12 SLL@VA SLL@VA 1 FALL 2016 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA fall 2016 volume 5 Editors:

year we had in the Slavic Dariusz Tolczyk, Ms. Sandy Department in 2015-2016. Inside this edition: While David Herman, our regular Chair, was on leave (thankfully he has returned to the position), I oversaw our Note from the Chair 1 department’s many activities. Faculty Interview 3 One major endeavor was a

rigorous review of the Announcements 6 Kendrick Department conducted by three professors from other universities Events 8

(Princeton; Wisconsin; and Graduation 11 assistant) (editorial Maxwell Anna assistant), (administrative University of California, Berkeley). I am pleased to report Russian House 15 Julian Connolly that the committee concluded that we are running a productive Hello from the Danube! As I and vital program. In their words, write this, I am on a small ship NEWS: “The UVA Slavic Department on the Danube somewhere boasts an excellent and devoted Undergrad Student 18 between Belgrade and Budapest. faculty who bring out the best in I’ve been serving as a Faculty Graduate Student 22 their students”; “The quality of Lecturer on a two week UVA Slavic instruction that graduate alumni trip from Bucharest to Faculty and Staff 27 students receive at the Vienna. It’s been a wonderful University of Virginia is second Alumni 29 experience connecting with to none”; and students UVA alumni and visiting historic Donating to Slavic 32 “expressed strong satisfaction sites in the Balkans and with the quality of teaching and Southeastern Europe. As the fall advising, and with the level of foliage floats by, I have a chance faculty engagement.” to reflect on the very exciting

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SLL@VA 2 FALL 2016 I am also happy to report Critical Language Scholarships time replacement to teach several that our graduate students have for study in during the levels of Russian and train our been receiving recognition for 2016 summer. Sykes also won a Graduate Teaching Assistants. their preparedness and dedication Harrison Undergraduate Research We are now past the mid-point of to their craft. Jill Martiniuk, who Award. Two third-year students the fall semester, and we are received her doctorate in 2015 won Project GO (Global Officer) looking forward to other and who worked for the Slavic Scholarships to further their study rewarding events and activities. Department as an instructor this of Russian. We welcome you to stop by our year, has just accepted a two- And our faculty continues offices on the second floor of year position as a Visiting to be distinguished for their New Cabell Hall and see for Assistant Professor at the achievements in research and yourselves all that is going on. University of Houston beginning teaching. Julian Connolly was in the fall of 2016. awarded the Richard Stites Senior With warm wishes, Several of our graduate Scholar Award by the Southern Julian Connolly students won significant awards Conference on Slavic Studies at in 2015-2016. Michael Marsh- their annual meeting in March Soloway received the All- 2016. University Graduate Teaching Dariusz Tolczyk received Award in Arts and Humanities an award from the National from the Office of Graduate and Program for the Advancement of Postdoctoral Affairs and then the Humanities from the Republic went on to receive his Ph.D. of Ministry of Science and degree in August. Abby Hohn Higher Education for his book received a grant from the Gulag w oczach Zachodu [The American Councils for Gulag Under Western Eyes]. International Education to study Katia Dianina received in St. Petersburg, Russia in several awards and grants from 2016. Tierre Sanford received a the University of Virginia: a Mead Critical Language Scholarship Reoccurring Dream grant to take (from the U.S. State Department) 10 students to see a production of to study advanced Russian in Chekhov’s play The Seagull in Russia in 2016. Sarah McEleney Richmond; a 2016 Summer won a Praxis Program award Stipend to support her research on from the Scholars’ Lab at the her new book project on the University of Virginia Library to restoration of Russia’s art participate in the Praxis Program treasures dispersed in the Soviet Julian Connolly visited Dracula's in 2016-2017. era; a research grant for the Center Castle in Transylvania. The The undergraduate for Global Inquiry and Innovation Slavic Department has been programs of the Slavic for the same book project; and a offering a course on Dracula ever Department also flourished this grant from the Center for Russian, since Jan Perkowski, Professor year. Seventeen of our students East European, and Eurasian Emeritus and noted graduated with a major in Studies to match the CGII grant vampirologist, introduced it Russian Language and Literature just listed. decades ago. Today, Dracula and/or Russian and East On a sadder note, Lilia (SLAV 2360) is taught by Dr. European Studies. Four of our Travisano retired from the Stan Stepanic who earned his majors were elected to Phi Beta Department, and we will sorely Ph.D. at UVA's Slavic Kappa (Rebecca Kientz, miss her incredible devotion to Department in 2015. With steady Benjamin Moody, Adam Sykes, our students and our programs. In enrollments reaching 250 and Anne Weidhaas). Kay the coming year, we will be students, Dracula enjoys record- Khozbayar and Adam Sykes won conducting a search for a full- breaking popularity.

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SLL@VA 3 FALL 2016 Getting to Know You: A One-on-One Interview with Professor Edith Clowes

Prof. Edith Clowes (center) with her co-editor of Area Studies in the Global Age: Community, Place, Identity (Northern Illinois University Press, 2016), Shelly Jarett Bromberg, and the book editorial assistant, Kat Thompson (PhD 2015).

Many students have gotten to crazy girl who collect ed horse brother in a footrace when we know and love Professor Edith figurines, read every horse- were around 11 or 12. In high Clowes over her short four years related story or novel I could school I was the fastest runner in in the UVA classroom and find, sketched and painted my class. Hard to believe now… mentoring BA, MA, and PhD horses, dreamed of being a horse I played lacrosse in high school theses at UVA. Her colleagues instead of a little girl, and then and college—which I adored, know her well through her later thought only about riding. predictably, because of the leadership in research on Russian My mother was also a lover of constant running. literature, intellectual history, horses, so it wasn’t long before Ice cream has always held a and literary cartography. In this she found an excuse for me to special attraction for me—and in number SLL@VA offers an in- take lessons and eventually join a high school my parents got me an depth interview with Professor stable. It was really so she could old-time, hand crank ice cream Clowes. have someone to ride with, I’m bucket. I became the ice cream sure. Most of my tween and early maker for all family holidays and SLL@VA: Tell us a little about teen years were spent at any many times in between. When where you grew up and what available stable riding, showing, my brothers were home, I’d your greatest passions were as and eventually hunting. Even make about a gallon and a half of you grew up. today I consider myself a chocolate mocha, which the three connoisseur of equine statues and of us would polish off in an I was born in Cleveland, Ohio will give you a thorough critique afternoon (leaving a few spoons (where, yes, in the 1950s the of the horse statues in for my parents). Cuyahoga River spontaneously Charlottesville, London, or In earlier years I loved to sail and burst into flame; and the air . race small boats on Cape Cod. I always smelled like rotten eggs). I also loved running—I was was reasonably good at it, Before I knew it, I was a horse- proud of beating my older coming in second one summer in

