NewsNet News of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies
March 2020 v. 60, n. 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Transnational Turn 2 in Russian Studies
On Slavic and Eurasian Studies 8 in Japan
12 Ruling Russia in China
To See Paris and Die, An 15 Interview with Eleanory Gilburd
20 Publications ASEEES Prizes Call for 23 Submissions
27 Institutional Member News
29 Personages
30 Affiliate Group News
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NEWSNET March 2020 1 Our intervention comes at a historical and unidirectional juggernaut of reinforce those borders, as well as moment that is “both global and globalization”; it does not presuppose stories of failed, partial, or interrupted anti-global”, as Padraic Kenney put the inevitable convergence of crossings. Indeed, the contemporary it in his Presidential Address at the economies, political systems, or world offers few stories that do not 2016 ASEEES Convention.4 Kenney’s cultures.7 Moreover, the prefix trans- carry a transnational inflection, as we keynote came at the end of a year that suggests both an emphasis on are all participants in global political, saw a wave of nationalist populism movement between nations, as well cultural, and economic systems, even that, curiously enough, was global in as a gesturing beyond the nation as an as some people—or countries—may its reach: 2016 witnessed the election epistemological paradigm, though it wish to withdraw from them. Our of Donald Trump in the United States, does not assume—as some predicted three volumes attempt to tell those the United Kingdom’s vote to leave in the 1990s8—the demise of the stories, and to provide analytical the European Union, the purges nation as an empirical phenomenon. frameworks that will capture both the in Turkey after a failed coup, and Indeed, the twenty-first century has multiplicity and the commonalities of Hungary’s attempt to reject EU quotas seen a resurgence of nationalism, and transnational flows. on refugees. In this climate, Kenney new walls and borders have sprung Transnational Russian Studies offered an admirable defense of area up between states. Yet these new studies, highlighting the value of deep divisions only render the critical study Byford, Doak, and Hutchings begin knowledge of languages, histories, of nations and borders a more urgent Transnational Russian Studies with a and cultures of particular regions to task. Moreover, whereas globalization call for a new approach to Russian comprehend a fractured world. Yet he theory assumed the traffic of ideas Studies. Rather than seeing Russian juxtaposed his praise for area studies would flow from West to East, as Studies simply as the acquisition of with a critique of “transnational developed countries exported liberal mastery of the language, history, The Transnational Turn studies,” which he deems suitable democracy to the post-socialist world, and culture of a bounded space only for more “exuberant times,” the past twenty years have proved (“Russia”) over time, they argue that IN RUSSIAN STUDIES citing the enthusiasm of 1989 that multidirectional verbs of motion Russian Studies should historicize when walls tumbled and the star are needed to describe the direction and deconstruct notions such as CONNOR DOAK, UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL of democracy shone bright.5 Today, of travel. In our region, we might Russia, Russianness, and Russian KEVIN M.F. PLATT, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA however, Kenney warns: “There is no cite Russia’s alleged interference in language, looking critically at the VLAD STRUKOV, UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS transnational story to tell; the dance the elections of Western countries, boundary-work that has sustained of democracy runs out of music at this or, in the realm of culture, the these categories. A transnationally- While Russianists have long recognized the need to situate Russia—its language, point. But area studies, by contrast, spectacular global success of twenty- inflected Russian Studies, then, its culture, and its history—in a broad, comparative context, it is only in recent does have much more to say.”6 first-century Romanian cinema.would involve mapping “the ongoing years that scholars have begun to develop a new critical vocabulary and research Pussy Riot provides an intriguing complex and diverse construction of methodologies in response to the transnational turn that has swept the humanities This polemic against transnational example of multidirectional travel ‘the national’ through particular forms since the beginning of the twenty-first century. This editorial brings together three studies reprises the agon between that intertwines politics and culture: of boundary-making that goes on scholars in Russian Studies, each of whom has recently produced a book that seeks area studies and comparative initially influenced by the American around languages and cultures; and to contribute to this realignment of our field. Connor Doak is co-editor, with Andy transitology from the 1990s. Area riot grrrl scene, they were later able to the continuous parallel processes of 1 Byford and Stephen Hutchings, of Transnational Russian Studies (2020), Kevin M.F. studies scholars criticized the exert their own influences on Western crossing or transgressing, relativizing 2 Platt is the editor of Global Russian Cultures (2019), and Vlad Strukov is co-editor, transitologists’ universalism, their modes of protest. or reconfiguring, breaching or 3 with Sarah Hudspith, of Russian Culture in the Age of Globalization (2018). Our dismissal of language, culture, and When Kenney writes that there transcending the boundaries thus 9 three volumes differ in their critical vocabulary, methodological approaches and history, and their assumption, in is “no transnational story to tell,” he is constructed.” The book forms part of conclusions, but we share a common vision of a Russian Studies that opens up line with Francis Fukuyama, that the correct that there is no single linear a larger project, Transnational Modern the map of our field beyond the Russian Federation. Yet our aim is not simply to global spread of capitalism and liberal narrative in our region that follows a Languages, which seeks to give a extend the existing methodologies of Russian Studies to a larger canvas; rather, we democracy would result in the end predictable plot. There are, however, distinct identity to modern languages are also calling for an epistemological shift that requires us to look critically at the of history. Here, however, we make multiple transnational stories of how as an “expert mode of enquiry whose foundational assumptions of our field as they intersect with political histories and the case for a very different kind of people, cultural artefacts, and ideas founding research question is how realities, to interrogate our own positionality as researchers, and to re-assess our transnational studies. As Ian Tyrrell has move across geographical and political languages and cultures operate curricula at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. argued, the term transnational signals borders, stories of governments and and interact across diverse axes of 10 a distance from the “deterministic other institutions who have tried to connection.” Transnational Russian
NEWSNET March 2020 2 NEWSNET March 2020 3 Studies is the first in a book series that patriotism, nationalism, canon, and to function as forms of cultural capital, that cultures are best examined as will eventually include volumes on tradition. Yet no single concept both at home and on the global stage. discrete ethnolinguistic blocs. Such transnationalizing French, German, can fully account for the complex an approach has many benefits, and Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, as network of political, social, and Global Russian Cultures none of us would deny the value of well as a handbook to anchor the cultural developments, nor for the The title of Platt’s volume, Global linguistic expertise, thick cultural series. speed of cultural exchange in Russia Russian Cultures, signals an aim to descriptions, and deep historical and beyond. Strukov and Hudspith decenter Russian culture from the Transnational Russian Studies is knowledge. It is not our intention to conceive the transnational paradigm Russian Federation and to challenge divided into four sections, each of call for an end to institutions such as not only as an exploration of how conceptions of it as bounded and which contains four research-based Slavic Departments, journals, and the meaning crosses national borders, but singular. As Platt writes in the case studies. The first, “Nation, Empire, scholarly associations that sustain our also how it moves between different introduction, “both within and and Beyond,” brings together critical field. However, we should recognize forms of communication, and travels without the Russian Federation, perspectives on the multi-ethnic space that these institutional frameworks framework that imposes a singular— between the global and the local. In Russian culture is fragmented and and Hudspith. Yet Global Russian that constituted the Russian Empire make us vulnerable to a certain and often Western-centric— some discourses, this approach has multiple, and everywhere it is the Cultures is concerned primarily with and the Soviet Union, and where kind of methodological nationalism, evaluation of other countries vis- been labelled as “de-westernizing object of diverse and contradictory alternative Russian cultures that the Russian Federation still seeks to an epistemological stance which à-vis their projects of democratic the field.” On one level, Strukov and institutional, political, and economic have emerged outside the Russian retain influence. Contributors not only naturalizes the division of humanity development. Through this critique, Hudspith subscribe to this paradigm forces that seek to define and constrain Federation among diasporic and 15 consider the discourse that Russia used in broadly “national” terms. While we the editors and contributors free the because, for them, to de-westernize it.” 12 Global Russian Cultures highlights heritage communities that challenge in its claims to power in this region, must avoid tacit essentializations of discussion from familiar paradigms means to acknowledge how research the distinct cultural articulations of and redefine the boundaries of but also explore how culture circulates nationally-circumscribed cultures, we such as “the West versus Russia” and is shaped by the researcher’s own Russianness that flourish outside of “Russianness,” as well as with their transnationally within the region. must also avoid falling victim to the “the West versus the rest,” instead preconceptions and biases. On the Russian Federation, from Ukraine, political and social contestation. The second, “Between and Beyond risk of turning all cultural flows into a adopting a polycentric approach another level, they propose to read the Baltic states and Central Asia A separate chapter examines the Languages,” highlights the role that single all-subsuming global process. to the study of globalization as a Russian culture through a polycentric to Israel and the United States. As official project of the “Russian World,” language, especially in the domain of A transnational approach help us cultural phenomenon. Through lens, not solely through a non-Western one chapter argues, even within the while others detail the responses literature, plays in the transnational to navigate between the Scylla of a series of detailed case-studies, lens. The notion of “the transnational” Russian Federation, conceptions of of representatives of other “Russian flow of culture, addressing questions of exceptionalism (the fetishization of the contributors explore how becomes useful because it points a singular Russian culture compete cultures” to this project. Platt offers translation and (trans)national canon nations as “unique”) and the Charybdis contemporary Russian culture has to the porousness of borders and with the fragmented and multi-ethnic his book as standing “in opposition to formation. Paradoxically, language of globalism (the idea that language become a site of exchange among divisions in the modern world. imaginaries that are the legacy of the bounded and unitary conceptions is both the means of cross-cultural and culture are sheer ephemera in a many actors: regional and national, super-national Russian Imperial and of culture and identity that are communication and an obstacle Finally, the volume investigates highly globalized world). Russian and international, Kremlin- Soviet eras. Other chapters propose most often associated with national to it. The third section, “Cultures Russia’s own experiences, and visions 13 focused and grassroots, Russophone that “Russian cultures” need not be projects in and around Russia.” The strength of our field lies in Crossing Borders,” concentrates on of globalization, or what the editors and “other-phone.” As a result, Russian in Russian, in this light investigating: As he contends, because “diverse the value we give to a critical how Russian culture has travelled call “alternative globalities.” The culture emerges as a realm of global Russian-American writers such as conceptions of the geography of understanding of place, a concept that and been received and refashioned, contributors aim “not to trace how interactions requiring a different David Bezmozgis, Gary Shteyngart, Russian culture are all, and all to has gained a new importance in both including case studies from Europe globalization is bestowed on Russia conceptualization of “area studies” and Lara Vapnyar, who write in English the same degree, historically and the humanities and social sciences to sub-Saharan Africa, China, and but to investigate alternative notions and “cultural studies” as disciplines. In but acknowledge (yet also parody politically contingent projects … in recent years. As one geographer North America. Finally, “Russia Going of globality and how these globalities place of the tired approach that looks and challenge) their Russianness; there is no hierarchy of authenticity quipped, globalization has not meant Global” examines the place of Russia