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The perfect crime

The conference took place at Tolstoy’s house in Yasnaya Polyana, Russia.  When I was applying for funding, it came to my attention that the Slavic dept gave grants in the sum of either $1000, for presenting at an international conference, or $2500, for international field research.  I had only planned on presenting a paper; but with this added incentive, I spent a good 2–3 hours trying to devise a field research proposal.  Finally I came up with “Tolstoy’s Death: Natural Causes, or Murder?  A Forensic Investigation,” which I was pretty proud of.  Of course the pedants were all like, “But Tolstoy died at age 82, of pneumonia”—when that’s what makes it the perfect crime!