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the Junior Series. Our family pastry more than is good for my every time I get a note from a raced and cruised every summer. health—palačinky and kolače. And student thanking me for a class Something I’m glad I did in my most Mediterranean food. they took with me, and keeping 20s, that I never would do now— Color: aqua, turquoise in contact with my students. It’s I’ve sailed across the Atlantic Plant: sugar maple and lilac wonderful even 30 years later to Ocean three times. The first time Work of literature: Dostoevsky’s hear from a former student. was a crossing from Brothers Karamazov Bremerhaven to New York on Work of art: Ribera, Aristotle SLL@VA: Do you have a the Mikhail Lermontov after a Place in the world: Woods Hole, favorite saying? year of post-BA study at the Massachusetts Stop and smell the roses! University of Munich—lots of Experience: I loved living with my Better a witty fool than a foolish seasickness there and bad Soviet family in Bonn in fall 1998 and wit! Пили, но знай меру! food (canned peas and the like). Heidelberg summer 2004. The (always a good reminder ;-) ) Then two more times with my boys went to school—the second parents. time, to a German school. We had SLL@VA: What do you love a grand time traveling, hiking, best about Charlottesville? SLL@VA: How do you spend visiting zoos, and just living. your time when you are not Charlottesville is such a teaching and pursuing literary The funniest thing that has ever beautiful, livable and hike-able research? happened to you: city. It’s a city where people care about the arts. I love When there is some free time, I There are too many. If you go for looking out my study window love to travel, visit friends and “cute”: it would be our cat and seeing the foothills of the family, go the movies, attend Popcorn, who as a younger cat, Blue Ridge Mountains. operas and concerts, and play loved to play catch and fetch with a tennis or table tennis. I also love cotton ball. The boys and I counted SLL@VA: UVA? hiking and skiing. Museums are once that she fetched 30 times in a always a draw, as are those zoos row. Many of the Jeffersonian where the animals are happy, not If you go for “outlandish-funny”: quotations around Grounds bored, and have lots of room. once many decades ago at the really resonate. Four times a (Although my favorite one is the circus in Köln they offered one week, when I go to the gym, I San Diego Zoo, the Indianapolis person from the audience the see that wonderful admonition to and Köln Zoos aren’t far behind.) chance to try riding a circus horse. “Practice Civility.” These are Our family is pretty game- I wanted to volunteer soooo badly. words for our time. And even oriented. When we get a crowd, Before I got my courage together, a more so, I often stop and reread we play probably too much young man raised his hand. They the words over the entry on the charades, mafia, and board strapped him into a safety harness east end of New Cabell Hall: games. and hoisted him up on the horse, at “Here we are not afraid to My favorites are Scrabble which point his pants split. The follow truth wherever it may (English or Russian), Boggle, horse started going, and he tried lead nor to tolerate any error so and backgammon. valiantly to stand up on the horse long as reason is left free to and was soon swimming through combat it.” These words urge SLL@VA: What is your the air in his safety harness—and me on to think and talk with my favorite: with basically no functional pants. students at a time when Food: Comfort food (which I …with that in mind, I guess it was Americans are having a difficult don’t eat that often) is roast a situation of “better him than time agreeing on what chicken, rice or couscous, and me…” constitutes “truth,” and even fresh peas. I like almost any Most touching thing that has what a “fact” is. grilled food and like Czech ever happened to you: probably What I love the most about

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UVA are the students, both but were crushed in the continuing? undergraduate and graduate. I am revolution. In the late 1980s we grateful on a daily basis for their felt exhilarated; we were on the Well, I guess I’ll retire sometime energy, brightness, and curiosity. crest of the rediscovery of real in the 5-10 years. That being It is an honor to teach at a “usable history.” Our book from said, I can’t see giving up university that attracts such fine that conference, Between Tsar research, teaching, and service, at people. and People, is still used across least, on some level. No matter the country in history and culture what else I might be doing, I’ll SLL@VA: You are enjoying a classes. always be thinking about my successful career as an students and my next research internationally known Russian SLL@VA: What achievements challenge. literary and intellectual make you most proud? historian. You have taught at many different colleges and There are many things to be universities. What have been proud of, but here are a few: As a the high points of your career Slavist, I’m proud to participate so far? in and make real contributions to a world-wide conversation about Frankly, getting that first job— Russian literature and culture. the first were an offer of a one- I’m proud that people—and not year replacement at Amherst, an just academics—read my books, offer to teach Russian at the get something from them, and Defense Language Institute, and want to talk about them. a tenure-track job at Knox In our family: Along with the College in Illinois. What a constant foreign-language, wonderful feeling! history, and literature There have been so many high conversations, our family talks a points that have made my life as lot about math stuff, so one of What advice would you give a Slavist really fun and at times my jokey boasts is this: I’m UVA students? unbelievably uplifting. The NEH proud that I won the math prize conference that historians Jay in my junior year of high school. Explore, explore, explore—open West and Sam Kassow and I Another trivial thing, but that I’m your worlds, accept new staged at Purdue in 1987 on proud of—in Lawrence, Kansas, challenges, try out new ideas and “Russian Obshchestvennost’: The which we left to come to UVA, viewpoints, even—and perhaps, Problem of Middle Class we used to play 3.5-level World especially—when they are Consciousness in Late Imperial Team Tennis. One of my proud uncomfortable. Travel as much Russia” was a gathering that moments was beating someone as you can. Meet people who opened up the suppressed history half my age in women’s singles weren’t part of your community of middling pre-revolutionary at the very end of the season— before you came to college. Russian society—the people who which my team also won. modernized Russia, developed the arts and literature, and How do you see the next 5 fostered a higher standard of years? What activities do you living in Moscow and elsewhere, anticipate undertaking or

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SLL@VA 6 FALL 2016 Celebrating the Career of Lilia Travisano

In May of Spring 2016, the how dear she is! I have Department bid farewell to Lilia long marveled at her Travisano, who, as Lilia tireless dedication to Burganova, came to us from the teaching and mentoring University of Kazan fifteen years undergraduate and ago, first as a visitor, and graduate students as they eventually as a colleague in the learn, teach, and learn capacity of Russian Language to teach Russian at all Pedagogue. Lilia taught all levels of mastery. Her levels of Russian, served as our teaching was Oral Proficiency Interview characterized by administrator and director of our patience, compassion, language curriculum, and humor, warmth, and organized Russian Tea as well as high expectations; Russian House activities. Lilia she took genuine contributed countless hours of pleasure in her independent study, and was students' successes, and was available to students at all levels the first to offer help when they five at all times. The door was encountered any sort of minutes in her company, can always open, and she never said trouble, either inside or outside agree that her retirement will no. In teaching First-Year of the classroom. Never one to leave a near-unfillable void both Russian, she introduced scores of settle, or to let her students in the Slavic department and at eager students to the pleasures of settle, Lilia was constantly UVA in general. She has the language, and helped others improving her pedagogical craft, definitely earned it, though! All at more advanced levels to and pushing her students to the best to you, Lilia Safianovna, develop their communicative explore opportunities within and may your retirement be "do skills. It is difficult to imagine UVA and beyond. And, of skorogo" and not "do svidaniia". departmental life without her, course, Russian Tea and Kat Thompson (Ph.D. 2015) and we will miss her, but we Conversation would not have wish her the very best in her been the same without her. I have During nearly two decades of retirement and we hope to see her many fond memories of her, but I dedicated service to the periodically at departmental think the moments I've treasured University of Virginia, Lilia functions. most were the simple chats in Saf’ianovna Travisano imparted Mark Elson her office, discussing life and her deep passion and knowledge language and anything else over of Slavic languages and cultures "Dorogaia Lilia Safianovna" -- some tea and (it goes without to hundreds of students. A that is how every email I have saying) chocolates, perusing her devoted instructor, mentor, ever sent to Lilia Travisano incredible photography and book colleague, and friend, Lilia begins, after the appropriate collections. Anyone who has Saf’ianovna worked tirelessly to Russian greeting, of course. And worked with Lilia, or even spent share insights and opportunities,

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broaden imaginations, and pisanki and blini were yearly Saf’ianovna offered Tatar- advance diverse initiatives favorites on Easter and language instruction to those related to Russian-language Maslenitsa. A skilled with the curiosity and drive to acquisition, multicultural photographer, she documented pursue independent intellectual dialogue, and pedagogical conferences, concerts, and interests. I owe much to Lilia excellence. She had a vested cultural events. She diligently Saf’ianovna, and I have grown interest in the learning styles and coordinated oral proficiency as a scholar and human being research activities of every interviews, placement under her guidance and student. I have learned much evaluations, and small study tutelage. She is the paradigm of from Lilia Saf’ianovna, and I groups. To help students prepare intelligence, selflessness, and have benefited from her for their exams, furthermore, she patience, and we are all encouragement, wisdom, and provided individual consultations fortunate to have worked support. to ensure that they adequately beside her. In her capacity as the language grasped concepts of Russian Michael Marsh-Soloway coordinator of the Russian grammar, syntax, and semantics. (Ph.D. 2016) House, she made everyone feel Aside from supporting and welcome and encouraged to overseeing Russian learning participate in group discussions activities and questions of and collaborative projects. Her curricular design, Lilia

Congratulations on your retirement!