compete for leadership on the world at Russian culture as a form of political song-settings of Russian poetry that makes ‘national culture within “the end of geography” any more than in the twenty-first-century world, stage.”11 Of the three volumes, this opposition to the government, the by British composers; global non- its boundaries’ more authentic or just it has the “end of history”; rather, it has showing how Russia has responded is the one that deals most directly 14 contributors instead consider Russian Russian authors who write “Russian than diasporic or migrant culture.” meant “questions of locality, sense of to globalization and attempted to with contemporary Russia in the culture in the context of global Novels”; and the poets of the Orbita place, and of identity in place matter become a major player in what Putin “post-national era of globality” that Conclusion 16 concerns such as the changing role multimedia and poetry collective, now more than ever.” Similarly, likes to call a “multipolar” world. the editors date to 2014. Strukov The disciplinary and institutional of gender, or the spread of neoliberal based in Riga, whose works bridge nationally-defined languages and and Hudspith situate the culture of frameworks of our field, traditionally Russian Culture in the Age of economics and politics. the Latvian and Russian languages. cultures have proved their tenacity today’s Russia in its proper global circumscribed by national, linguistic Globalization in the twenty-first century, yet The contributors interrogate and geopolitical contexts, while Although a number of chapters place or area boundaries (Russian history, Russian Culture in the Age of to comprehend their resilience, cultural flows using a wide range also exploring how classical Russian the present into longer historical Slavic languages and literatures, a deep knowledge of individual Globalization starts with a critique of theoretical concepts such as literature and high culture continue perspective, Platt’s volume is Polish Studies), emerged from an of transitology as a conceptual languages, cultures, and regions organized around the contemporary implicit assumption, rooted in must be coupled with a transnational moment, like that of Strukov Herderian romantic nationalism,
NEWSNET March 2020 4 NEWSNET March 2020 5 ASEEES RESEARCH GRANTS
understanding of how they interact how we might transnationalize Song of Globalism,’” 3. ASEEES DISSERTATION RESEARCH GRANTS fund doctoral dissertation research in Eastern Europe and Eurasia in any aspect with, and are shaped by, the wider our undergraduate programs and 6 Ibid. 7 Ian Tyrrell, “What is Transnational His- of SEEE studies in any discipline. Thanks to generous donations, we are offering several grants in Women and Gender Studies, world. The translocal paradigm graduate training. tory” (blog post)
your input so that the resources can be made available more widely. Meanwhile, MLA’s teaching resources site, ASA’s webinar EEE AS S on Transitioning to Online Teaching, and Eliot Borenstein’s Facebook Group on Online Teaching Tips for the Plague-Averse may TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT ASEEES F be of use to some of you. U D T L U I E R F E O F T H E WWW.ASEEES.ORG/DONATE
NEWSNET March 2020 6 NEWSNET March 2020 7 Member Associations of JCREES
TABLE 1: MEMBER ASSOCIATIONS OF JCREES
Association Foundation Membership Journal year journals, while its member associations Japan Association for the 1950 463 Russian Language and continue to conduct these tasks (see Study of Russian Language Literature Studies (Japanese, Table 1). The member associations pay and Literature yearly)
JCREES small contributions, 20,000- Japanese Society for the 1956 257 Studies of Russian History 30,000 yen per year, most of which Study of Russian History (Japanese, semiyearly) is passed to ICCEES as a membership Japan Association for 1963 233 Japanese Journal of contribution (JCREES pays $1,000 to Comparative Economic Comparative Economics Studies (Japanese and English, ICCEES each year). JCREES plays an semiyearly) important role when it hosts world Japan Association for 1971 395 Russian and East European and regional (East Asian) Slavicist Russian and East European Studies (Japanese, yearly); conventions, including the 9th ICCEES Studies Japanese Slavic and East World Congress in Makuhari in 2015, European Studies (English and Russian, yearly) as well as the 1st (Sapporo), 5th (Osaka), and 10th (Tokyo) East Asian Japan Society for the Study 1984 About 50 Slavica Iaponica (Japanese of Slavic Languages and and other languages, yearly) Conferences on Slavic Eurasian Studies. Literature Disciplinary Proportion If we sum up all members of the five universities reorganized these chairs, and Eastern Europe, especially if we associations, we arrive at about 1,400 for example, into chairs of comparative consider the world-wide tendency of people. Yet a significant number of economics or just abolished them. de-regionalization (mathematicization) On Slavic and Eurasian Studies Japanese Slavicists belong to more than With the exception of these natural of economic studies. An undisputable one Slavicist association simultaneously. streamlining procedures, Japanese weakness of Slavic and Eurasian studies Dual membership between JAREES Slavic and Eurasian studies did not in Japan is the scarcity of political IN JAPAN (area study organization) and one of encounter the drastic shrinking of the scientists and IR specialists involved in the four disciplinary organizations is job market that our Western colleagues the area. Lacking their own disciplinary a widespread phenomenon, but even often suffered. If we did, this was association, these specialists, as a rule, KIMITAKA MATSUZATO, UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO / MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY / dual membership between disciplinary caused by a general crisis of university choose to enlist in JAREES. Based on SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY associations (for example, between education due to a decreasing youth the JAREES member list, I can identify the Russian history and Russian population, not by the end of the Cold only about 60 Japanese specialists in In contrast to similar associations in the US, Britain, Germany, and South Korea, the literature associations) is becoming War. Japanese universities seem more politics, IR, defense, and conflicts who Japanese Council for Russian and East European Studies (JCREES) is not a unitary all the more common in response to inert and less efficiency-oriented than are working on the former Soviet and organization based on individual members, but an umbrella organization or a union thriving interdisciplinary approaches. their Western counterparts. East European countries—a dearth of of four disciplinary and one area study associations.1 Before the birth of JCREES, If we control for these overlapping scholars in this area that damages the disciplinary Slavicist2 associations in Japan had developed in parallel since the 1950s. The Japan Association for Comparative memberships, perhaps 800-900 scholars whole academic community’s impact In search of a new identity for Slavic and Eurasian area studies after the collapse of Economic Studies was reorganized are involved in Slavic Eurasian studies in on Japanese society. socialist regimes and in order to have a legitimate representation in the International Japan. By a similar rough calculation, from the Japan Association for the Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES), Japanese Slavicists decided this number seems 200-300 fewer than Study of Socialist Economies in As a whole, in the Slavicist community to create JCREES in 1998. The Slavic Research Center (presently the Slavic-Eurasian the number of specialists on the Soviet 1993, so it includes specialists in in Japan, humanities specialists Research Center) of Hokkaido University was assigned to serve as JCREES’s secretariat. Union and Eastern Europe before 1991. Chinese, Vietnamese, Mongolian, numerically predominate over social After the establishment of JCREES, Hiroshi Kimura, who had been a de facto Japanese This discrepancy looks modest if we Cuban, and other former and present scientists. This proportion is similar delegate in ICCEES since the 1970s, was elected as the official Japanese representative. consider that the Japanese academic socialist economies. Specialists in to the American Slavicist community, This role was passed to Kimitaka Matsuzato in 2005 and from Matsuzato to Yoshiro world used to be comparatively left- the economies of Slavic and Eurasian in which historians and literature Ikeda, professor of the University of Tokyo, in 2015. oriented during the Cold War, when countries account for 70-80 percent of specialists are more numerous than the association’s membership, or 160- social scientists. Symptomatically, in JCREES holds executive meetings, attended by representatives of its member many university faculties of economics 180 economists. This number shows a both Japan and the US, the Slavicist associations, twice a year. Activities of JCREES as an umbrella organization significantly and pedagogy had professorial chairs commitment by Japanese economists community is comparatively large. differ from those of ASEEES, the German Association for East European Studies (DGO), of “socialist economy” and “socialist to specialize in the former Soviet Union In contrast, in the British and South and other monolithic national centers. It neither convenes conferences nor publishes pedagogy.” After 1991, unsurprisingly,
NEWSNET March 2020 8 NEWSNET March 2020 9 Korean Slavicist communities, we see institutions, but also local universities five specialists studying Transnistria. I Together with Asia the 9th ICCEES World Congress held ENDNOTES a numerical parity between humanities began to invite foreign scholars when often ridicule the mentality of Japanese in Makuhari in August 2015. This was 1 The only area study association in Japanese Until the beginning of this century, Slavic Eurasian studies is the Japan Association for specialists and social scientists, and they organized academic conferences. Slavicists by saying: “Ukraine is more East Asia did not have a regional the first ICCEES world congress held Russian and East European Studies (JAREES) covering the scale of their communities is The de facto decentralization of interesting than Russia, Moldova is Slavicist community. Asian Slavicists outside North America and Europe, various areas of the social sciences and humanities. relatively small, about 400 specialists Russia under President Boris Yeltsin more interesting than Ukraine, and in which 1,300 Slavicists from the There used to be two area study organizations—the were familiar with historiographies JAREES and the Japanese Society for Slavic and East in both countries. Humanities courses provoked an unprecedented boom in Transnistria is more interesting than in their target countries (the former world participated. Remarkably, 426 European Studies. They unified on April 1, 2018. at universities seem to provide young studies in regional politics of Russia. Moldova.” The United States has Soviet Union and Eastern Europe) and Japanese Slavicists participated in the 2 To save space in this paper, I use the word “Slavicists” to mean “specialists in the former Soviet Slavicists with more job opportunities. These significant changes in research various diaspora communities from in North America and Europe, but congress. This means that more than conditions equalized Japanese all over the world, excellent language a half of Japanese Slavicists presented Union and Eastern Europe” or “scholars studying Methodological Characteristics hardly knew what their colleagues Slavic and Eurasian territories.” (disadvantaged until 1989) and Euro- training systems at graduate schools, papers in English or Russian. in the neighboring countries were 3 Indeed, before long, the Korean How do Japanese specialists approach American (relatively advantaged) and a large-scale academic community, doing. There was no intra-regional In my view, the next stage of intra- association normalized its relations with the ICCEES, Slavic and Eurasian studies? As a specialists in the Soviet Union. We stood which allows narrow specialization of which accepted the Chinese association as its full professional cooperation in East Asia regional cooperation of Asian Slavicists member in 2010. political scientist and historian, I will on the same start line and began to run. individual scholars. Japan lacks all these that was comparable to the cooperation is to intensify our collaboration limit my description to within my own conditions. Nevertheless, Japanese 4 For example, Yasuhiro Matsui, ed., Perhaps one of the most salient between North America, Britain, in undergraduate and graduate Obshchestvennost’ and Civic Agency in Late Imperial disciplines. Japanese Soviet studies Slavicists’ interest has been closer to the and Soviet Russia: Interface between State and Society characteristics of Slavic and Eurasian and Continental Europe. One may education. In this respect, the People’s were significantly disadvantaged by the interest of their American colleagues (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2015); Kimitaka Matsuzato, studies in Japan is the low barrier characterize this intellectual structure, Republic of China and Kazakhstan ed., Russia and Its Northeast Asian Neighbors: China, lack of chances for graduate students than to the interest of their South Korean between the humanities and social which we have tried to overcome for are playing a driving role. These Japan, and Korea. 