The University of Michigan Department of Slavic
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Slavic Scene Volume 20, Number 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN TheWinter 2012-2013 DEPARTMENT OF SLAVIC LANGUAGES & LITERATURES Letter From The Chair 2 Highlights 3 In Memoriam 4–5 In the Classroom 6–7 Graduate Student Focus 8–9 Staying Connected 10 In Print 11 www.lsa.umich.edu/slavic An image from Cross Currents: A Yearbook of Central European Culture, an MSP Publication LetterThe From Slavic the Chair Scene Dear Friends, As some of you may know, this has been a in BCS language courses in recent years and we productive but also a sad year for us, one in which hope that our new minor will serve the interests we lost two of the most important contributors of students interested in the culture of the former to our department’s development Yugoslavia and its successor states. To strengthen over the past half century. Professor our recently instituted minor in Ukrainian Studies, Emeritus Ladislav Matějka passed Professor Mikhail Krutikov and Lecturer IV Svitlana away in September at the age of Rogovyk will offer a new course next year, Cultures 93 and Professor Omry Ronen, who of the Ukraine. Our efforts to ensure these East was still a very active scholar and European languages and cultures a secure place in teacher, died suddenly of a stroke on the University’s curriculum for the future is likely to November 1. Both Professor Matějka hinge on our ability to endow at least some of the and Professor Ronen were scholars teaching in those areas. of great erudition who were much beloved by their undergraduate and graduate We also continue to build toward the “Russia in students; their inspiration and mentorship helped the World” track of our undergraduate major. launch the careers of many who now teach in Roughly a dozen students will once again be universities all over this country. You can read more going to Vytegra over Winter break to use their about their rich lives and many accomplishments linguistic and cultural skills in assisting at the local in the “In Memoriam” articles in this issue. In honor museum and in teaching English in the town and of Professor Matějka we welcome contributions to the surrounding villages. We hope to build an a new Czech Studies Fund ; in honor of Professor affiliation with a regional university that would Ronen we welcome contributions to our Ukrainian make possible a semester abroad which would Studies Fund. combine coursework with a service-learning internship. The above two areas, as well as our programs in Polish Studies and in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian Thank you for helping us maintain and expand our (BCS) Studies, place us in an increasingly more efforts in the teaching of Russian, Polish, Czech, rare category of Slavic Languages and Literatures Ukrainian, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian language Departments which offer a broad range of courses in and culture. Given the current state of declining the various East European languages and cultures. federal support, your assistance has been essential In the past year, we have added two new courses and will continue to be. to our undergraduate curriculum in Polish Studies: Heart of Europe: Poland Today and Rock Poetry Best wishes from all of us for a healthy and and Political Protest in Poland. Both courses have rewarding year! attracted large enrollments in their first year. We have also just instituted an undergraduate minor in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian language and cultures and added two new courses in that area: Yugoslav Literature of Exile and Yugoslav Literature on the Holocaust. We have seen increasing enrollment Herbert (Herb) Eagle [email protected] 2 TheHighlights Slavic Scene Alexander Etkind on Cultural Memory By Mikhail Krutikov At the beginning of this academic year we had two Experience (Cambridge: Polity, 2011), in which he stimulating presentations by Professor Alexander offers a new perspective on Russia’s history as Etkind of Cambridge University, one of the most a simultaneous process of external and internal prominent and productive scholars of Russian colonization of its enormous territory. The book culture today. A psychologist by training, Professor has generated lively debates among Russian Etkind achieved international renown for his historians, which were echoed in the discussion captivating book Eros of the Impossible: The History following his lecture. The graduate seminar on the of Psychoanalysis in Russia (Russian 1993, English next day was dedicated to his forthcoming book, 1996). His second doctorate, which he earned Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land from the University of Helsinki, resulted in a study of the Unburied (Stanford University Press). Using a of the mysterious Russian sect of Flagellants and wide array of sources, from popular fiction, films, their impact on the culture of Russian modernism. memoirs to archival documents, Professor Etkind These and numerous other publications secured explores the effects of the traumatic twentieth- Professor Etkind’s reputation as