SLL@VA 8 FALL 2016 See who came to visit

In April 2016, the Slavic Department hosted Igor Fedyukin, former Vice- Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation (June 2012 – May 2013), Associate Professor and Director of the Center for History Sources at the National Research University – Higher School of Economics (Moscow), and Visiting Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington, DC). On April Prof. Fedukin Igor Fedyukin spoke on “Prozhektery: ‘Administrative Entrepreneurs’ and Modernization of Education in Russia from Peter the Great to Putin” and conducted a seminar, “Sex in the City that Peter Built: Libertinage and the Public Sphere.”

In October, 2016, our Department and the Department of Classics hosted Dr. Zara M. Torlone, Professor of Classics at Havighurst Center for Russian and Post Soviet Studies, Miami University, Ohio. Prof. Torlone gave a talk, “The Joy of Exile: Ovid in Pushkin’s, Mandelshtam’s and Brodsky’s Poetry” and conducted a Professionalization workshop: “Teaching Literature.”

In November, 2016, Adrienne M. Harris presented a talk, Fighting the Fascists through Film: Soviet War Myths and Ukrainian Land on Post-Soviet Russian Screens, and conducted a Slavic Graduate Student Workshop “What You Can Do with Your Second Slavic Language.” Adrienne Harris is Associate Professor of Russian at Baylor University. She publishes on Soviet collective memory of World War II, gender, heroism, soldiers’ memoirs, war poetry, and Czech film. She is currently drafting a monograph entitled Martyr, Myth, and Memory: The Dynamic Image of Zoia Kosmodemianskaia, a Soviet Saint. She was recently elected to the board of the Association for Women in Slavic Studies and she serves as the Vice President of SEEFA, the Slavic, East European and Eurasian Folklore Association. Zara M. Torlone

SLL@VA 9 FALL 2016 Slavic Colloquium In the spring of 2015, we launched the Slavic Colloquium, a new forum for academic presentation and debate enhancing the spirit of intellectual community in the Slavic Department. Our faculty, graduate students (especially those working on their dissertations), as well as our graduate alumni, present their recent research projects and open them for general discussion, thus raising our awareness of and interest in the work of our colleagues and co-workers.

On February 19, 2016, Michael Marsh-Soloway talked at the Slavic Colloquium about “The Development and Legacy of the Mathematical Imagination of F.M. Dostoevsky: Reconstructing the Education of the Novelist at the Main Engineering School, 1838-43.” Soon thereafter, Michael defended his Ph.D. dissertation on Dostoevsky's uses of mathematics.

On March 23, 2016, Dr. Kathleen Thompson (our 2015 Ph.D.) presented a talk, “Reader as Writer: Authorial Instruction in Margarita Meklina’s Short-Story Fiction.” Michael Marsh-Soloway

Dr. Jill Martiniuk (our 2015 Ph.D.) and Sarah McEleney (formerly known as Sarah Bumpus, and currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation) talked, on April 22, 2016, about “Using Digital Lesson Plans in the Russian Language Classroom.”

On October 20th, 2016, Reed Johnson talked about the fiction of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887-1950), a Russian writer whose strange and phantasmagorical works were repressed and almost entirely unknown until the fall of the Soviet Union. In his talk for the Slavic Colloquium, “Future Imperfect: Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky and the Time-Travel Narrative,” Reed focused on one of these works, the science fiction novella Memories of the Future, discussing the work's historical and literary contexts.

On November 10, 2016, Professor Mark Elson and Dr. Maria Ivanova gave a presentation for the Slavic Colloquium, entitled “An Analysis of the Meaning of the Conjunction a in Russian with Attention to Its Implications for Second Language Acquisition and Russian Language Pedagogy.” Prof. Mark Elson and Dr. Maria Ivanova

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SLL@VA 10 FALL 2016 Polish Lecture Series

On April 7, 2016, the Polish originally featured on PBS in Lectures Series hosted a October 2015. screening of a documentary film Alex Storozynski is a former Kosciuszko: A Man Ahead of president and executive director His Time, followed by a Q&A of the Kosciuszko Foundation. session with the film' s writer and Also a Pulitzer Prize–winning director, Alex Storozynski. journalist, he was an editorial Thaddeus Kosciuszko fought board member at the New York for American independence and Daily News, the founding editor was decorated by George of amNewYork, and a former city Piotr Kosicki Washington with and Order of editor and contributing editor to This series of public lectures Cincinnatus. Later, he led a the The New York Sun. Currently, and events is organized by the Polish uprising against the he is Polish Chair of the Central Center for Russian, East Russian Empire. Thomas European Institute at Quinnipiac European and Eurasian Jefferson called Kosciuszko University. Studies (CREEES) and "as pure a son of sponsored by the American liberty, as I have Institute of Polish Culture. The ever known." events are also co-sponsored by Kosciuszko the Department of Slavic bequeathed his Languages and Literatures, the property for the Corcoran Department of emancipation and History and, occasionally, education of other institutions and African-American departments. The speakers slaves and named have, thus far, included, among Jefferson the others, former U.S. executor. After Amabassadors to Poland, Kosciuszko's Nicholas Rey and John Davis; death, Jefferson former Polish Amabassador to walked away the U.S. Przemysław from this Grudziński; eminent scholars, obligation. such as Piotr Wandycz, Kosciuszko's will Zdzisław Krasnodębski, was never enacted. Bogdana and John Carpenter, This film, based Ewa Thompson, John Micgiel, on the book by Timothy Snyder, Marci Shore, Alex Storozynski, Clare Cavanagh, Beth The Peasant Holmgren; writers, such as Prince: Thaddeus Adam Zagajewski, Krzysztof Kosciuszko and the Alex Storozynski with Monika Grabowska – Koehler, Piotr Sommer, and Age of Revolution the author of a high-school paper on Andrzej Stasiuk. (St. Martin's Press, Kosciuszko and Jefferson, which won the 2010), was 2015 Virginia History Day competition