1858-1945 (Rowman & Littlefield, to study in the Soviet Union. Because and Chinese colleagues, whose interest 2017).; and David Wolff, Yokote Shinji, and Willard sciences. Even presently, a number the last 15 years, as colonial. In March two countries actively invite Asian of the territorial dispute between the continues to be highly Russia-centric. Sunderland, eds., Russia’s Great War and Revolution in of historians who have written their 2008, the Slavicist associations in China, professors for undergraduate and the Far East: Re-imaging the Northeast Asian Theater, USSR and Japan, there was no exchange In China and South Korea, even Ukraine 1914-22 (Slavica, 2018). doctoral dissertations on Russian or Japan, and Korea had a summit meeting graduate education of young Slavicists. of graduate students between them. specialists are very few. The reason Soviet history requalify to study post- in Seoul, which composed a protocol Intensifying intra-Asian collaboration Until the 1980s, Japanese graduate for Japanese specialists’ indulgence in to hold a regional Slavicist conference CALL FOR ARTICLES students wrote doctoral dissertations Soviet politics. Until the recent past, enhances the exposure of Slavic and small objects and small issues is that, each year, actively involve themselves Please consider submitting articles to be quantitative methods have not been Eurasian studies in Asia to the world, published in future NewsNets. Articles are on Russian and Soviet history without in my view, before 1991, Japanese 3 influential in post-socialist political in ICCEES activities, and invite the particularly via English-language typically brief essays on contemporary issues or reading archives. This deficit often intellectual youth became interested in studies in Japan. I graduated from the 2015 ICCEES World Congress to East publications. When I published my first matters of broad professional interest. They can determined the scholars’ research style Soviet studies because the Soviet Union include discussions of new research, institutions, Graduate School for Law and Politics Asia. We have realized all of these. Last article in an English-language journal till the end of their professional life. was an important country politically, resources etc. NewsNet is not a venue for of the University of Tokyo in the early June, the 10th East Asian Conference (The Russian Review), I was already 36 extensive research essays; most cover articles are The situation changed when the Soviet historically, and culturally. Currently, in 2,500 words in length. We encourage members, 1990s, but statistics was not a part of on Slavic Eurasian Studies was held at years old. My graduate students publish and Japanese governments concluded contrast, Slavic and Eurasian territories including graduate students, who are interested my training. This is inconceivable in the the University of Tokyo, in which about their first article in international English- in proposing an article to contact the NewsNet an agreement on the exchange of attract the post-Cold War generation US. Though the situation is changing 250 Slavicists participated, not only language journals in their 20s. In recent Editor, Trevor Erlacher ([email protected]). graduate students in 1989. Fortunately, by their ethno-confessional and cultural now, our generation learnt political from Asia, but also from North America, years, several Japanese Slavicists this was the time when Soviet local variety. No doubt, this is an academic The views expressed in NewsNet articles science via history studies. Due to the Europe, and former socialist countries. have edited collections in English are solely the views of the author and do not cities began to be opened to foreigners. merit that makes Slavic and Eurasian necessarily reflect the views or policies of lack of statistical expertise, it is difficult During the last decade, new national and published them via prestigious Foreign graduate students suddenly studies in Japan competitive, but ASEEES or its staff. for us to match American political Slavicist associations have appeared American and European publishers.4 enjoyed opportunities to work not only this same merit widens discrepancies scientists when we analyze elections in Mongolia and Kazakhstan that On the other hand, English-language in Moscow and Leningrad archives, between the academic community and and public opinion surveys. Yet we soon became full members of ICCEES. publications by Japanese Slavicists but also in local archives. Political public interest. Japanese mass media Index of Advertisers are sufficiently qualified when we The young Mongolian association have been far too few, and only 20 to 30 scientists all at once obtained chances are interested in Kremlin politics and American Councils/ACTR 19 analyze religious, ethnic, and language successfully hosted the 9th East Asian scholars participate in ASEEES annual American Cultural Exchange Service 30 to interview politicians and political diagnosis of the next Russian elections, Conference on Slavic Eurasian Studies Kritika/Slavica/ Three Strings Books 22 activists in the Soviet Union. After problems since we have a relatively conventions. Japanese Slavicists should with which academics are not very in Ulaanbaatar in 2018, and the SRAS 13 the collapse of the Soviet Union, the strong humanitarian basis. consider how to go further. familiar. Japanese mass media have Kazakhstan association is preparing for forefront of fieldwork spread beyond the In addition to articles and news columns, The second feature of Slavic and lost interest even in the Ukrainian crisis the East Asian conference in Nur-Sultan Kimitaka Matsuzato is a Professor at NewsNet also features a limited number of border of union and republican capitals Eurasian specialists in Japan is their because this has become an old issue. the University of Tokyo specializing in advertisements from various organizations in 2021. presenting scholarly publications, products, to the countryside, even including penchant for small units, regions, As a result, Japanese journalists hardly the history and politics of post-socialist services, or opportunities of interest to those the county level. Not only capital localities, peripheries, and small nations. interview Slavic and Eurasian specialists The most significant contributioncountries. in the Russian, Eurasian, and Central European fields. Please contact [email protected] for rates, universities and Academy of Sciences For example, in Japan, there are at least when they wish to investigate the region. made by the Japanese Slavicist specs and production schedule. community in the last decade was
NEWSNET March 2020 10 NEWSNET March 2020 11 Initially, that aspiration seemed for the better part of a year. There were, unlikely to progress very far. The moreover, two other matters that publishing house, Truth and Wisdom might have complicated the whole Press (Shanghai), failed at first to obtain process of producing a satisfactorily the requisite permission from the completed book. national censorship authorities, even though, according to the translator, the One of these involved the interaction President of the Press (Weiwen Fan), between Truth and Wisdom Press and had been an advocate for the book and the national Censorship Board, which shared her appreciation for it. a rendered a decision that might have produced a genuine quarrel That favorable evaluation by the into a single Chinese word for political had the situation been otherwise. president was initially not enough power,” whereas she opted to use The other concerned the Press to receive the endorsement of the two Chinese words, one for political editor’s announced plan to add an censors. The book was rejected by the power, the other for political system, introduction by a Chinese historian. latter and “shelved for a year,” Hengfu depending on the context. This was Xin reported in late 2017. A year later, but one of the issues that had to be The issue between the Censorship however, the book “was finally allowed resolved. Somewhat for publication, which was our [good] surprisingly to me, fortune.” Even so, there were still the translator and the Go Abroad with possible roadblocks, as my translator editorial committee Ruling Russia in China cautioned: “These days, the official viewed me as the Study Abroad media have still been commemorating arbiter when she and • Russian as a Second Language (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Bishkek, Kyiv) the October Revolution.” Hengfu Xin the board divided. “I • Language and Environment (Irkutsk) worried that this situation might affect have struggled with the • Language and Society (St. Petersburg) WILLIAM ZIMMERMAN, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN the book’s translation and publication. editorial team and you • Policy and Conflict in the Post-Soviet Space (Kyiv) • Central Asian Studies (Bishkek) In the summer of 2014, Foreign Affairs published a review article by Keith Gessen, “Right now, we’re just facing the ‘last are my best support,” • Diplomacy & International Relations at MGIMO (Moscow) “What’s the Matter with Russia? Putin and the Soviet Legacy.” The review was based fight,’ but I believe we’ll also eventually she wrote. Importantly, • Semester at HSE (Moscow) win it,” she wrote in an email (November • Russia and the Asia-Pacific (Vladivostok) on two books, one by me (Ruling Russia: Authoritarianism from the Revolution to this was a view endorsed • Spring Break: Introduction to Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) Putin, Princeton University Press, 2014), the other by Orlando Figes (Revolutionary 10, 2017). by the Press President • The Cuba-Russia Connection: Studies in Cultural Diplomacy as well. When “I handed (Havana and St. Petersburg) Russia, Metropolitan Books, 2014). Since then, Ruling Russia has been published in And eventually they did. There followed • St. Petersburg Summer School (media, energy, museum studies) in my revision of the paperback (2016), German (Russland Regieren, Philipp von Zabern, 2015), and, most more than a year of exchanges between • Security and Society in the Information Age (Warsaw) translation,” Hengfu Xin recently, in Chinese (Truth and Wisdom Press, 2018). Having spent a sizeable fraction me and Hengfu Xin, and meetings reported. “I talked to the Custom (Faculty-Led) Programs of my professional life writing about various authoritarian regimes, the publication between her and the editorial team. • Logistics (visas, housing, transportation) Press President, who of a Chinese version of Ruling Russia strikes me as something of a big deal, one Most of our exchanges touched on • Academics (lectures, seminars, roundtables) agreed that respecting • Experiential learning (service learning, travel, workshops) that calls for readers of Slavic Review and NewsNet, myself included, to rethink our the meanings of my texts and her the original intention of • Cultural programming (excursions, performances) expectations about the prospects for a range of book translations in China. disagreements with the editorial team • Program development and promotion the author is the most that oversaw the translation of the How Ruling Russia came to be published in Chinese takes some telling. The leading important above all” manuscript. An important example of Archive Assistance advocate for publishing the book was the translator, Hengfu Xin. As I quickly came (email, November 9, • Visas the latter turned on the word “regime,” to realize, she turned out to be both resourceful and purposeful. To my request for 2017). • Translation a term that appears frequently in • Archive orientation permission to cite her, she responded: “Thank you so much for asking! Actually, I’m • Remote research services quite liberal. You can cite me whatever way you like” (email, September 28, 2018). Ruling Russia. (The translation was Issues concerning She obtained Ruling Russia the way most of us obtain books: from Amazon. It was a bit tricky, since “regime” involved proper translation, both SRAS Family of Sites her “luck to find the book before it was published three years ago” (email, November going from French to English and then in dealing with me and • Folkways.today 10, 2017). Her “original purpose [in] translating it,” she related “was to show the true to Chinese.) The editorial team, the achieving the approval • GeoHistory.today translator complained, wanted her to • PopKult.org history of Russian politics to [the] Chinese people.” of the editorial team, • MuseumStudiesAbroad.org “translate the word ‘regime’ uniformly occupied the translator • SRASStudents.org SRAS.org
NEWSNET March 2020 12 NEWSNET March 2020 13 Can
Board and the publishing house preface would receive a tidy sum for tempting to generalize a bit. Students turned on the question of how to deal exposing the malevolent distortions of the history of Communism will with the Russian annexation of Crimea. of the Western author. Readers in the recognize the ploy of a liberal editor The Censorship Board had strong know would simply skip the preface securing a notoriously reactionary views on the matter. The hardcover, and turn to the subsequent chapters Party hack to write a preface exposing English-language version of Ruling to ascertain what the Western author the erroneous views of the author. Russia (2014) had provided a map actually had in mind. My translator With hindsight, though, what strikes of Russia and environs that showed had a similar interpretation of what me is that the Publishing House and Crimea as part of Ukraine. The 2016 was driving the editor’s plan to have the Censorship Board did not diverge paperback version had recognized the someone write a preface for Ruling over conventional literary issues. reality that Crimea had become a part Russia. She informed me that the Rather, what the Censorship Board of Russia and the map was adjusted preface writer was a “Russian studies was most concerned to emphasize accordingly. I think the Censorship expert [who] has a strong government had to do with geopolitical territorial Board was working with the hardcover background, which I don’t like.” issues characteristic of China’s copy of Ruling Russia and was unaware emergence as a major power. The A full year went by. On the eve of the of the updated map in the paperback Board was determined to be seen as scheduled publication, it appeared version. When Truth and Wisdom Press supporting the changing of borders that the President of the press submitted Ruling Russia to the censors in Crimea—a view that makes most was sticking to the plan of having for final approval, the Board’s response sense when thought of as being someone write an introduction. “Even was to insist that the map of Russia analogous to developments along at [this] very late stage,” Hengfu Xin be deleted. This was easily enough China’s coastal boundaries, where wrote, “the editor confirmed that