an innovative century experience on contemporary Russian cultural historian and engaging public intellectual politics, public life and artistic creativity. As in his with a wide range of interests and a versatile previous works, he offers a refreshing, original, methodological repertoire. After his move from and provocative perspective on the ways in which St. Petersburg to Cambridge in 2005, Professor collective memory mechanisms deal with Russia’s Etkind began working on the issues of cultural past and affect its present. The discussion at the memory, and in 2010 he received a large European seminar, which was attended by graduate students research grant as the principle investigator of the of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Comparative multidisciplinary international project Memory Literature and MFA in Creative Writing, students at War: Cultural Dynamics in Poland, Russia, and focused on the concept of “magic historicism,” Ukraine. which Professor Etkind proposed to use to define “the bizarre but instructive imagery that has In his public lecture in Ann Arbor on September evolved out of postcatastrophic, post-Soviet 13, Professor Etkind presented the argument of his culture”. recent book Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Agnieszka Holland comes to UM The Copernicus Endowment for Polish Studies, surrounding the Prague Spring (including six weeks CREES, and CES welcomed Agnieszka Holland to of imprisonment by the communist authorities for UM for her first visit October 10, 2012. Her recent her activities). Returning to Poland, her film career film In Darkness was nominated in 2012 for the took off when she collaborated with Andrzej Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi, winning prizes and accolades for her films at the Agnieszka Holland graduated from the Film and Cannes Film Fesitval in 1980 (Illumination), TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in and the Polish Film Festival and Berlin Prague (FAMU) in 1971 where she studied with Milos International Film Festival for Fever (1980). Forman and Ivan Passer and took part in the events (continued on page 6) 3 TheIn Memoriam Slavic Scene Ladislav Matějka, 1912-2012 By Herbert Eagle Ladislav Matějka, Emeritus Professor of Slavic home countries. Cross Currents was hailed by The Languages and Literatures, passed away at the end Times Literary Supplement as “the leading English of September at the age of 93. language forum for literature and criticism from central Europe.” Professor Matějka was born and educated in the former Czechoslovakia, his schooling was Professor Matějka was a scholar with broad interrupted by the Nazi occupation. He interests, author of five books and scores of articles. received his doctorate in Slavic Literature He published in the fields of historical linguistics, from Charles University in Prague in 1948, old Russian literature, Old Church Slavonic, history by which time he had already become the of Russian and of other Slavic literary languages, culture editor for the liberal Prague daily Czech and Russian grammar and syntax, Czech newspaper Lidové Noviny (The People’s Structuralism and Russian semiotics. While at News). A neo-Stalinist political coup in Michigan, he was the recipient of Fulbright, Ford, February, 1948 put him in jeopardy and and Guggenheim Fellowships. soon led to his exile. After teaching for several years at the University of Lund in Professor Matějka taught Old Church Slavonic, Sweden, he went on to earn a second Ph.D. comparative Slavic linguistics, and an array of from Harvard University in Slavic Linguistics courses on literary theory. He was an intellectual in 1961, where his thesis was directed leader in the field whose inspiration and by Roman Jakobson. He joined the faculty at mentorship helped launch the careers of many Michigan in 1959 as an Assistant Professor of Slavic who now teach in universities and colleges all over Literature and Linguistics and rose quickly to the the country. He was much respected and loved rank of Professor in 1965. by his students for his dedication, intellectual energy and wit. He retired from active teaching In 1962 he helped found Michigan Slavic in May 1988, but he continued his scholarly work Publications and became its general editor. With and his publishing activities. In 1989 he received little funding, but with an enormous investment an honorary doctorate from the University of of time and energy, he built this Slavic department Lund and a year later was elected a corresponding press into a prominent publisher of scholarly member of the Assembly of the Yugoslav Academy works in Slavic languages, literatures and cultures. of Sciences and Arts. In the 1990s and 2000s, It soon became the leading source of works of Professor Matějka edited and published three Russian Formalism (Shklovsky, Tynianov, Jakobson volumes of the correspondence of the famous and Eikhenbaum), Prague School Structuralism Czech actors of the interwar Liberated Theater in (Mukařovský) and Soviet Semiotics (Lotman, Prague, Voskovec and Werich, from the years 1945- Uspensky), issuing seminal works both in Russian 1980 (Voskovec had emigrated).