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2016 Graduation This year our graduate students the very best of good fortune as Languages and Literatures in Slavic Languages and he presses forward in his career Abigail has her BA in Russian and Literatures and in as Slavist! world literature from the Contemporary Russian University of West Virginia. Abby Studies have done a great deal of Yining Sun: MA in helped to produce last fall’s super- fine work in which we take successful Russian play, “The tremendous pride. We have a Crocodile.” She is an avid new PhD and three MAs. conversationalist in Russian with anyone who wants to talk. Abby has the distinction of being one of a very few students to earn a high pass on her MA literature exam. Another highlight of Abby’s year was her participation at this year’s graduate student conference where she gave a talk on “Osip Mandel’stam’s Bodies in Stone: The Dialectic of the Ephemeral and Permanence.” This summer she had an American Councils grant to study Russian in St. Petersburg, where she also used a Yining Sun Slavic Languages and Literatures Michael Marsh-Soloway and UVA summer grant to start research on President Teresa A. Sullivan Contemporary Russian Studies her Ph.D. dissertation. Yining Sun has her BA from Michael Marsh-Soloway: PhD Renmin University in Beijing Tierre Sanford: MA in Slavic in Slavic Languages and with a double specialization in Languages and Literatures Literatures Russian and International Tierre has her BA in Russian from Congratulations to Michael who Economics and Trade. At the Brigham Young. In the fall she defended his PhD dissertation spring 2016 graduate student acted in the Russian play, “The during summer 2016! The title of conference, “Into the Darkness,” Crocodile.” A co-organizer of this his work is "The Mathematical she delivered a talk, entitled spring’s collaborative grad student Genius of F.M. Dostoevsky: “Doubly Guilty: Stalin, the conference, Tierre gave a talk on Imaginary Numbers, Statistics, Ukrainian Peasantry and the “Women, Children, Humanity: Non-Euclidean Geometry, and Great Famine of 1932-1933.” In Gender and Dehumanization in Infinity." Michael won the UVA April she defended her MA Tadeusz Borowski’s ‘This Way Arts & Sciences Graduate thesis on “Russian Foreign for the Gas, Ladies and Teaching Award as the best Policy in Central Asia from Gentlemen’.” Tierre has been graduate student teacher in the 1991 to the Present.” In the preparing for a dissertation on humanities. Currently he is summer of 2016, Yining was an women’s voices in the Holocaust working instructional intern at the Wilson Center in as it played out on Soviet soil, technology in the School of Arts Washington, DC. spending the last year studying and Sciences, while he goes on Yiddish and Polish. During the the job market. We wish Michael Abigail Hohn: MA in Slavic summer of 2016, Tierre had the

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honor of being the first graduate in five years to win the very Graduation competitive State Department Critical Language Scholarship to study Russian in Nizhnii Novgorod. She also won a Slavic Languages and Literatures in Pictures summer grant to start Ph.D. dissertation research while in Russia.

Thomas Fafara and Prof. Katia Dianina

Kellianne Tomlinson

Kellianne’s hat

Laura Leddy Others’ hats

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Upper row, from left to right: Prof. Mark Elson, Prof. Katia Dianina, Prof. Dariusz Tolczyk, Prof. Edith Clowes, Prof. Julian Connolly, Thomas Fafara, Benjamin Moody, Adam Sykes. Lower row, from left to right: Samantha Guthrie, Maria Bakatkina, Elsa Schieffelin, Laura Leddy, Malia Uehara, Maya David, Kellianne Tomlinson. Congratulations to the graduating class of 2016!

Maria Bakatkina Benjamin Moody Brandon Bennett Elsa Schieffelin Joseph Chong Olivia Staff Maya David Adam Sykes Thomas Fafara Kellianne Tomlinson Samantha Guthrie Malia Uyehara Rebecca Kientz David Vorona Laura Leddy Anne Weidhaas

Michael McConnell SLL@VA 14 FALL 2016 More to Celebrate

PHI BETA KAPPA

Our graduating majors, Rebecca Kientz, Benjamin Moody, Adam Sykes, and Anne Weidhaas were elected to the Beta Chapter of Virginia of Phi Beta Kappa. Congratulations!

As the oldest and most distinguished honor society in the country, Phi Beta Kappa offers membership to less than one percent of all undergraduates. Many of the leading figures in American history and culture have begun their careers with election to the society, including seventeen presidents of the United States. As a result, membership is a remarkable accomplishment, both for the student who achieves it and the faculty and staff whose support and guidance has led to this milestone.

Carrie B. Douglass President, Phi Beta Kappa Beta Chapter of Virginia

PERTZOFF PRIZE

Each year at graduation, the Department, in conjunction with the Center for Russian and East European Studies, awards the Pertzoff Prize to the 4th year student who has achieved the highest level of excellence in Russian and East European Studies. The award is in memory of Vladimir A. Pertzoff, Professor of Russian History.

This year's Annual Pertzoff Prize for the best academic achievement in the field of Russian Studies went to Samantha Guthrie and Benjamin Moody. Congratulations!

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SLL@VA 15 FALL 2016 Interview with the Residents of the Russian House

In August 2016, students began as other cultural events. So far to improve my Russian speaking living in the newly opened there are three residents and one skills, and I believed that the Russian House. It is located in language assistant: Diana Renelt immersive environment a the Shea House and offers (2nd year), Katherine Motsko (3rd language house provides would students an opportunity to be year), Kimberly Daw (2nd year) be the most effective way to immersed in an atmosphere of and Maria Bakatkina (graduate learn. Russian culture and language, student). SLL@VA offers a short and it is a perfect chance for interview with the residents who KD: I applied because I love the students in the Slavic Department share their experience living in Russian language and because I to improve their reading, the Russian House during the wanted to continue to improve listening, writing, and speaking fall of 2016. my speaking abilities. skills and gain cultural knowledge. Students are engaged Why did you apply to live in DR: I applied because I wanted in dinner conversations, and the the Russian House? to have a chance to speak Russian language assistant organizes more regularly and I believed that weekly language events as well KM: I applied because I wanted this was the best way to do it.

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MB: I saw it as a perfect Russian. give really fascinating guest opportunity to gain experience in lectures about Russian language teaching Russian language. MB: As a Language Assistant I and culture. try to organize as many events as Do you like to live in the possible and involve the residents DR: Given that I am a Russian Russian House? Why? not only in practicing Russian and Eastern European Studies language, but also I introduce major and currently take multiple DR: Yes, it is a perfect them to Russian culture, classes within the Department, I experience. Russian House is traditions, and customs. So, we see many faculty members on a very helpful and enriching, I watch movies, play games, cook regular basis and also at events definitely will reapply and live famous Russian dishes, and like Russian tea. here again. celebrate main holidays together. In November we went together to KD: I interact with faculty from KM: Yes, absolutely, I attribute the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts the Slavic Department almost my improvement in speaking to see the Faberge collection as a everyday. I am a Russian and skills to living here. brief introduction to Russian art. Eastern European Studies major, so I take several classes in the KD: I certainly do like living What was the most interesting Slavic Department. I also make here. I feel like I learn a lot and I event for you so far? an effort to attend Russian Tea. also enjoy the people I live with. DR: I really liked to cook bliny MB: I try to bring as many What kinds of events does your all together and then eating them faculty members as possible to language assistant arrange for too. It was fun and very fulfilling. Shea House. So far we have you? invited Professors Clowes, KM: My favorite event was Ivanova, and Travisano to share KM: All kinds! We have movie painting matryoshki, hands down. dinners with us and give short nights, game nights, and arts and It was one of the first cultural presentations, which were very crafts nights, all of which are events we had, so it set the bar informative and amusing. entirely in Russian. We always go high for the events to follow. Recently Valeria Provotorova (a to Russian Tea, we’ve arranged graduate student in the Slavic some field trips to museums, and KD: I enjoyed playing Durak Department) joined us for dinner we’ve even had a couple guest (whom I was several times) and and played cards and Taboo with speakers come by. cooking together. I look forward us, and all of us had a great time. to the many cultural events to Of course, I will continue inviting KD: We do all sorts of things! come. our professors to take part in We recently learned a famous events and celebrate holidays Russian card game and watched a How frequently do you interact with us. movie in Russian. We also cook with faculty of the Slavic together and make Russian Department? dishes. KM: I’m enrolled in several DR: We have movie nights where classes in the Slavic Department we watch Russian movies in as a double major in English and Russian, games where we Russian Language and Literature, practice words or learn more but outside of class, I mostly see about Russian culture, and also professors at Russian Tea. Drs. guest speakers that lecture us on Maria Ivanova and Lilia varying topics while speaking Travisano also came to Shea to

SLL@VA 17 FALL 2016 Having a little fun!