to done, and the page was deleted. I am Beijing has cultivated its own claims. me” (September 29, 2018). But for pretty sure that the Censorship Board This suggests that Western efforts to reasons neither my translator nor folks thought it had successfully coerced publish scholarship in China devoted at Princeton Press in Shanghai were Truth and Wisdom Press to show that to Russian domestic politics and To See Paris and Die, An Interview with able to explain, that decision was Crimea was a part of Russia by having history may entail fewer impediments abruptly canceled. What happened? Eleanory Gilburd them omit the map. That show of force than Western scholarship focusing on “I really don’t know what actually accomplished, the Censorship Board the interpretation of Russia’s foreign happened,” Hengu Xin wrote in the fall signed off and allowed the book to be policy or its role as a major power. of 2018. “All of a sudden, she [the Press INTERVIEW BY SEAN GUILLORY, UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH published with no other changes. President] told me time was up, the William Zimmerman is Research The other possible impediment to introduction won’t be ready in time.” Professor Emeritus at the University of Note: This is a modified and abridged transcription of the interview featuring Eleanory deferring the deal on the publication The editor evidently proceeded with Michigan Center for Political Studies. Gilburd, winner of the 2019 Wayne S. Vucinich Prize for To See Paris and Die (Harvard of the book turned on a decision by market and publication costs in mind University Press.). Other subjects, including censorship, art exhibitions, film, and the Editor/President of the press. and was considerably less concerned American versus European cultural imports, were also discussed. For the full interview, about conforming to Party views that I learned from the translator that go to Sean’s Russia Blog. Weiwen Fan was planning to get a were central to the thinking of the ASEEES Awards First Book historian to write an introduction to censors in Beijing. Subvention in Spring 2020 Sean Guillory: I want to ask you about the title: I assume it’s a quote from one of your the book. My immediate reaction sources. In any event, the Chinese language was that I had seen this movie before. version of Ruling Russia was published The winners of the Spring 2020 First Book Eleonory Gilburd: The origin of the line is ambiguous for me. The line is usually Forty of fifty years ago, publishers in Subvention are: in late fall 2018, with the approval attributed in a clichéd kind of way to Ilya Ehrenburg and to his book, My Paris, from Russia and in other parts of Eastern of the censors, without a map, and 1931. […] The line doesn’t come from any particular source. It’s a set expression, Europe typically secured the services Cornell University Press for Nested without a preface. Chinese readers Nationalism: Making and Unmaking Nations an idiom in Russian. It’s a paraphrase of “To see Naples and die,” which received of a notoriously reactionary author or were left with the task of interpreting in the Soviet Caucasus by Krista A. Goff common currency after Goethe had used it in his Italian travelogues. In a more specialist to write a preface to a book the book on their own. immediate context than Goethe, the phrase was used as a title of a film. After the that otherwise might not pass muster Columbia University Press for with the censors. That ploy often What are we to make of this? I am Internationalist Aesthetics: The Role of China Soviet Union disintegrated, there were several prominent films that reconsidered permitted the published to do an end averse to generalizing on the basis in Early Soviet Culture by Edward Tyerman the place of the Western world, and Paris specifically, in Soviet lives. One of these run on the censors. The author of the of a sample of one. It is, however, films was Aleksandr Proshkin’s To See Paris and Die from 1992. This film is a story
NEWSNET March 2020 14 NEWSNET March 2020 15 “The reason that the fifties and sixties is one of the constitutive moments in the history of westernization is that it becomes of a woman, Elena, and her grownup the distribution of Western culture. culture, they were deeply interrelated. postwar Soviet history? a mass phenomenon, [accessible] musician son. They live in a communal For all these reasons, the Thaw is a The modernist canon, to which some EG: I try to locate the Thaw-era to a broad strata of the apartment with all sorts of unpleasant special moment. of these artists and writers belonged, opening to the West in a much longer population.” characters, eavesdropping and was entirely non-canonical for Soviet trajectory of westernization in Russia. But that is not all. For this moment also spying on the intimate life of others. audiences; translation created its For me, it’s not an isolated moment, overlaps—and not accidentally—with The time period is the 1960s. Elena, own canon, eclectic stylistically but a unique one. It is distinguished by social sense, so that westernization is a reevaluation of Soviet history, of the main protagonist, has a past to and chronologically. To give you several features from any other period no longer a prerogative of the elite. socialist realism, of class morality, of the hide, because she is determined at an example, in interwar Europe, of Westernization. There are several The reason that the fifties and sixties very language of politics, of literature, all cost to have her son included in Remarque’s novels were read for bitter consistent points that we would find is one of the constitutive moments in visual language, emotional language. a delegation of Soviet musicians pacifism. […] In the Soviet context, in other such moments of intense the history of westernization is that And it is into this context that Russian going to Paris to perform. And no work that I was observing the archives that, of course, was there, but other Western importation and of course. it becomes a mass phenomenon, translations of Western texts and moral compromise is too grave for gets lost, along with entire layers of themes were important, perhaps Translation—unsurprisingly—is [accessible] to a broad strata of the films arrive, where they begin to live a this goal. When she thinks the goal is meaning that are introduced by the more important, themes like the central [to all moments of openness]. population. These people turn on the Soviet life, begin to change under its unreachable, when all her plans seem new context into these imports. fate of a lone man, like the salvation The reformist tradition in Russia over radio in 1954 and 1956, and hear Yves impact and, in their turn, they impact to have collapsed, she dies, by her we find in love and friendship. Or centuries was closely connected to Montand. A little later, they turn on this reevaluation of values. SG: It also gives the impression of a own hand, having closed doors and if we take Italian neorealist cinema openness and closedness to Western the radio and hear Ilya Ehrenburg’s passive consumption, that Russians are windows and opened the gas. SG: Talk a bit about translation as an and French historical drama, with cultural presence. In any period of such lectures on the Impressionists, whom just receivers of culture from the West, analytical concept for you, but also as it costumes, and fencing, and the The phrase stands for life’s ultimate intense westernization, xenophobia they had never seen before and had and the best they can do is mimic it. was practiced in this formative period. theatrical staging of it all. These are fulfilment and it also has a sense went hand in hand with openness— no idea what he was talking about. EG: You’re absolutely right: EG: Right. Translation allows me to opposing aesthetic phenomena. of fatality and finality to it – that is, both occurred simultaneously, rather Their curiosity was piqued, and they translation in a very broad sense is reinstate that very active, creative But Soviet viewers looked for other that there is nothing else that’s left than being opposite. The Thaw wanted to know more. These are the key paradigm in this book. First role and the meanings invested in things and they found passion, and to experience after seeing Paris. You inherited ideological positions from provincial teachers, agronomists, and foremost, as you said, it is a these imports as they cross linguistic intimacy, and love, and torment. might as well die: there aren’t any the revolutionary 1920s and also engineers. I am talking about the mechanism of transfer into another and geopolitical borders, where other experiences that are left that institutions that were established capitals, but also about provincial SG: One of the key events that you open context, it is crucial as a process of they assume new connotation and can actually best the fulfilment of in the 1920s and reached their full towns, sometimes new towns. These your study with is the Sixth International naturalization. Translation highlights intonation. And they lose something that longing. expression in the 1930s. are oftentimes dusty settlements Youth Festival in 1957. This seems [to the channels of transfer. When I was of their original meanings from their where water pipes are just being be] a key moment; several historians SG: Why does this phrase capture your I think the Thaw was unique and getting ready to go to the archives to own domestic context. laid, but where a movie theater was have looked at it from a variety of book for a title? remarkable in this history, it actually do this project, I wasn’t planning to already built. I don’t know of another SG: Talk about the process of translation, different angles. What was this festival EG: The reason I thought it is so apt altered the vector of the history of write about translation. In my original moment of such democratization and and how it deterritorializes a piece of and why was it so significant? for my book’s title is that I tried to westernization, in that it was the vision, the centerpiece was cultural popularization of Western culture culture that, say, comes from France, convey this longing, I tried to convey first moment of Westernization on a diplomacy. That is still there, about and reterritorializes it in a Soviet context. EG: It is, of course, one of the central mass scale. I think you correctly state with so broad a distribution. events of the Thaw. For different the unreachability, the intensity of a third of the book is about cultural EG: One of the things that I found emotional investment, and the desire one of the arguments, one of the Among the reasons, I should say, for diplomacy. But after working in the historians it means different things. conclusions in the book—that the the social and geographic broadness so interesting and thought was For me, the festival was the Soviet that impossibility, that unreachability archives, I wanted to find something curious is how Soviet life brought had sustained over decades – but process that starts in the mid-1950s of this phenomenon was Soviet that would allow me to convey an Union’s first mega-event. That is not persists until the end of the Soviet education and the way that people together what we would consider to say that the Soviet Union had not I also tried to convey the tragedy active, creative role of the receiving incompatible aesthetic phenomena, behind the fulfilment of that desire. Union. In many ways, I think, the Thaw were assigned to jobs after graduation context that I was observing in the had international events before; it defined a tendency that continues to all across the Soviet Union. Among characters who had very little in did, but those were leftist events. SG: I want you to paint the context for archives, to convey the work of this day: the centrality of consumer the reasons was the Soviet cultural common. I have certain pairs of This is the first event that began the your study. A lot of your story takes people like Ehrenburg, or one of the objects to westernization, new media project itself, founded on the idea of people or aesthetic movements, transformation of Moscow from a place during the Thaw, and you note translators and the main interpreter and technologies as channels of classics for the masses. Among the such as Picasso and Rockwell Kent, or city of international leftist events that Western culture enters the Soviet of Hemingway, Ivan Kashkin […]. I was Western culture, tourism as one of the reasons was new media: radio and Hemingway and Remarque, or Italian to a city of mega-events. The youth Union as never before and, after the tired of the usual concepts about the formative aspects of westernization, cinema in the 1950s and 60s, and neorealists and French historical festival invited foreigners from across Thaw, remains a part of Soviet life. How imitative nature of Russian culture, [and] the very broad distribution in a television later, played a huge role in drama. In the West, you’d rarely put the world. […] There were about do you understand this moment in about derivativeness, original and somebody like Picasso and Rockwell copy. In these concepts the creative 34,000 foreigners and two weeks of Kent in the same line. But in Soviet cultural celebrations, athletic events,
