Helen Stuhr-Rommereim is a lecturer in Slavonic and russophone literatures and cultures at the University of St Andrews. Her book about Nikolai Pomialovsky and other poor working writers in Russia in the 1860s is forthcoming from Northern Illinois University Press in 2027.

02.08.2026

• Helen Stuhr-Rommereim

Heated Rivalry and Modest Fantasies for Monstrous Times

An obscure 19th-century Russian novel about love and class and a 21st-century gay hockey romance might seem worlds apart. But both Heated Rivalry and Molotov offer the same thing: small parables of tenderness and bravery in overwhelming times.