SLL@VA 18 FALL 2016 Undergraduate News SUMMER IN RUSSIA: CRITICAL LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIP Tierre Sanford (graduate student in Slavic Languages and Literatures), and two of our undergraduate majors, Kay Khosbayar and Adam Sykes, won Critical Language Scholarships from the U.S. State Department to study Russian in Russia in the summer of 2016. Tierre earned an MA degree this summer and is now a PhD candidate in our Department. Kay is back in her third year of undergraduate studies. Adam graduated this year. He won a Harrison Undergraduate Research Award and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Tierre Sanford, Kay Khosbayar, and Adam Nizhnii Novgorod, overlooking the Volga Sykes in Kazan, Russia, summer 2016. River (photographed by Tierre Sanford)

Kay Khosbayar

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SLL@VA 19 FALL 2016 My Very Russian Summer by Kay Khosbayar

I first heard about the Critical CLS gave me the ultimate got very real, very fast. Language Scholarship (CLS) present by accepting me into the On the morning of our departure, when Lilia Safianovna sent a program. I reread the same email there had been a mix up with the mass e-mail to my Russian 1010 over and over again just to make bus rental company. Instead of class. CLS is a fully funded sure it was real. I was going to be going to Dulles airport on a summer overseas language and in Russia for an entire summer! charter bus, we were escorted by cultural immersion program for In June, I arrived at a party bus with a mirror ball! I American undergraduate and Washington D.C. for a 2-day think this moment foreshadowed graduate students. Fourteen pre-departure orientation as a the mood for the next 8 weeks: languages deemed critical by the part of the requirement. There, fun, exciting, and definitely U.S. Department of State are for the first time, I met the 24 unpredictable. offered through this program. To individuals who I'd spend the After a 15-hour flight qualify for the Russian program, next 8 weeks with. The group from Washington, D.C., I finally a student must have two years of was so diverse! We were a mix arrived to , prior classroom experience. I of undergraduates, graduate Russia. This city is one of the applied during the fall of my students, and Ph.D. candidates. largest in Russia and sits second year with the love and We all came from different beautifully on the meeting point support of my family, friends, backgrounds and various corners of the Oka and Volga Rivers. and professors in the Slavic of the country. It's also important Although I was extremely jet- Department. To be honest, I was to note that a total of four current lagged, I was in Russia and very doubtful about my chances and former UVA students were nothing else mattered. Another of getting the award, since it is selected for the Russia 2016 bus (not a party bus much to my known to be extremely program! Two had already disappointment) took us to the competitive, and it was my first graduated from UVA, the other university where our host time applying. No UVA student is currently a Ph.D. candidate, families waited for our arrival. from the Slavic department had and then there's me, the My host mom Tanya, a vibrant received the award in the past youngest of the UVA cohort. Russian woman, welcomed me few years, which did not Tierre Sanford, the Ph.D. into her arms as I stepped off the alleviate my already- budding candidate, was actually my TA in bus. I had a great first impression anxiety. Nevertheless, I clicked my first Russian language class of her until she started speaking "submit" on the CLS website in at UVA. I was extremely excited to me in Russian. She spoke so November. that we would be on this journey fast that I was terrified. I had Then I waited. I patiently together. barely learned how to form a waited until I received an e-mail The orientation consisted proper sentence in my classroom from CLS in late January that I of alumni panels, guest speakers in New Cabell Hall and suddenly was a semi-finalist. I couldn't from the State Department, and I was expected to converse in believe it! Since I still had blunt reminders of what we Russian 24/7?! After the initial another round to go, I kept the could and could not do in Russia moment of panic, I reminded excitement to myself. Then the as a foreigner. The one thing that myself that this is what I signed waiting game started all over scared me the most was that any up for and a lot of people again. Finally, two days after my one of us could be jailed or believed in me to succeed. birthday in March as I was lying deported for volunteering during Tanya was a lively grandmother on the beach with my friends, the duration of the program. It who lived with her 18-year-old,

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SLL@VA 20 FALL 2016 black cat named Yasha. It was a from Lobachevsky University of a weekend is to catch up on one-bedroom apartment with a who was assigned as my the work I didn't get to during the separate toilet and bath, a small language partner throughout the week. A Russian views the kitchen, and no air conditioning. duration of the program. She had weekend as a time to leave the I slept in the living room on her an important role in my overall stress behind and spend couch-bed, which is very typical experience in Russia. We'd meet irreplaceable time with their in Russia if you live in a small three times a week so that I could loved ones. As a result, I noticed apartment. When I went to bed practice my Russian with a native that family relationships in on my first night in Russia, I was speaker as we visited the zoo or Russia are a lot stronger than in completely unaware of how short strolled down Bolshaya the U.S. the night was due to Russia's Pokrovskaya to people watch. In addition to classes and relatively northern location. That When I'd come home for dinner, local excursions, CLS planned night, the sun set around 9 PM Tanya always had a hot meal and multiple-day trips to the city of and rose at approximately 3 AM, a pot full of chai ready on the Kazan and Moscow. We precisely when I unexpectedly table. Never in my life did I travelled to Kazan, the capital woke up from the glaring light consume so much sour cream, city of the Republic of , through the windows. Every dill, and tea like I did in Tanya's on a теплоход (motor ship) for morning at 7:30 AM, Tanya and kitchen. Over dinner, Tanya and I three days on the Volga River. I ate breakfast, usually an open- would spend hours discussing Kazan was a beautiful, historic faced sandwich (бутерброд as life in Russia and America. She city. Muscovy's journey to Russians like to call it) and tea. was appalled at the enormous become the largest land empire By 8:30 AM I was usually on a price tag for university education started with the conquest of the van-like minibus (маршрутка) in the U.S.! I, on the other hand, Khanate of Kazan by Ivan IV in on my way to class that started at would sit in silence as she shared the 16th century. I tasted their 9 AM at Lobachevsky stories about her grandparents famous dessert called chak-chak University. I had a wonderful living under Stalin's regime. It (чак-чак), a combination of Russian teacher, Marina, who was surreal to know that her deep-fried dough drenched in taught my class about Russian stories were not examples in honey syrup. It was almost like grammar and syntax from 9-1:30 history books I was so used to biting into a Rice Krispy Treat PM every day. After class, I went reading for class. Tanya's stories but inexplicably better. We to the dining hall across the street gave me true insight on what it toured the kremlin of Kazan and for lunch. They served traditional was like to live under terror and went inside the Qolsarif Mosque, Russian foods like red-beet soup eventually how gruesome it was which is a UNESCO World (борщ) or Russian vegetable to abruptly adjust to the transition Heritage Site (just like the soup (щи) that I purchased from socialism to capitalism in Rotunda)! Strolling through the every day for around 90 rubles the 1990s. Her pain struck streets of Kazan made me realize (about $1.20). Later in the emotions as she spoke about her that Russia truly has a multi- afternoon were cultural lived experiences were ethnic identity, and all the excursions in the form of a something I could never feel lectures from Professor Lynch lecture or trip to the local from lines out of a textbook. and Yuri Urbanovich suddenly museum. My favorite excursion On the weekends, Tanya took me came to life before my eyes. was our trip to the ornament to the dacha where we relaxed in In late July, we went on our trip factory where we learned how to Russian banyas and enjoyed the to Moscow on a modern train. make hand-made glass company of her friends and Although airplanes are much ornaments! In the evenings I family. It was usually a long faster, Russians still continue to would explore the city by night filled with songs and use the train if they can help it. I visiting coffee shops, bars, and laughter with clinking shot visited the Tretyakovskaya attend free concerts with a few glasses in the background. I Gallery, Armory Chamber, and friends or my language partner learned that Russians highly Red Square of course! When I Alina. Alina is a recent graduate value their down-time. My idea saw St. Basil's Cathedral for the