NEWSNET March 2020 16 NEWSNET March 2020 17 performances, and political and Moscow that we know today were in third-rate movie theaters on the cultural debate. colonized. Little buildings were razed outskirts of cities or in working-class STUDY ABROAD In the book, the festival serves to the ground and big buildings neighborhoods. And they want Soviet as a structural center, because were erected in their stead. Like exports to be in the spotlight, they it features all the threads that I other mega-events, the festival led to want Soviet films to be screened in develop in subsequent chapters. I substantial changes in infrastructure. the very centers of European capitals see the festival, first and foremost, One of the important and interesting in first-rate movie theaters. And they as a literary invention, an incredible aspects about festival planning, for are willing to enter into standard invention on paper. Before various me, is that the city of Moscow was practices of cultural diplomacy, plans, figures, and pictures came modeled according to Olympic cities. they are willing to engage with the alive in the streets, they had been [At] the Olympic games in Melbourne, capitalist world, they are willing to imagined by festival planners and besides the Soviet athletic delegation sign cultural exchange agreements. narrated on paper. I see it as a utopian participating in the games, there were The exchange agreements, renewed project in search of an ideal language, all sorts of bureaucrats from various every few years, are very formulaic, that is, a universal language. And ministries to see how an Olympic city they quantify everything, they are in the 1950s this language was the would look like. That Moscow was tedious to read through, but they are GO BEYOND ORDINARY WITH AMERICAN COUNCILS language of culture. There were lots modeled according to the Melbourne the scaffolding upon which this entire of dictionaries published for the example is very telling. […] edifice of Western imports is built. festival, lots of language instruction. SG: How do you understand the attempt [What is] innovative during the Thaw Advanced Russian Language & Area Studies Program (RLASP) is that they want to step out of leftist But it’s important to say that linguistic to make the Soviet Union part of world Study Russian language and culture through intensive instruction, confines, of communist enclaves fluency was suspect: foreigners who culture in the postwar period? conversation partners, regional field studies, volunteering, and internships. were fluent in Russian were surveilled and leftist neighborhoods—and EG: I don’t think it is, in its most they want to appear on Main street. Offered in Moscow, Vladimir, St. Petersburg, and Almaty, Kazakhstan. and followed in the streets more cynical expression, unique to the than other foreigners. The language […] This goes to the heart of your Thaw. Soviet cultural leaders had questions about how they imagine that the festival planners really had always imagined what they were Eurasian Regional Language Program (ERLP) in mind was the language of culture, themselves and Soviet culture as part building both as part of European of Western and more global cultural Study one of 18 less commonly-taught languages in nine Eurasian countries, literary archetypes, painting, cinema, culture and as having universal dance, and gesture, and this is the scene: they want to be on Main including Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajiki), significance for the rest of the world. street[…] language that the festival wanted I don’t think they are innovative in Turkish, Ukrainian, Uzbek, and more. Eleonory Gilburd is an Assistant Professor of to speak when its creators, artists, this sense. They are innovative during planners returned time and again— History at the University of Chicago. Gilburd the Thaw in a different sense. They specializes in the history of modern Russia and and this shows up in the documents want to appeal to ordinary people the Soviet Union, with a particular interest in Balkan Language Initiative (BLI) so poignantly and also surprisingly— abroad. In the mid-1950s, they were Soviet culture, society, and their international Study one of five Balkan languages in an immersive environment. Offered in to the story of the Tower of Babel. increasingly realizing that they had context. She is currently at work on two book projects: Weary Sun explores the history of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Like other major initiatives of the been preaching to the converted for tango in Stalinist Russia and Eastern Europe. and Serbia. Thaw, the festival left an enduring decades. They increasingly realized The Entangled Histories of Soviet Newspeak legacy not eclipsed in later decades. that nobody was watching Soviet films and the Russian Language in the Twentieth It was in some sense a Potemkin in Europe and the United States, nor Century describes the rise and fall of Soviet Scholarships are available for all programs. village, because they were talking reading Soviet magazines specifically newspeak as a language bound to the daily uses and reforms of Russian itself. about central streets, about Moscow, produced for distribution abroad, Applications for Spring 2021 programs are due October 15. Eligibility and about building facades. But it nobody except for a narrow circle of Sean Guillory (@seansrussiablog) is the Digital was much more than that, because people associated with the so-called Scholarship Curator at the University of requirements, financial aid, and applications are available at: Pittsburgh Center for Russian, East European so much was created in brick and friendship societies, that nobody was & Eurasian Studies. He hosts Sean’s Russia Blog www.acStudyAbroad.org stone. Entire neighborhoods of watching Soviet films, often screened podcast. Questions? Contact us: [email protected]
NEWSNET March 2020 18 NEWSNET March 2020 19 PUBLICATIONS transformed the trajectory of women’s published in English for the first time. lives. McKinney considers everyday In August 2019, Oxford University Press Jonathan Waterlow recently published It’s experiences of women as they provided Trumping Politics as Usual: Masculinity, published And Then Came Dance: The Only a Joke, Comrade! Humour, Trust and for their families, established businesses, Misogyny, and the 2016 Elections, by Robert Women Who Led Volynsky to Ballet's Magic Everyday Life under Stalin (Create Space, traveled abroad, and adjusted to the new G. Boatright and Valerie Sperling, was KIngdom, translated, edited, and with an June 2018). economic, political and social environment published by Oxford University Press in introduction by Stanley J. Rabinowitz. Drawing on diaries, interviews, of the late Soviet and post-Soviet eras. This October 2019. Presidential campaigns Presenting for the first time Akim Volynsky's memoirs and previously secret documents, book casts light on how these women view often have an impact on downballot (1861-1926) pre-balletic musings on It’s Only a Joke, Comrade! uncovers how Soviet issues of gender, ethnicity, domestic and Congressional races, but the 2016 election Leonardo da Vinci, Fyodor Dostoevsky, citizens joked, coped, and struggled to adapt international politics, and the end of the provided a new opportunity to see the Otto Weininger, Liubov Gurevich, Zinaida in Stalin’s brave new world. It asks what it Soviet experiment. effects of misogyny. While much has been Gippius, Ida Rubinstein, and Lou Andreas- really means to live under a dictatorship: written about the 2016 election--and the Salome, the book provides new insight How do people make sense of their lives? Subverting Communism in Romania Law shadow of 2016 clearly affected the pool into the origins of Volynsky's journey to How do they talk about it? And whom can and Private Property, 1945–1965 (Lexington of candidates in the 2018 midterms--this become one of Russia's foremost dance they trust to do so? The book reveals how Books, August 2019), by Mihaela Şerban, book looks at how the Trump and Clinton critics. More than thirty ballet reviews ordinary people found their way and even explores the role of law in everyday life and as campaigns changed the behavior of more follow, presenting portraits of the most found themselves in a life lived along the a mechanism for social change during early conventional candidates for Congress in famous ballerinas of his time. fault-lines between rhetoric and reality. communism in Romania. Şerban focuses on 2016 and 2018. the regime’s attempts to extinguish private Gendered Violence: Jewish Women in Learning To Become Turkmen: Literacy, property through housing nationalization Arve Hansen, Andrei Rogatchevski, Yngvar the Pogroms of 1917 to 1921, by Irina Language, and Power, 1914-2014, by and expropriation. The book draws Steinholt, and David-Emil Wickström Astashkevich, was published by Academic Victoria Clement, was published by the from archives that have opened up new published the monograph A War of Songs: Studies Press in late 2018. University of Pittsburgh Press in August perspectives for understanding a mundane Popular Music and Recent Russia-Ukraine Between 1917 and 1921, rape was 2018. It examines the ways in which yet crucial part of the modern human Relations (Ibidem Verlag / Columbia used as a strategic weapon in the genocidal the iconography of everyday life—in experience: one’s home and the institution University Press, May 2019), with chapters anti-Jewish violence—the pogroms—that dramatically different alphabets, multiple of private property that often sustains it. entitled: “Pop Rock, Ethno-Chaos, Battle erupted in Ukraine. During this period, languages, and shifting education Drums, and a Requiem: The Sounds of the at least 100,000 Jews died and unknown policies—reflects the evolution of “Tatrzański Orzeł/The Tatra Eagle“ was a Ukrainian Revolution,” “The Euromaidan’s numbers of Jewish women were raped. Turkmen society in Central Asia over the bilingual quarterly published from 1947 to Aftermath and the Genre of Answer Song,” The book analyzes how the victimized past century. 2019 by Thaddeus V. Gromada and Janina and “‘Lasha Tumbai’, or ‘Russia, Goodbye’? Jewish communities experienced trauma, Gromada Kedroń. The editors prepared The Eurovision Song Contest as a Post- how they expressed it, the motives of the A Reader’s Companion to Mikhail Bulgakov’s an Indeks/Index in anticipation of the Soviet Geopolitical Battleground.” perpetrators, and the part played by rape The Master and Margarita, by J. A. E. Curtis, digitalization of the journal by the Podhalan in furthering the pogroms’ objectives. was published by Academic Studies Press Digital Library (PDL). The Indeks/Index is a Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust in December 2019. treasury of information about the Polish Remembrance after Communism, by Global Russian Cultures, edited by Kevin This work offers a biographical Highlander Folk Culture and its impact on Jelena Subotić, was published by Cornell M. F. Platt (University of Wisconsin Press, introduction, and analyses of the structure Polish national culture as well as information University Press in December 2019. January 2019), considers questions about and the main themes of the novel. Readers about the Góral diaspora in America. The book demonstrates how the literary and cultural life of Russians who will also enjoy the accounts of the novel’s East European states used Holocaust dispersed to the US, Europe, and Israel, or writing and publication history, alongside Tolstoy Studies journal published its first remembrance as a political strategy to who remained after the collapse of the analyses of the work’s astonishing linguistic monograph in place of the its Volume resolve their contemporary “ontological USSR in Ukraine, the Baltic states, and the complexity and a review of available 30. Tolstoy’s On Life. From the Archival insecurities”—insecurities about their Central Asian states. The contributors treat English translations. History of Russian Philosophy, by Inessa identities, about their international status, the different global Russian cultures as Medzhibovskaya, was released September and about their relationships with other independent entities of Russian cultural Last fall, Palgrave-Macmillan published 2019. In this first book-length study of international actors. As Subotić concludes, life. This volume contends that no state or Judith McKinney’s book Russian Women Tolstoy’s meditation on death, life, love, Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe has society can lay claim to be the single or and the End of Soviet Socialism: Everyday and happiness, Medzhibovskaya focuses never been about the Holocaust or about authentic representative of Russianness. Experience of Economic Change. on unknown documents and stories the desire to remember the past, whether And it contests the conceptions of culture This book examines price that illuminate the realities of Russian during communism or in its aftermath. and identity at the root of nation-building liberalization, privatization and philosophical culture at the end of the Rather, it has been about managing long nineteenth century. Bookending the projects in and around Russia. macroeconomic stabilization introduced national identities in a precarious and volume is an appendix with documents under Yeltsin, and explores how they uncertain world.
