – saw it as a prism through which to explore questions about society, power and identity. And in recent years, the symbol of the forest is shifting once again in Russia, weaponised by new ideologies that blend conservative nationalism, folk culture and environmentalism.

Sophie Pinkham is a writer specialising in Soviet and post-Soviet, socialist and post-socialist culture, history and politics. She is Professor of Practice in the Comparative Literature Department at Cornell University. Pinkham is a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post and The Times Literary Supplement, among many other places. Her first book, Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine (Cornerstone, 2016), is a dynamic account of contemporary Ukrainian life, and her second book is The Oak and the Larch (William Collins, 2026).

Tom Parfitt lived and worked as a journalist in Russia for twenty years. He was a correspondent for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Times and frequently reported on Chechnya and the wider North Caucasus. His book High Caucasus: A Mountain Quest in Russia’s Haunted Hinterland (Headline, 2023), shortlisted for the Pushkin House Book Prize 2024, tells the story of his thousand-mile walk across the Greater Caucasus Mountains from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea. He is currently a doctoral researcher in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, and is writing his next book about the people who live in the boreal forests of Russia and North America.

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