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SLL@VA 21 FALL 2016 first time, I was in awe. The heart I will never forget. students, and exploring Russia of Moscow, architectural There were definitely on my own. My Russian masterpiece, and symbol of the some rough times during my trip, language naturally got better Russian nation towered over me which tested the boundaries of each day and I adopted Russian in its greatness. Moscow itself is my strength. During my second norms pretty easily. Russia is a a very tourist-friendly city. The week in Russia, my grandmother rich country with a unique definitely lived passed away after a long battle history and hospitable culture. up to its name as the "palace of against cancer. I really wanted to My host mom called me her the people" and my dear old give up, pack my bags, and fly “American daughter” and friend Starbucks was on every home to America. However, I opened her home to me corner. My favorite place in knew that my grandmother unconditionally. The Russians I Moscow was Victory Park (Парк would be furious if I gave up on met throughout my trip were Победы) where I found a something I worked so hard to genuinely interested in learning monument of Russian, American, achieve. I decided to stay and about America and most of them French, and British soldiers finish what I started. My host dream of living and working in standing side-by-side after their mom, language partner, and the States one day. Studying victory over Hitler's in friends from the program offered abroad has improved my WWII. I remembered that me support during this difficult academic experience here at Professor Urbanovich showed time, which was more than what I UVA. When I sit in class and my class a picture of this very could ever expect from people learn about Russian history, monument to describe a period of who I just met. To them I am culture, and language, I have my friendly U.S.-Russian relations forever thankful. own experiences to complement that no one likes to talk about. As Looking back on this the material. I highly recommend I weaved through the park, I experience, I am happy I applied anyone to apply to CLS or study could feel Russia's pain of losing to CLS. Although I spent most of abroad, because holistic learning millions of its people against time sitting in a classroom, I is not limited to the classroom. Napoleon and two world wars. A learned the most from interacting very heavy yet sobering moment with my host mom, other

Meeting the President of Poland in Washington, D.C. by Kasia Nielsen

In March 2016, a few months before the Warsaw NATO Summit, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend, with twenty nine other American college students and young professionals, a Youth Dialogue with President of the Republic of Poland, Andrzej Duda, in Washington D.C. The focus of the meeting was to expand communication with young Polonia (Polish diaspora), and encourage us to cultivate our background and educate our peers in Polish history and Polish-American relations. As the student representative from the University of Virginia, I gave President Duda a token of appreciation for his visit to the U.S. – my UVA 2016 graduation cap decorated with the name of our own Thomas Jefferson and his Polish friend, Tadeusz Kościuszko, representing the continuation of a strong relationship between the United States and Poland. Kasia Nielsen graduated in May 2016 with a BA in Foreign Affairs and Russian and Eastern European Studies from the University of Virginia

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SLL@VA 22 FALL 2016 Graduate News The Society of Slavic Graduate Students by Sarah McEleney, President of the Society of Slavic Graduate Students

SSGS apple-picking event. From left to right: Elizabeth Austin, Tierre Sanford, Madelyn Stuart, Sarah McEleney, Mark Wayne, Sharisa Aidukaitis, and her husband, Bryce Aidukaitis.

During the 2015-2016 academic activities, such as dinners at in which numerous universities year the Society of Slavic various restaurants, and the screened Richard Ayoade's 2014 Graduate Students (SSGS) October event of apple picking at film adaptation of Dostoevsky's participated in numerous Carter's Mountain Orchard The Double. The 2015-2016 activities. The main achievement (pictured). Apple picking was so academic year was a good one for of SSGS during the spring enjoyed that there was talk of SSGS, and activities that were semester was the participation in making it an annual event. discussed but never came into the Pan-European Language Additionally, in November being are already being planned Conference, held in conjunction SSGS participated in an online, for the current academic year. with other academic departments multimedia event hosted by the at UVA in April of 2016. SSGS North American Dostoevsky also engaged in extra-curricular Society called #TheDoubleEvent,

SLL@VA 23 FALL 2016 New Graduate Students

Alexandra Shapiro joined the PhD program in Slavic Languages and Literatures as a Jefferson Fellow. Sasha received her BA from Dickinson College in Russian and cum laude in philosophy in spring 2015. Her interests include the intersection between literature and medical ethics. As an undergraduate she published a paper on Soviet psychiatric hospitals. During summer 2016 Sasha studied German in Berlin.

Samantha Guthrie, Maria Bakatkina, and Elsa Scheffelin graduated in Spring 2016 with BA degrees in Russian and East European Studies. They are back at UVA. Samantha studies at Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Maria and Elsa are completing their 4+1 MA degrees in the Slavic Department.

Maria Bakatkina is a graduate student at the University of Virginia studying Slavic languages and literature (4+1 MA Program). She was born and raised in Kaluga, Russia. There she graduated from the Russian Law Academy of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in 2009. She practiced civil law for three years and worked for Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Russian State Centre of Inventory and Registration of Real Estate -- the Federal Bureau of Technical Inventory." She received a Federal Work and Study Graduate Award and continues to gain experience as a research assistant in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. Maria is the Russian Language Assistant for the newly opened Russian House in Shea House. She also teaches Russian Intermediate Conversation at UVA, and recently organized an undergraduate and graduate student trip to Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to visit the Faberge collection. Moreover, she arranges biweekly events for the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, “Russian Tea and Conversation,” and prepared a New Year performance of a play Сильное Чувство by Ilf and Petrov. For her MA thesis, she is concentrating on Russian iconography and Russian medieval art and literature.

Elsa Schieffelin is a student in the Slavic Department pursuing a masters in Russian literature. She is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia with a BA in Eastern European Studies. During her undergraduate career, she studied Russian and Polish, participated in several Russian plays, and wrote a thesis on Solovyov's theory of love in connection with Margarita Morozova and Evgeny Trubetskoy. She has also spent summers abroad studying Russian in St. Petersburg and in Bishkek.

SLL@VA 24 FALL 2016 More Graduate News

Abigail Hohn is in her third year in the doctoral program in Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia. In the spring, she completed coursework and exams for an MA. During the summer, Abigail joined about a dozen Russian language teachers at the high school and college levels in the American Councils Russian Language Teachers Program. They spent six weeks at the Herzen Pedagogical University in , where they refined their Russian skills, discussed language pedagogy, participated in cultural activities, and gathered materials and realia to incorporate in the Russian classroom.

Reed Johnson is working as a teaching assistant for 3rd year Russian with Professor Maria Ivanova, and is glad to be back in the department and Charlottesville. This past year he was a visiting writer at Salem College, teaching a special January-term course in fiction writing, and his novel-in- progress, set during the final months of the Soviet Union, was awarded second place out of more than six hundred manuscripts in the James Jones First Novel competition; he's currently revising the manuscript. This year he also worked on literary translation, including three full-length Russian screenplays commissioned by a Moscow-based production company (one script is by Vladimir Sorokin), and hopes to tackle a novel translation in the coming year. During the spring, he spent a total of nearly two months in writing residencies at the Hambidge Center in the mountains of and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) in Amherst, Virginia. His dissertation topic is the fiction of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887-1950). In October, Reed was fortunate to attend a symposium on Krzhizhanovsky held at the Indiana University in Bloomington, where he participated in a roundtable discussion on the author's fiction. He's looking forward to further developing his dissertation research with advisor Professor Julian Connolly and other members of his committee.

Sarah McEleney received a FLAS scholarship to attend the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute, where she took the language course Ukrainian for Reading Knowledge and also learned about Ukrainian culture and history.