NEWSNET March 2020 20 NEWSNET March 2020 21 New from Slavica PubliSherS Three String Books is an imprint of Slavica Publishers devoted to transla- Alexander Marshall, John W. Stein- few political developments anywhere tions of literary works and belles-lettres berg, and Steven Sabol, eds. The in the world in 1917–24 not directly from Central and Eastern Europe, in- Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War or indirectly influenced by the revo- cluding Russia and the other successor and Revolution, Book 1: The Arc of lution. The Arc of Revolution, the first states of the former Soviet Union. Revolution, xix + 569 p., 2019 (ISBN book, examines the reverberations of 978-0-89357-432-1), $44.95. the revolution in the geographically Talasbek Asemkulov. A Life at Noon, contiguous imperial borderlands tra- 2020 ASEEES PRIZES Choi Chatterjee, Steven G. Marks, trans. Shelley Fairweather-Vega, xii + ditionally contested between impe- Mary Neuburger, and Steven Sabol, 210 p., 2019 (ISBN 978-089357-500-7), rial Russia and its geopolitical rivals: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS eds. The Global Impacts of Russia’s $29.95. Great War and Revolution, Book 2, the terrain stretching from Finland, The Wider Arc of Revolution, Part 1: through Central Europe to the Trans- Azhigerei is growing up in Soviet Ka- xvi + 452 p.; Part 2: xvi + 380 p., 2019 caucasus and Central Asia. The Wid- zakhstan, learning the ancient art of the (ISBN 978-0-89357-433-8; 978-0-89357- er Arc of Revolution, the second and kuy from his musician father. But with ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS APPLICABLE TO English in the US in 2019. monograph published on Russia, Eastern 434-5), $44.95. third books, examine the revolution’s the music comes knowledge about his ALL BOOK PRIZE COMPETITIONS: Europe, or Eurasia in the fields of literary & The Russian Revolution of 1917 was broader impact in regions of the world country, his family, and the past that is RULES OF ELIGIBILITY quickly perceived by both contempo- noncontiguous with Russia itself, from at times difficult to bear. Based on the For full rules and complete details about all cultural studies in 2019. North and South America to Asia, • The competition is open to works of raries and subsequent scholars as not author’s own family history, A Life at prizes, please see http://aseees.org/programs/ scholarship in any discipline of the RULES OF ELIGIBILITY merely a domestic event within the Australia, and various parts of Eu- Noon provides us a glimpse into a time aseees-prizes social sciences or humanities (including • The competition is open to works of Russian Empire, but as a systemic cri- rope. The emphasis in The Wider Arc is and place Western literature has rarely • The copyright date inside the book must literature, the arts, film, etc.). Policy scholarship in literary and cultural studies, sis that fundamentally challenged the on the complex emotional appeal and seen as the first post-Soviet novel from assumptions underpinning the exist- ideological legacies of Russian com- Kazakhstan to appear in English. be 2019 analyses, however scholarly, cannot be including studies in the visual arts, cinema, ing international system. There were munism, including anticommunism, • The book must be a monograph, preferably considered. music, and dance. evidenced well into the 20th century. by a single author, or by no more than two The winner will be chosen by: The winner will be chosen by: authors Slavica Publishers [Tel.] 1-812-856-4186 • Ted Weeks, Southern Illinois U • Lisa Wakamiya, Florida State University Indiana University [Fax] 1-812-856-4187 • Authors may be of any nationality as • Yoshiko Herrera, U of Wisconsin-Madison • Diane Nemec Ignashev, Carleton College 1430 N. Willis Drive [Toll-free] 1-877-SLAVICA long as the work is originally published in • Neringa Klumbyte, Miami U • Jon Stone, Franklin & Marshall College Bloomington, IN, USA [email protected] English in the US* 47404-2146 http://www.slavica.com • Thomas Seifrid, U of Southern California • Textbooks, collections, translations, REGINALD ZELNIK BOOK PRIZE IN HISTORY bibliographies, and reference works are USC BOOK PRIZE IN LITERARY & CULTURAL The Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History, ineligible STUDIES established in 2009 and sponsored by the • Works may deal with any area of Eastern The USC Book Prize in Literary and Cultural Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Europe, Russia, or Eurasia* Studies, established in 2009 and sponsored Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, Vol. 21, no. 1 (Winter 2020) • Self-published works are ineligible by the Department of Slavic Languages and is awarded for an outstanding monograph • Additional eligibility requirements unique Literatures at the University of Southern published on Russia, Eastern Europe, or Eurasia Articles to each prize competition are listed below in the field of history in 2019. EkatErina Pravilova California, is awarded for an outstanding *Except where otherwise indicated Truth, Facts, and Authenticity in Russian Imperial Alexander Rojavin, trans. and ed. The Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History Jurisprudence and Historiography Nominating Instructions Predictability of the Past: Three Con- http://kritika.georgetown.edu nicolE Eaton temporary Russian Plays, viii + 234 p., • Fill out the Book Prize nomination form Provisional Redemption and the 2019 (ISBN 978-089357-476-5), $29.95. • The deadline to nominate books is April 15. Fate of Kaliningrad’s Germans • Each book may be nominated for up to kathErinE Zubovich A bear self-begets in an ordinary two prizes Kritika is dedicated to critical The Fall of the Zariad´e Russian family’s bathroom, Pushkin ac- inquiry into the history of Russia • Send one copy of eligible monograph and Eurasia. The quarterly journal tylEr c. kirk cidentally survives his duel with d’An- to each Committee member AND to the features research articles as well Memory of Vorkuta thès, and the ill-fated family of a small ASEEES main office. Mark submissions with as analytical review essays and boy born in prerevolutionary Russia the name of the prize(s) extensive book reviews, especially Review Article stumbles through the 20th century all • All nominated books must be received by of works in languages other richard Wortman the way into the 21st, where the not-so- than English. Subscriptions and May 15. previously published volumes Myriad Designs and Legacies of Regret distant past is faded in the minds of the available from Slavica—including, newest generations. But does that make as of 16, no. 1, e-book editions Review Essays the past irrelevant? Three plays accu- WAYNE S. VUCINICH BOOK PRIZE (ePub, MOBI). Contact our GEorGE GilbErt rately portray a Russia that is constant— Established in 1983, the Wayne S. Vucinich business manager at slavica@ “New” Histories of the Russian Revolution? constantly in flux, with both its present indiana.com for all questions Book Prize, sponsored by ASEEES and the rhiannon doWlinG and its past changing from day to day. regarding subscriptions and Stanford University Center for Russian and eligibility for discounts. Love and Other Legacies in Soviet Crime and Punishment With time flowing forward, backward, and even sideways, the three plays in East European Studies, is awarded for the most this book serve up an unflinching reflec- important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, tion of Russia’s tumultuous timeline. and East European studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences published in
NEWSNET March 2020 22 NEWSNET March 2020 23 RULES OF ELIGIBILITY • The competition is open to works of scholarship in history The winner will be chosen by: • Keely Stauter-Halsted, University of Illinois at Chicago • Catherine Evtuhov, Columbia U • Wendy Goldman, Carnegie Mellon University
DAVIS CENTER BOOK PRIZE IN POLITICAL & SOCIAL STUDIES The Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies, established in 2008 • The book must be a monograph • Erika Monahan, Dartmouth College • Essay author must be a graduate student and sponsored by the Kathryn W. and predominantly on Polish studies. • Christine Evans, University of Wisconsin- and must have written the essay in English Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian • Preference will be given to works by first- Milwaukee while in a graduate program. and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, time authors. • Essays can be any of several formats: is awarded for an outstanding monograph • The competition is open to works in any OMELJAN PRITSAK BOOK PRIZE IN Expanded versions of conference papers; published on Russia, Eurasia, or Eastern discipline, dealing with any aspect of UKRAINIAN STUDIES graduate level seminar papers; Master’s Europe in anthropology, political science, Polish affairs. The Omeljan Pritsak Book Prize in Ukrainian thesis chapters; dissertation chapters sociology, or geography in 2019. Studies, established in 2019 and sponsored • Previous winners of this prize are ineligible. NOMINATING INSTRUCTIONS RULES OF ELIGIBILITY by the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard The winner will be chosen by: • Essays should be submitted by the Chairs • The competition is open to works of University, recognizes a distinguished book • Bozena Karwowska, University of British of the Regional Affiliates or the primary scholarship in anthropology, political in the field of Ukrainian studies that was Columbia representatives of the Institutional science, sociology, or geography, and also published in 2019. • Malgorzata Mazurek, Columbia University Members. Graduate students whose to social science works that cross strict RULES OF ELIGIBILITY: • Piotr Kosicki, U of Maryland disciplinary boundaries International and Public Affairs, Brown and twentieth-century Ottoman or Russian • The competition is open to works in any institution is not an ASEEES institutional University diplomatic history in 2019. discipline, dealing with any aspect of member or is not holding a competition The winner will be chosen by: W. BRUCE LINCOLN BOOK PRIZE RULES OF ELIGIBILITY Ukrainian studies, including the works this year, are advised to check the rules • Jeffrey Kopstein, UC Irvine, The W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize, sponsored by ED A HEWETT BOOK PRIZE that put Ukrainian experiences in a broad for their regional competition. Students • Emily Channell-Justice, Ukrainian Research • Authors must be scholars who are citizens Mary Lincoln, is awarded biennially (in even comparative context. cannot self-nominate their papers/must Institute The Ed A Hewett Book Prize, established in or permanent residents of North America. numbered years) for an author’s first published The winner will be chosen by: go through the proper nominating • Ola Onuch, University of Manchester 1994 and sponsored by the U of Michigan • The competition is open to works on any monograph or scholarly synthesis that is of Heather Coleman, University of Alberta procedures. Center for Russian, East European, and aspect of Southeast European or Habsburg exceptional merit and lasting significance for • Catherine Wanner, Penn State University • Submitter must clearly indicate the MARSHALL D. SHULMAN BOOK PRIZE Eurasian Studies, is awarded for an studies since 1600, or 19th- and 20th- the understanding of Russia’s past, published • format of the essay submitted and The Marshall D. Shulman Book Prize, outstanding monograph on the political century Ottoman or Russian diplomatic in 2019. • Michael Naydan, Penn State University established in 1987 and sponsored by the economy of Russia, Eurasia and/or Eastern history. provide an abstract. Europe, published in 2019. RULES OF ELIGIBILITY Harriman Institute of Columbia University, The winner of the will be chosen by: GRADUATE STUDENT ESSAY PRIZE • Essays should have a word count of 7,500- • The book must be an author’s first is awarded for an outstanding monograph RULES OF ELIGIBILITY The ASEEES Graduate Student Essay Prize 14,000 (25 to 50 pages approximately) • Stella Ghervas, Newcastle U published monograph or work of synthesis. dealing with the international relations, was established in 2006 and is awarded for inclusive of footnotes and bibliography. • Works must be on the political economy of • Sean McMeekin, Bard College foreign policy, or foreign-policy decision- • It must be published in English and in an outstanding essay by a graduate student Submissions must be double-spaced and Russia, Eurasia and/or Eastern Europe. • Kimberly Elman Zarecor, Iowa State North America. in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. making of any of the states of the former The winner will be chosen by: University include footnotes or endnotes. The winner of the competition receives free Soviet Union or Eastern Europe published • The geographic area of study is broadly • Essays should be emailed to Mary in 2019. • Gerald Easter, Boston College defined as the territories of the former roundtrip domestic airfare to and room at the • Doug Rogers, Yale University KULCZYCKI BOOK PRIZE IN POLISH STUDIES Arnstein, Communications Coordinator, RULES OF ELIGIBILITY imperial Russian state and the Soviet ASEEES Annual Convention and an honorary at [email protected] and to all members • Sarah Wilson Sokhey, University of Colorado The Kulczycki Book Prize in Polish Studies, Union. The book may deal with any period ASEEES membership in 2021. • Works must be about international Boulder of the prize committee. established in 1996 and sponsored by the of history. RULES OF ELIGIBILITY behavior of the countries of the former Kulczycki family, former owners of the Orbis Deadline for submissions: June 1. • Books that have received other prizes are Communist Bloc. BARBARA JELAVICH BOOK PRIZE Books Ltd. of London, England, is awarded for • ASEEES Regional Affiliates and eligible. The winner will be chosen by: The winner will be chosen by: The Barbara Jelavich Book Prize, established the best book in any discipline on any aspect of Institutional Members are invited to hold • Scholarly merit, originality, and felicity of their own competitions for best essay • Rinna Kullaa, Institute for East European in 1995 and sponsored by the Jelavich estate, Polish affairs, published in 2019. • Laura Olson Osterman, U of Colorado is awarded for a distinguished monograph style will be the main criteria for selection. among their graduate students, and • Jovana Babovic, SUNY Geneseo History, University of Vienna RULES OF ELIGIBILITY • Jeff Hass, University of Richmond published on any aspect of Southeast European The winner will be chosen by: submit the winning paper to the ASEEES • Lauri Mälksoo, U of Tartu (Estonia) or Habsburg studies since 1600, or nineteenth- • Only works originally published in English, Grad Student Prize Committee. • Michael Kennedy, Watson Institute for outside of Poland, are eligible • Sergei Zhuk, Ball State University
NEWSNET March 2020 24 NEWSNET March 2020 25 INSTITUTIONAL MEMBER NEWS
