Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Annotated Translation Of The Diary Of Lidia Makarovna Androsova, Rosa Lovo

Arts & Sciences Student Symposium

This play is based on the true story and focuses on a sector of the Young Guard i Eastern Ukraine during WWII. The Germans took control of Eastern Ukraine in July 1942. By the end of September, the smaller rebel groups in the city of Krasnodon united to form the Young Guard. The Young Guard sought to sabotage any German activity in the city and surrounding villages while also covertly sharing accurate news about the war. All actions portrayed here were described in the diary of Lidia Makarovna Androsova which the researcher translated over the course of 10 weeks. This …

The Genetics Of Morality: Policing Science In Dudintsev’S White Robes, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

The Men and women in White Robes (Belye odezhdv), Vladimir Dudinstev's fictional account of the banning of genetics in the Soviet Union, are acutely aware that in the 20th century, the study of the fruit fly is the study of man. The key to unraveling the mystery of human nature lies in the easily observed chromosomes of the forbidden fly (drosophila melanogaster). Under Stalin, the banned geneticists were branded “Morganists” after their hero Thomas Hunt Morgan, the Columbia University researcher who pioneered the technique of mapping locations on drosophila chromosomes to specific traits in the flies. To …

A Clash Of Fictions: Geopolitics In Recent Russian And Ukrainian Literature, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

When the vast, multinational Soviet empire collapsed in 1991, the geopolitical structure it had struggled to maintain for most of the 20111 century - often by means of brutal repression and forced remobilization of entire populations - proved itself in the eyes of many to be fatally out of sync with the epochal norm of the nation-state. By the end of the 18th century, people in many parts of the world had begun to "imagine themselves" as nations and to organize politically into states whose primary function would be to protect, nurture, and (in a kind of Romantic feedback loop) …

[Introduction To] Red Star Tales: A Century Of Russian And Soviet Science Of Fiction, Yvonne H. Howell

Bookshelf

For over a century, most of the science fiction produced by the world’s largest country has been beyond the reach of Western readers. This new collection aims to change that, bringing a large body of influential works into the English orbit.

A scientist keeps a severed head alive, and the head lives to tell the tale… An explorer experiences life on the moon, in a story written six decades before the first moon landing... Electrical appliances respond to human anxieties and threaten to crash the electrical grid… Archaeologists discover strange powers emanating from a Central Asian excavation site… A teleporting …

From ‘Sots-Romanticism’ To Rom-Com: The Strugatskys’ Monday Begins On Saturday As A Film Comedy, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

The Strugatskii brothers’ novella Ponedel’nik nachinaetsia v subbotu (Monday Begins on Saturday; 1965) imagines bright young scientists working at the cutting edge between quantum physics and folktale sorcery in a setting that was undeniably contemporary and local. I argue that the story can be best understood as ‘soc(ialist) romanticism’ – an aesthetic mode that celebrates the possibilities for individual questing and agency in late Soviet socialism. Konstantin Bromberg’s 1982 adaptation of the Strugatskiis’s story abandons both the romanticism and complexity of the novella, but, by incorporating elements of the‘youth film’, it represents a different kind of Soviet rom-com.

Historical Overview, Maksim Storchevoi, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The goal of this chapter is to discuss key values and archetypes of Russian culture that have developed over several centuries of Russian history. This fundamental introduction is important because these values and archetypes have successfully manifested themselves through various institutions of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. What are they and what are their roots? Answers to these questions can help us better understand Russian economic and business culture that shapes the behaviour of entrepreneurs, investors and employees in the current economy, and also political and legal traditions that play enormous roles in establishing and running …

The Transcendent As Theatre In Roerich's Paintings, Joseph C. Troncale

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

It would not be an exaggeration to say that much of Russian artistic culture in the first two decades of the 20th century was theatricalised. The work that Russian painters did in the theatre was intimately integrated and synthesised with all of the other elements of a production. Many artists of the World of Art Movement were instrumental in revolutionising the theatrical arts in Russia at the invitation and under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev. Following the pioneering steps of Konstantin Korovin, many artists, including Nicholas Roerich, Alexander Benois, Leon Bakst, Mstislav Dobuzhinski and later the avant-garde painters Natalia Goncharova, …

The Liberal Gene: Sociobiology As Emancipatory Discourse In The Late Soviet Union, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

In the following analysis, we will find that Soviet sociobiology did not develop incrementally out of daring interdisciplinary probes; rather, it seemed to spring forth fully formulated in the comprehensive Novyi mir article. Moreover, already in 1971, several years before Wilson's book established its controversial eponymous discipline in the United States, the biosocial paradigm was framed by its earliest Soviet proponents as a scientific vindication for diversity, pluralism, individual difference, heterogeneity, human rights, and ultimately, individual responsibility for one's own actions. In short, the same scientific discipline that in the west was associated with racism, reductionism, and social determinism developed …

Baring The Brain As Well As The Soul: Milan Kundera's The Joke, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

In what follows, I will argue that two current theories about how our minds ascribe intentional psychological states to other people (so-called Theory of Mind) as well as to non-personal events that happen to us (a proposed Existential Theory of Mind) provide a rich interpretive framework for understanding the social and historical context of Kundera’s innovative aesthetics.