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SLL@VA 25 FALL 2016 More Graduate News

In May 2016, Tierre Sanford earned her Masters Degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures, and is currently working toward her PhD. Tierre—along with UVa’s Adam Sykes and Kay Khosbayar—received a Critical Language Scholarship for Russian and spent the summer of 2016 in Nizhny Novgorod. She lived with a host family in Russia and spent each morning at Lobachevsky University studying Russian. She and her language partner also spent hours at museums, the zoo, cafes, parks, and churches. Tierre was also able to travel to other Russian cities such as Vladimir, Suzdal’, Gorodets, Semenov (pictured above) and Moscow, and took a river cruise to Kozmademiansk, , and Kazan’. Tierre also received a Slavic Languages and Literatures Summer Research Grant and a Graduate Fellowship in Jewish Studies. She recently attended the 66th annual Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference, where she presented a paper entitled, “Reclaiming the Monument: Soviet Poetic Pleas and Post-Soviet Sculptural Responses.” Tierre is excited to be back at UVA for the 2016-2017 school year and is currently working as a TA of second year Russian.

Graduate Students:

Sharisa Aidukaitis Alexandra Shapiro Valeria Provotorova Reed Johnson Elizabeth Austin Madelyn Stuart Tierre Sanford Anna Maxwell Maria Bakatkina Viktoria Vutova Elsa Schieffelin Sarah McEleney Abigail Hohn Lisa Pisani

SLL@VA 26 FALL 2016 WHAT WE’VE BEEN UP TO

Slavic Graduate Students at the Pan-European Conference “Into the Darkness”

This past spring, the Slavic Languages and Literatures graduate students in conjunction with graduate students in the German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Music Departments held a pan-European conference titled “Into the Darkness” at the University of Virginia from April 1-3, 2016.

This inter-disciplinary conference examined topics like the occult, the subconscious, mortality and illness, darkness in the natural world, and the abyss. The conference was well attended and included international graduate students, who came from Germany and the to present.

Among the presenters, “Into the Darkness” also included many graduate students from the Slavic department. Their names and papers are listed below:

Sarah Bumpus (McEleney), “The Depiction of Cultural Transition in Boleslaw Prus’ The Doll and Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons”

Sharisa Aidukaitis, “Poems of Grieving Parents: Kochanowski’s Laments and Akhmatova’s Requiem”

Abigail Hohn, “Osip Mandel’stam’s Bodies in Stone: The Dialectic of the Ephemeral and Permanence”

Mark R. Wayne, “Movement and Poetic Meter in the Zhivago Cycle of Boris Pasternak”

Valeria Provotorova, “Light in Darkness: the Battle of Humanity and Inhumanity in Tadeusz Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen”

Elizabeth Austin, “Vorkuta: A GULAG Town"

Yining Sun, “Double Guilty: Stalin, the Ukrainian Peasantry and the Great Famine 1932”1933”

Tierre Sanford, “Women, Children, Humanity: Gender and Dehumanization in Tadeusz Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen”

Samantha Guthrie, “South Ossetia’s Final Generation: The Fallout of Alliance with Russia”

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SLL@VA 27 FALL 2016 Faculty and Staff News

Edith Clowes: 2016 was an Julian Connolly had several articles Conference on Slavic Studies at their interesting year for Professor Edith published in the 2015-2016 annual meeting in March 2016. Clowes. She was gratified that a academic year. They include: joint book project of 4 1⁄2 years’ “Fetching yet faithless: problematic Last fall, Katia Dianina was lucky duration, Area Studies in the Global mistresses in Nabokov’s fiction,” in to participate in an international Age: Community, Place, Identity, Women in Nabokov’s Life and Art, conference on museums in Florence, finally appeared with Northern edited by Nailya Garipova and Juan . As a result of this productive Illinois University Press. The José Torres Nuñez (Bern: Peter forum, she prepared for publication a editors, Shelly Jarrett Bromberg Lang, 2016), 123–40; “Good Writer, new article, “The Ruin and (Latin American Studies, Miami U.) Bad Reader?: Nabokov’s Lectures Restoration of the Russian Art and Professor Clowes, define the on Dostoevsky,” in Nabokov and the Empire,” for Collecting and Empires “global” not as a general model to Question of Morality: Aesthetics, volume, which is coming out later be applied to all cultures but as a Metaphysics, and the Ethics of this year. In October, she gave a mosaic made of the local and Fiction, edited by Susan Elizabeth lecture at JMU, “Fabergé Lost and regional. Combining authors from Sweeney and Michael Rodgers Found: The Return of Cultural seven different disciplines and four (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, Treasures in Post-Soviet Russia.” In world areas, they hope that this book 2016), 31–47; and “Nabokov’s the spring, her article, “Фаберже – will help students of both area and Biography,” in Critical Insights это наше все!” Риторика global studies see how to do Lolita, edited by Rachel Stauffer возрождения русского “interdisciplinary” research, using (Ipswich, MA: Grey House культурного наследия,” is various humanist and social science Publishing / Salem Press, 2016), 18- scheduled to appear in NLO. She methodologies to answer urgent 23. hopes that, with the return of the questions about various cultures of He also gave presentations at two VMFA Fabergé collection to the world. This fall Professor international conferences: “The Richmond this fall, this research Clowes led two roundtables and ‘Eyes Have It’: The Pleasures and would be of interest to many fans of workshops on teaching the new area Problems of Scopophilia in Russian art. In the meantime, she studies. Nabokov’s Work” at the continues working on her new In July one of the publications from International Conference on project on the “holy island” Valaam. the 2015 Russia’s Regions Vladimir Nabokov, Biarritz, , Teaching last year and this fall has conference at UVA appeared. A April 2016; and “‘It was I who been the most rewarding experience. special number of Region, titled killed the old woman and her Katia Dianina appreciates the “Centrifugal Forces? Russia’s sister….’: Modes of Confession in intellectual vitality of our graduate Regional Identities and Initiatives,” Crime and Punishment” at the XVI students, which makes even a contains five articles, two on Symposium of the International seminar on medieval literature a Siberia, one each on Buriatia, the Dostoevsky Society, , truly gratifying and enjoyable North Caucasus and Chechnya, and , June 2016. experience. Delving into the depths Crimea, together with an Finally, Professor Connolly was of Russian language and culture with introduction by Professor Clowes. award the Richard Stites Senior our advanced language students is a Scholar Award by the Southern wonderful opportunity, which she 465