ROBERT C. TUCKER/STEPHEN F. COHEN archivists or curators whose contributions diverse contributions across the Slavic, East DISSERTATION PRIZE to Slavic, East European and Eurasian European, and Eurasian studies field. fellowship as individuals or as part of a conflict resolution and human rights while HOOVER INSTITUTION LIBRARY The Tucker/Cohen Dissertation Prize, studies librarianship have been especially NOMINATING INSTRUCTIONS team. If applying as a team of two (or three) conducting research on a specific topic. In established in 2006 and sponsored by the KAT noteworthy or influential. The effect of these AND ARCHIVES • The Committee accepts nominations in applicants, the applicants must be citizens addition, Fellows will actively participate Charitable Foundation, is awarded annually contributions may be the result of continuous writing or via e-mail from any member of of at least two different countries. The in discussions with the public policy (if there is a distinguished submission) for or distinguished service to the profession, ASEEES. In celebration of its centennial, the goal of such joint fellowships is to promote and academic communities, including an outstanding English-language doctoral but may also be the result of extraordinarily Hoover Institution opened the exhibition • The lead nominator should submit all collaborative research projects among U.S., giving speeches and lectures at other dissertation in Soviet or Post-Soviet politics active, innovative or collaborative work that Hoover@100: Ideas Defining A Century in Russian, and Ukrainian experts. Fellowship and history in the tradition practiced by deserves national recognition. documents and letters in one PDF file to institutions and taking part in meetings and the Committee Chair. Hoover Tower. Hoover@100 is a showcase Teams will: Produce joint paper(s) for policy- conferences. The application deadline for Robert C. Tucker and Stephen F. Cohen. RULES OF ELIGIBILITY • The package should consist of: of documents and artifacts centered relevant publications; present work at DC, this fellowship is May 15, 2020. RULES OF ELIGIBILITY • Active participation in special projects, around the ideas of peace, freedom, and Russia, and/or Ukraine events; and conduct • one nominating letter not exceeding • The dissertation must be written in efforts or initiatives that have measurably education—ideas that are embodied in meetings and engage with policymakers. 3 pages discussing the nominee’s Scholars in Residence English and defended at a university in impacted the profession Competitions will be held twice service, scholarship, mentoring and the lives of Herbert Hoover and his wife, The Kennan Institute welcomes its current the US or Canada; • Exemplary and influential research leadership; there is no limit to the Lou Henry, and that drove the Institution’s yearly with the following application and incoming scholars: and/or scholarship pertaining to SEEES • The dissertation must be completed and number of signatories it may append; collecting and the work of its eminent deadlines: March 1 and September defended during the 2018 calendar year; librarianship 1. Applicants must submit a completed • a maximum of 10 supporting letters fellows in its first one hundred years. Title VIII Research Scholars • Consistently superior ASEEES committee application available here: https://www. • The dissertation’s primary subject and not exceeding 2 pages each; each Posters, correspondence, photographs, • Jonathan Brunstedt, Texas A&M, or subcommittee work and /or advocacy wilsoncenter.org/opportunity/george-f- analytical purpose must be in the realm letter must discuss evidence of at least artifacts, and manuscripts drawn exclusively “Entangled Defeats: The Soviet-Afghan of the history of domestic politics, as • Exemplary leadership on ASEEES kennan-fellowship. one of the criteria categories; from the Library & Archives’ collections, War and the Shadow of Vietnam” broadly understood in academic or public committees, subcommittees or in other • the candidate’s full CV including along with publications by Hoover fellows, • Tyler Kirk, Arizona State University, life, though it may also include social, initiatives publications, editorships, are among the materials on display. The Galina Starovoitova Fellowship on Human cultural, economic, international or other • Conceiving of and implementing “Remembering the GULAG: Community, curatorships, awards and prizes; exhibition in Hoover Tower will run through Rights and Conflict Resolution is available dimensions. The dissertation must focus innovative or creative ideas that benefit Identity and Cultural Memory in Russia’s and service to ASEEES and/or the July 31, 2020. to scholars, policy makers, journalists, civic primarily on Russia (though the topic may the profession Far North, 1987-2018” profession. activists, and other engaged persons who also involve other former Soviet republics) • Quietly but enduringly and effectively • Brandon Schechter, Independent • Self-nomination is not accepted. successfully bridge the worlds of ideas and during one or more periods between promoting and strengthening the THE KENNAN INSTITUTE public affairs to advance human rights and Scholar, “The Search for Salvation in the January 1918 and the present. • The Committee positively encourages profession AT THE WILSON CENTER conflict resolution. Second World War” Deadline for nominations June 1. nominations from ALL disciplines in Slavic, George F. Kennan Fellows NOMINATING INSTRUCTIONS East European, and Eurasian Studies. It Applicants with experience from The winner of the CLIR Distinguished Service George F. Kennan Fellows will be based • Victor Kheifetc, St. Petersburg State • A nomination will consist of a letter from welcomes inclusive nominations that a variety of backgrounds (academia, Award will be chosen by: at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. University, “Russia and Latin America in the faculty advisor explaining the ways in reflect the diversity of the profession, and government, the corporate world, the • Joseph Lenkart, U Illinois at Urbana- for three-month residencies. Fellows will professions, NGOs, the media) are eligible for the Putin Era (and US Reactions)” which the work is outstanding in both its the diversity of contributions colleagues receive access to the Library of Congress, empirical and interpretive contributions, Champaign can make. appointment. All applicants are required to • Gonzalo Paz, Georgetown University, • Ana Arays, Yale U National Archives, and policy research “Russia and Latin America in the Putin along with a 700-1,000 word abstract, • The Committee will seek to ensure a have a working knowledge of English. For • Liladhar Pendse, UC Berkeley, Chair centers in DC, as well as the opportunity to written by the candidate, specifying balanced pool of nominees and retains academic participants, eligibility is limited Era (and US Reactions)” • Janice Pilch, Rutgers U meet with key experts and officials. While the sources and general findings of the option of surveying the field for to the postdoctoral level, and normally it is • Andrew Monaghan, The Russia • Ana Arays, Yale U the research. A faculty supervisor may prospective award winners. conducting research, Kennan Fellows expected that academic candidates will have Research Network, “The Importance of nominate no more than one dissertation • Andy (George Andrew) Spencer, U of are expected to actively participate in demonstrated their scholarly development History to Contemporary Russian Ways Wisconsin-Madison • Deadline for nominations is April 15. a year. discussions with the policy and academic by publication beyond the Kandidat of War” • Roman Ivashkiv, U Illinois at Urbana The winner will be chosen by: Deadline for submissions: May 15. communities, including speaking dissertation. For other applicants, an • Viktoriia Svyrydenko, V. N. Karazin Champaign • Lauren Kaminsky, Harvard U, engagements at the Wilson Center as well equivalent level of professional achievement Kharkiv National University, The winner will be chosen by: • Jon Giullian, U of Kansas • Eliot Borenstein, New York U as potentially outside of DC, and attending is expected. “Remembering the Imperial Past: Public • Gerald Creed, Hunter College • Matthew Lenoe, U of Rochester, meetings, conferences, and other activities The Starovoitova Fellowship offers DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTIONS AWARD • Dan Healey, Oxford U Space and the Politics of Memory in • Valerie Sperling, Clark U organized by the Kennan Institute and a monthly stipend of $3,500, research Established in 1970 the Association’s • Olga Shevchenko, Williams College, Post-Soviet Ukraine” • Bruce Grant, New York U Wilson Center. Upon completion of the Distinguished Contributions to Slavic, East facilities, word processing support, and George F. Kennan Experts fellowships, the grantees become alumni, research assistance. One 6-month and ASEEES CLIR DISTINGUISHED SERVICE European, and Eurasian Studies Award honors • Iliia Kusa, Ukrainian Institute for the one 3-month grant are available. Grant LIBRARIAN AWARD eminent members of the profession who for whom Kennan will continue to offer Future, “Ukrainian Foreign Policy in the The ASEEES Committee on Libraries and have made major contributions to the field opportunities for collaboration and recipients are required to be in residence at new International Environment” Information Resources Distinguished through scholarship of the highest quality, engagement. There are no citizenship the Kennan Institute for the duration of their Galina Starovoitova Fellows on Human Service Award, which was established in mentoring, leadership, and/or service to the requirements for this grant. grant. Starovoitova Fellows are expected Rights and Conflict Resolution to hold public lectures on the themes of 2010, honors ASEEES member librarians, profession. The prize is intended to recognize Applicants can apply for the • Olimpiada Usanova, HELP Program,
NEWSNET March 2020 26 NEWSNET March 2020 27 PERSONAGES and to Andrew Kahn, Mark Lipovetsky, Professor in Art & Architecture at the Council of Europe “Gender Discrimination opportunity for participants to do research Irina Reyfman, and Stephanie Sandler University of Louisiana at Lafayette. William E. Butler was awarded the Gold Against Women and Domestic Violence - Is at Yad Vashem’s library and archives. Upcoming Articles in for A History of Russian Literature (Oxford Medal of the National Academy of Sciences the US Experience Applicable to Russia?” Applications will be accepted University Press, 2018). Morgan Liu was elected for a three-year Slavic Review of Ukraine on December 19, 2019 in a • Grigory Vaypan, Institute for Law and from doctoral candidates and scholars term to the Presidency of the Central Volume 79 Spring 2020 ceremony at the Koretsky Institute of State Public Policy (Moscow), “Constitutional who obtained their PhD (or candidate Polina Dimova was awarded a 2019-20 Eurasian Studies Society (CESS), the and Law “For Scientific Achievements” Justice in Russia: What Went Wrong and of science degree) within the last five ACLS Fellowship to complete her book on scholarly organization promoting research CLUSTER: POST-COMMUNIST ISLAM and honored with two Festschrifts by How We Can Make It Right” years. Applications are welcome from Modernist synaesthesia, “At the Crossroads in the region and their interconnections. IN A POST-9/11 WORLD, THE STATE Ukrainian and Russian colleagues, one Title VIII Short Term Scholars scholars working in all relevant academic of the Senses.” She also recently accepted http://centraleurasia.org • Emil Sanamyan, USC, “Finding and Organic disciplines, including anthropology, OF THE RELIGIOUS MARKETPLACE by comparative lawyers and the other by a new position as Assistant Professor of Narrative in Armenia” international lawyers. archaeology, art history, geography, Russian at the University of Denver, where Yuval Miller has taken the position of • Michael Corsi, OSU, “An Empire of film studies, history, Jewish studies, law, Introduction she will begin teaching in Fall 2020. Bren Chair of Russian Military and Political Cities: Tsaritsyn, Stalingrad, and Russian On December 5, 2019, William Brumfield’s literature, material culture, philosophy, Mustafa Tuna and Andreja Mesarič Strategy at the Marine Corps University Urbanization in the Modern Era” political science, religion, sociology, and nearly 50 years of work documenting Tetyana Dzyadevych defended her • Krista Goff, University of Miami, “Deportees Krulak Center. other fields. “Disrupting Boundaries between Russia’s unique architecture and history dissertation “Political Subjectivities in and Settlers: Nation-Building, Economic Traditional and Transnational was recognized by the Russian Federation Applications materials (CV, Russia and Ukraine through the Lens of Polina Popova was awarded a Princeton Planning, and Migration in a Soviet Union Islam: Pious Women’s Engagement during a ceremony at the Russian Embassy abstract of proposed paper, and faculty Post-Soviet Literature” at the University University Library Research Grant (through at War” with Islamic Authority in Bosnia- in Washington, D.C. recommendation), must be emailed to of Illinois at Chicago and started a job as the Cotsen Fund). Popova used that grant Herzegovina” Russian Ambassador to the United States [email protected] by April Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian for the three-week research trip to the Rare Andreja Mesarič Anatoly Antonov presented Brumfield with UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST 20, 2020. at the New College of Florida, which is Book Division of the Princeton University the Order of Friendship medal, the highest MEMORIAL MUSEUM the honors college of the Florida state Library in January of 2020 where she ZIMMERLI ART MUSEUM AT “Anti-Muslim Fear Narrative and state decoration of the Russian Federation university system. The Moshe Mirilashvili Center for Research conducted a research for her dissertation RUTGERS the Ban on Said Nursi’s Works as given to foreign nationals. The Order of on the Holocaust in the Soviet Union of on the representation of power in ‘Extremist Literature’ in Russia” Friendship was established in 1994 to The Slavic Department at the University of the International Institute for Holocaust The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers will exhibit Soviet Children’s literature under Stalin. Mustafa Tuna reward Russian and foreign citizens whose Pittsburgh welcomes Bella Grigoryan as Research at Yad Vashem and the Jack, the oil painting Two Peasant Women (1928-30) work, deeds, and efforts have been aimed Associate Professor and Chair. Douglas Smith’s latest book, The Russian Job: Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for by Kazimir Malevich, a loan from the Moscow- ARTICLES at the betterment of relations with the The Forgotten Story of How America Saved Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United based cultural project Encyclopedia of the “Between Sound and Silence: The Russian Federation and its people. The Royal Society of Canada and its the Soviet Union from Ruin (Farrar, Straus & States Holocaust Memorial Museum Russian Avant-Garde, through May 17, 2020. Failure of the ‘Symphony of Sirens’ in Malevich (1879-1935) is one of the Members have elected ninety-three new Giroux, 2019), was chosen as one of the best (USHMM) invite applications