SLL@VA 28 FALL 2016 always cherishes. Sincere thanks to the '15-'16 academic year, working in WWII and who died a week our graduate and undergraduate on his book on love and the before Jonathan's birth). He was students for their dedication, paradoxes of virtue in Tolstoy. The born May 4th. "I think that's the curiosity, and love of all things book is tentatively entitled Love in biggest thing going on in our lives," Russian! Tolstoy: Innocence, Intimacy, John says, and we all know what he These past two years have also Selflessness, though the project has means. presented Dianina with new grown so large it may be split into “adventures” in Academia: she has several volumes. Dariusz Tołczyk is working on a served on the selection committee His article on the Joe Wright-Keira book exploring Western responses for the AATSEEL’s best book in Knightley film version of Anna to Stalin's crimes. His book in literature and culture prize and as a Karenina (2012), came out in a Polish, Gułag w oczach Zachodu reviewer for the Mellon/ACLS special edition of Tolstoy Studies (The Gulag Under Western Eyes) Dissertation Completion Journal organized around the received an award in Poland from Fellowships. It is a wonderful theme "Anna Karenina from the the National Program for the privilege (and a lot of hard work!) 21st Century." A loosely related Advancement of the Humanities. to read both the innovative work in shorter piece, "Wright's Wrongs: Also in Poland, he was invited to progress by some of the best Filming and Failing Anna collaborate with the newly- students in our field and to admire Karenina" appeared on “All the established Witold Pilecki Center the results of major scholarly ” blog of the NYU Jordan for Totalitarian Studies. Currently, pursuits in the form of completed Center for the Advanced Study of he is about to publish his article, publications. Russia. "Відкриття Архіпелагу" (The Discovery of the Archipelago) in Mark Elson gave a paper entitled Maria Ivanova presented her the Ukrainian journal, Критика “On the Origin of Columnar Stress research at the ASEEES (Krytyka). He continues to serve on in the Imperfect Subjunctive of Convention (Philadelphia), the the International Board of Italian” at the Marl2016 Kentucky American Historical Association Reviewers of Studia Polityczne Foreign Language Conference, Annual Meeting (Atlanta), the (journal of the Institute of Political University of Kentucky, April 14, Medieval Slavic Workshop (Los Studies of the Polish Academy of 2016, and a paper entitled “The Angeles), Southern Conference on Sciences) and on the editorial board Systemic Relationship Among the Slavic Studies (Tuscaloosa), and of Gulag Studies. This year at UVA, Conjunctions no, a, and i in Renaissance Society of America Professor Tołczyk served on the Contemporary Standard Russian” at Annual Meeting (Boston). Her Jefferson Fellows Graduate the 2016 Mountain Interstate publications are forthcoming with Selection Committee and the Foreign Language Conference, The Slavic Review, The Catholic Summer Faculty Research Grants James Madison University, October Historical Review, and The Polish Committee. He also helped to 14, 2016. In addition, the Russian Review. In 2016, she joined the coordinate and moderate the Polish Summer Language Institute, Research group in Early Modern Speakers Series, and organized the directed by Professor Elson, was, as Religious Dissents and Radicalism Slavic Colloquium (please read it has been for over thirty years, a (EMoDiR) and was elected to the more about both programs in this success. The enrollment was 10, and executive council of the Southern Newsletter). 5 of the 10 entered RUSS 3010 this Conference on Slavic Studies. semester. Once again we proved that Gina it really can be done (2 years of John Lyles and his wife Galina Hutton Russian from the beginning in 8.5 (not necessarily in this order) had a and her weeks). In fact, the Russian baby, as we all know: 9 lbs, 10 oz family enrollments were second only to boy named added a Spanish. It required a team effort: Jonathan new Anna Maxwell and Madelyn Stuart Nikita member deserve much credit for helping to (Nikita is to their make the 2016 Institute a success. after his family in December. His name is grandfather, Duke. He is a Black Chihuahua. David Herman was on leave during who fought

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SLL@VA 29 FALL 2016 Alumni News Samantha Guthrie Alexis Robertson Jill Martiniuk Alexis Robertson Jill Martiniuk (PhD 2015) is (now Myers), 2012 currently a Writing Fellow in Russian Studies and the English Department at the Russian Literature University of Houston. She graduate, was teaches First Year Writing I married in and II. Her current research September 2016. focuses on interpretations of She and her grief in 20th century Russian husband reside in literature and visual arts. Arlington, VA. Alexis would love to Interview: http://batten.virginia.edu/school/ catch up with anyone visiting news/student-profile-samantha- Washington, DC. She can be contacted guthrie at [email protected].

Karolina Lovejoy (MA, Russian Literature 2012) GREETINGS FROM THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

me living on the border of two realities became my prime environment. I have lived in Poland for the last four years and have worked as a virtual foreign language teacher for three years now. Both academies that I have worked for are located in the state of Utah: Utah Military Academy and Athenian eAcademy. My workplace is in the living room in the tiny village of Zagnansk located by the Polish city Kielce. From there I teach four languages for the American academies, overcoming the huge My name is Karolina Lovejoy resident of two realities: real and geographical distance between and I am a former graduate virtual, European and American. me and my students thanks to the student (MA) at the Slavic I know that everyone shares that technology, and overcoming the Department and a current experience to a degree but for 8-hour time difference thanks to

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my determination because I love that expectation after all and that being “in-between” is what I do. intensified my determination to becoming my natural habitat This is how it works in practice. find a better solution. It was where I learned to thrive and so I My weekdays are marked by when I was working near London enrolled in a joint Polish-French different languages: Monday is that I applied for a job that PhD doctoral program where my Russian, Tuesday is Spanish, involved teaching foreign dissertation is split between two Wednesday is French and languages to students in Utah. I advisers and I try to graciously Thursday is German. It even feels got that job after only one phone reconcile two, often different more like “Russian” than like call when the interviewer found approaches of my professors and “Monday” to me. Time becomes out that I am qualified not only to create something more valuable relative when you work on teach four languages but also than a simple sum of two parts. crossing different time zones. ESL and social studies. And this Recently one of my academies Last year I was starting classes at is how started my life adventure realized that being virtual 10.30 pm and that was not a bad of being “in between”, being a expands opportunities and asked schedule for a mom of two bridge--a little bit here and a little me to be their European Director young daughters. They were bit there. responsible for developing the already in a deep sleep when their My day starts twice – I have two online program for the European mom was “entering” the Utah mornings: Polish mornings when students. And so here I am classroom to meet the 15 cadets my daughters wake up to go to between my two bilingual eager to learn one of the “critical” school and American mornings daughters--a living proof that two languages and have a head start when I switch to the other time worlds can generate something in their military career. It is not zone and start following the different than a traditional sum easy to teach Cyrillic alphabet, developments, emails and (you were right Underground French spelling, German questions from the Academy. For Man!) and that the power of grammatical rigor or Spanish the most part it is exactly what I foreign languages should never fluency over the Internet. But it is was looking for--the dream came be underestimated. possible and it is in empowering. true, didn’t it? The difficult At some point in my life I came moments occur when I realize The author will be grateful for to the conclusion that I am that there is no place where I remarks and feedback: European and not American. I belong completely and [email protected] went from the United States back unconditionally but that state to Poland only to conclude after might be unattainable nowadays a while that I am both: Europe anyways. So even though I alone was not enough anymore. It sometimes feel like Underground is the fate of many people who (Wo)Man: somewhat isolated, leave the comfort of their questioning the customary logic homelands and immerse of a traditional schedule and life themselves in different cultures, adjusted to the rhythm of the different mindsets. If that nearest environment, I greatly immersion is long and deep enjoy the fact that I am able to enough there is no going back to linguistically educate a section of the pure, original state. And so I global village from my Polish started to look for places and village. I appreciate the fact that arrangements that would allow being in two worlds at the same me to reconcile both worlds – taught me to function in the “In- European and American. British Between World” that has its own Isles seemed to be a logical unique characteristics. choice at first but it didn’t meet Recently I am starting to discover

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LAST BUT NOT LEAST

Slavic Team at University of Virginia Launches New “Russian Virginia” Website

In September a Slavic digital museums, Eastern Orthodox digital initiatives to create a humanities team announced the churches, and cultural sites. One nationwide network of Russian official launch of “Russian of its special features is an cultural resources. This nation- Virginia,” a new website interactive map marking all wide network—which would highlighting all things Russian these locations. include a full interactive map in the state of Virginia. Maria with Russian events and sites in Bakatkina, Professor Edith The team hopes that this site will each state—would be a real Clowes, and Dr. Kathleen provide students, researchers, celebration of the Russian Thompson have been working and the wider public with a deep contribution to life in the U.S. since winter 2016 to make this and comprehensive knowledge and would be a step toward project a reality. "Russian not only of Russian culture but, visualizing exactly how richly Virginia" more importantly, of the culture multicultural our society is. (www.russianvirginia.com) in their immediate and includes information on neighboring communities. On a Currently Kat Thompson is the locations and Russian-related broader note, we hope to inspire web manager for the site. She events such as high schools, our colleagues and their students welcomes any and all colleges and universities, clubs, in other states across the U.S. to comments and submissions. restaurants, food stores, create, or build on, similar

SLL@VA 32 FALL 2016 LET US HEAR FROM YOU

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