for a research Baku (1922) and Moscow (1923)” The Modern Language Association of workshop entitled, "Everyday Life of most significant artists of the 20th century. Fellows in the Academies of Arts and books of the year by The Financial Times. Daniel Schwartz America awarded the 15th Scaglione Jews in the USSR during the Holocaust As a painter, graphic artist, and designer, he Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science. Prize for a Translation of a Literary Work and its Early Aftermath." The workshop is worked in almost all of the modernist trends These individuals have been elected by University of Texas at Austin welcomed “The Filmmaker in Wartime: Sergei Honorable Mention to Ellen Elias-Bursać scheduled for August 30–September 3, and styles that arose at the turn of the 19th their peers for their outstanding scholarly, several new scholars: Chelsi West Ohueri, Eisenstein Inside and Out” and David Williams for Fox, by Dubravka 2020 at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. and 20th centuries. In 1915, he introduced his scientific and artistic achievement.Maria Sidorkina, and Frane Karabatic. Joan Neuberger Ugresic (Open Letter Press, 2018). The workshop will focus on the own style, Suprematism, which emphasized the Recognition by the RSC is the highest Leonid Livak received the 13th Scaglione Holocaust and everyday Jewish life during supremacy of color and shape in painting. honor an individual can achieve in the Arts, Susanna Weygandt (Sewanee: The “Experience as Device: Encountering Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages World War II and early years after the Dialogues – Ilya Kabakov and Viktor Social Sciences and Sciences. Among the University of the South) is the Russian Pivovarov: Stories About Ourselves has been Russian Formalism in the Ljubljana and Literatures for In Search of Russian war in the countries of the former Soviet 2019 Fellows is Juliet Johnson, Professor Program Coordinator of the Summer extended through May 17, 2020. The exhibit School” Modernism (Johns Hopkins University Union. Topics might include: antisemitism, of Political Science at McGill University. Intensive Language Program 2020 at provides an opportunity to view several albums evacuation and Jewish life in the Soviet Kaitlyn Tucker-Sorenson Press, 2018). Honorable Mention went to in their entirety. With loose pages of delicately Middlebury Institute of International rear, ghettoization, collaboration, hiding, Eleonory Gilburd for To See Paris and Die: colored images, often complemented by Allison Leigh has been appointed Studies at Monterey. resistance, gender, violence, Jewish “Boomerangs and Bombs: The Zagreb The Soviet Lives of Western Culture (Belknap the SLEMCO/LEQSF Regents Endowed handwritten texts, an album is simultaneously School of Animation and Yugoslavia’s Press of Harvard University Press, 2018) children and families during the Holocaust, a drawing and a novel, an installation and a survival in camps and ghettos, Jews in the Third Way Experiment” performance. Paul Morton Red Army, trauma, art and literature. The Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers Participants will be expected to submit a will be closed to the public May 18-August 31, paper (no more than 15 pages) prior to the 2020, for renovations. Museum programming “Academics Executed on the Wulecki beginning of the workshop for circulation will be relocated to partner locations. The Hills in L’viv: From a Local Wartime among the participants. Daily sessions will Zimmerli will welcome back visitors on Crime to a Translocal Memory Event” include 30-minute presentations followed September 1, 2020 pm for its Art After Hours: Eleonora Narvselius and Igor by a discussion (up to 30 min), as well as an First Tuesdays social event. Pietraszewski
NEWSNET March 2020 28 NEWSNET March 2020 29 AFFILIATE GROUP NEWS
AATSEEL 2019 BOOK PRIZE WINNERS Eurasian women’s and gender studies and table of contents for book chapters) Washington. The award is sponsored by the • Elena Marasinova, Ulitsa Dmitriia institutional affiliation to Greta Matzner- • BEST BOOK IN LITERARY SCHOLARSHIP: One may nominate individual books to each of the four members of the Prize ECRSA and named in honor of Marc Raeff Ulianova 19, Institute of Russian History Gore at [email protected]. Please attach the Edyta M. Bojanowska, A World of Empires: for more than one category, and more than committee by May 15, 2020. (1923-2008), historian, teacher, and dix- RAN, Moscow 117292, Russia, (Россия, essay to the email as a .pdf file containing The Russian Voyage of the Frigate Pallada one item for each category. In general, If you have any questions, please contact the huitiémiste par excellence. Москва 117292, Улица Дмитрия no identifying information about the (Harvard University Press, 2018). hard copy submissions are preferred over article committee chair: Dr Siobhán Hearne Submissions must be made by June Ульянова 19, Институт российской author. The essay should be no more than • BEST BOOK IN CULTURAL STUDIES: e-versions. The prizes will be awarded at the • Siobhán Hearne, siobhan.c.hearne@ 15, 2020. истории РАН), lenamarassinova@gmail. 8000 words; 12 font size, double-spaced; Eleonory Gilburd, To See Paris and AWSS meeting at the ASEEES Convention in durham.ac.uk Eligibility com and it should consistently follow either Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture Washington, DC in November 2020. • Barbara Allen, [email protected] • The publication must be a monograph, • Alexander Martin, Dept. of History, MLA or Chicago style and contain full (Harvard University Press, 2018). To nominate any work, please send • Katherine Bowers (She, Her, Hers), translation, or reference work about 434 Decio Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556, bibliographical information on the used • BEST FIRST BOOK: Rebecca Reich, State or request that the publisher send one copy [email protected] any aspect of the long 18th century and [email protected] sources, either in the footnotes or as a of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature and to each of the four members of the Prize • Igor Fedyukin, igorfedyukin@gmail. focused on any of the territories of the • Derek Offord, 23 Canynge Square, separate list of references. Dissent After Stalin (Northern Illinois committee by 15 May 2020. If you have com former imperial Russian state. Textbooks, Bristol BS8 3LA, UK, Derek.Offord@ The deadline to submit a nomination University Press, 2018). any questions about the book prizes, please • festschrifts, and edited collections bristol.ac.uk in either category is June 15, 2020. • BEST EDITED VOLUME: Being Poland: contact the book prize committee chair: CfS: MARC RAEFF PRIZE IN 18TH of essays are not eligible unless they • Ilya Vinitsky, 17 Springdale Road, A New History of Polish Literature and Melissa Bokovoy. CENTURY RUSSIAN STUDIES constitute significant and innovative Princeton NJ 08540, vinitsky@Princeton. SOCIETY OF HISTORIANS OF EASTERN Culture since 1918. Edited by Tamara • Melissa Bokovoy, Department of The Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies contributions to the field. EDU EUROPEAN, EURASIAN AND RUSSIAN Trojanowska, Joanna Niżyńska, and History, MSC06 3760, 1 University of Association is now accepting submissions • The submitted work must bear a ART AND ARCHITECTURE EMERGING Przemysław Czapliński, with the New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131- for the 2020 Marc Raeff Book Prize, which copyright date of 2019 or 2020. NORTH AMERICAN DOSTOEVSKY SCHOLAR PRIZE assistance of Agnieszka Polakowska 1181, [email protected] is awarded for a publication that is of • Books that were already nominated for SOCIETY STUDENT ESSAY CONTEST SHERA is pleased to announce the winner of (University of Toronto Press, 2018). • Katya Jordan, Department of German exceptional merit and lasting significance the prize in 2019 are not eligible. The North American Dostoevsky Society the 2019 Emerging Scholar Prize. The prize • BEST SCHOLARLY TRANSLATION: The and Russian, Brigham Young University, for understanding Imperial Russia during • Nominated works can be published in (NADS) invites its members in good standing aims to recognize and encourage original Queen’s Court and Green Mountain 3115 JFSB, Provo, UT 84602-6119, the long 18th century. The recipient of any language and in any format (analog to nominate outstanding student essays and innovative scholarship in the field of Manuscripts With Other Forgeries of the [email protected] the award will be recognized with a cash or digital). on Dostoevsky-related topics. Students East European, Eurasian, and Russian art and Czech Revival. Edited and Translated • Maria Popova, Department of Political prize, which will be presented in November • The geographic area of study is broadly are also welcome to nominate their own architectural history. It was awarded to Alice by David L. Cooper (Michigan Slavic Science, 855 Sherbrooke St. W., 2020 at the ASEEES annual convention in defined as the territories of the former work, in which case NADS membership is Isabella Sullivan for her article “The Athonite Publications, 2018). Montreal, Quebec, H3A imperial Russian state and the Soviet not required. The topic is open; however, Patronage of Stephen III of Moldavia, 1457- • BEST LITERARY TRANSLATION: 2T7 Canada, maria. Union. The publication must deal in whole Dostoevsky and his works should be the 1504,” published in Speculum 94, no. 1 (2019). Mickiewicz, Adam, Pan Tadeusz. The [email protected] or in part with the long 18th century, main focus of the essay. This year, the Last Foray in Lithuania. Translated from • Anika Walke, here defined as the period from the last contest will take place at two levels—the the Polish by Bill Johnston (Archipelago Department of History, quarter of the 17th to the first quarter of undergraduate level and the graduate level. MENTORING PROGRAMS Books, 2018). Washington University the 19th century. To nominate an undergraduate- 2020-2021 CALL FOR • BEST CONTRIBUTION TO LANGUAGE in St. Louis, CB 1062, • Books that have received other prizes are student essay, please send an email PARTICIPATION PEDAGOGY: Panorama. Benjamin Rifkin, Busch Hall 113, One eligible. containing the student’s name, email Evgeny Dengub, and Susanna Nazarova Brookings Drive, St. • Scholarly merit, originality, and felicity of address, institutional affiliation, and the title ASEEES offers two distinct (Georgetown University Press, 2017). Louis, MO 63130-4899, style will be the main criteria for selection. and level/number of the course for which the mentoring programs: a year- [email protected] Nominating Instructions essay was written (e.g. BIOL 322 “Dostoevsky long traditional mentor-mentee CfS: ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN IN AWSS will also award Best • Any scholar in the field can nominate a and Spiders”) to Vladimir Ivantsov at vvi1@ relationship for students and early SLAVIC STUDIES AWARDS article in Slavic/Eastern book for the prize. Self-nominations are williams.edu. Please attach the essay to the career scholars to discuss issues The Association for Women in Slavic European/Eurasian women’s welcome. email as a .pdf file containing no identifying within academia, and a less intensive Studies invites nominations for the 2020 and gender studies • Nominations can be made by email to information about the author. The essay informational interview pairing for competition for the Heldt Prizes, awarded Articles included in Alexander Martin (Committee Chair) at should be no more than 4000 words; 12 font young professionals interested in for works of scholarship. To be eligible for collections as well as journals [email protected] or to any member size, double-spaced; it should consistently non-academic fields. nomination, all books and articles must be are eligible for the “best of the ECRSA Prize Selection Committee follow either MLA or Chicago style and published between April 15, 2019 and April article” prize, but they must (listed below). contain full bibliographical information on APPLY to find a mentor or volunteer 15, 2020. Nominations will be accepted for be nominated individually. • Publishers: if you nominate a book, the used sources, either in the footnotes or to serve as a mentor by May 1. the following categories: To nominate any article or please send a printed copy or digital copy as a separate list of references. • Best book in Slavic/Eastern European/ book chapter, please send to each ECRSA Prize Selection Committee To nominate a graduate-student To participate in the Exploring Eurasian women’s and gender studies or request that the publisher member. essay, please send an email containing Career Diversity program, CLICK • Best book by a woman in any area of send electronically one pdf 2020 ECRSA Prize Selection Committee the student’s name, email address, and HERE. Slavic/East European/Eurasian studies copy of the articles or book • Best article in Slavic/Eastern European/ chapters (include title page
NEWSNET March 2020 30 NEWSNET March 2020 31 52nd Annual ASEEES Membership ASEEES Convention Join the 3,300 individual members and Nov. 5-8, 2020 receive: Marriott Wardman Park • Discounted convention registration Washington, DC fees • Slavic Review and NewsNet • Access to ASEEES Commons, job, Registration information fellowship/grant announcements • Eligibility for travel grants, research Hotel information funding, and first book subventions • Access to mentoring, networking and professional development opportunities Note: Programming for the 2020 Annual Convention in November in Washington, DC, is on schedule, and we expect to send out Dues structured at several levels, acceptance notifications by no later than mid- including Reduced Dues for low- April. We are mindful of the contingencies as we income scholars living and working in move forward. Any changes will be posted on Eastern Europe/Eurasia aseees.org/covid-19
ASEEES offers travel grant for members to present their papers at its Annual Convention. • Graduate Student Travel Grant Program • Russian Scholar Travel Grant Program • Regional Scholar Travel Grant Program • Convention Opportunity Travel Grant Program • Diversity & Inclusion Travel Grant Program
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