Efroimson, Vladimir Pavlovich, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

EFROIMSON, VLADIMIR PAVLOVICH ( 1908-1989). Geneticist, seminal figure in the development of population and medical genetics, author of works on sociobiology and the genetics of human ethical and aesthetic behavior.

Fiziki-Liriki (Scientist-Poets), Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

Fiziki-liriki refers to a 1959 poem by Boris Slitskii that crystallized in memorable shorthand the intellectual divide between what he called 'physicists' and lyricists'.

Berries (Iagody), Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

For centuries the berries that grow in the forests and swamps of northern Russia have been a crucial source of vitamin C, antioxidants, and other micronutrients that would otherwise be lacking in the locally-based diet of most Russians.

Kasha, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

Russian kasha can refer to virtually any grain cooked into a porridge.

The True Water Of The Universe: Orlove Linnik, Joseph C. Troncale

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Eugenics, Rejuvenation, And Bulgakov's Journey Into The Heart Of Dogness, Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

In this article, I propose a new reading of Heart of a Dog, one that takes seriously Professor Preobrazhenskii's claim that his real interest is "eugenics, the improvement of the human species." The Professor's eugenics project is not limited to a cosmetic, physical improvement of human subjects; it anticipates urging humankind toward a higher stage of intellectual and spiritual development as well. Therefore, when he mistakenly transforms a dog into a man instead of a more intelligent dog, he considers the experiment an abject failure because the new man "no longer has a dog's heart, but a human one, …

The Space Of Freedom: Apartment Exhibitions In Leningrad, 1964-1986, Joseph C. Troncale, Evgeny Orlov, Sergei Kovalsky

Exhibition Catalogs

The Space of Freedom: Apartment Exhibitions in Leningrad, 1964-1986

Joel and Lila Harnetl Museum of Art, University of Richmond Museums, VA

September 16 to December 3, 2006

We are very pleased to present this traveling exhibition of artwork from the collection of the Museum of Nonconformist Art, Pushkinskaya 10 Art Centre, St. Petersburg, Russia, presented within the context of a re-created "apartment" exhibition from Leningrad. [...]

To our knowledge, [...] The Space of Freedom is the first exhibition organized in the United States to focus on both the artwork shown in communal apartments and on the exhibition space of the …

Republic Of Bulgaria, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

One of the more orthodox Communist countries in the Warsaw Pact, Bulgaria has slowly but surely made its way out of Socialist authoritarianism and is developing democracy and a market economy. Despite a sizable non-Bulgarian ethnic minority (especial Turks), the country has avoided the ethnic tensions that led to war in Russia (Chechnya) or the former Yugoslavia. The possibility of joining NATO and the European Union promises to bring Bulgaria closer to the West than ever in its history. Bulgaria's party politics were among the more stable in Eastern Europe until the arrival of a new mass movement, but Bulgaria …

Republic Of Estonia, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Estonia is the northernmost of the three former Baltic republics of the Soviet Union, with a 2005 population of 1.32 million people. It is not a homogeneous country: While ethnic Estonians make up 67.5 percent of the overall population, Russians come in a strong second with 25.6 percent. Estonian is the official language, but Russian, Latvian, and Lithuanian are significant as well. Despite some ethnic issues, Estonia has enjoyed a relatively stable transition to democracy and a market economy. While political parties have yet to tap deep roots into society and some scandals have marred political life, Estonia is further …

Republic Of Belarus, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

A landlocked nation, Belarus is located in central-eastern Europe, with Poland and Russia on the western and eastern borders, Ukraine to the south, and Latvia and Lithuania to the north. The climate is between continental and maritime, with cold winters and cool summers. Much of the terrain is flat, and there are several square kilometers of marshland. Much of southern Belarus was contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986; while Ukraine was host to the disaster, the radioactive fallout harmed Belarusian territory worse than Ukrainian land, contaminating more than 20 percent of Belarusian land and leading to, at one …

Russian Federation, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Russian political system remains subject to sudden radical change--this has been the basic logic of its political history since 1985. Only by understanding the processes and logics of that recent history of change can one understand the present and the (possibly radically different) future.

In December 1991 Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (the USSR's largest republic, known as RSFSR), joined Stanislav Shushkevich of Belarus and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine in dissolving the Soviet Union and replacing it with the ill-defined Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The RSFSR was transformed into the Russian Federation, and …

Republic Of Latvia, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

On August 21, 1991, following the failed Soviet putsch, the Latvian Supreme Soviet declared Latvia independent of the Soviet Union, beginning the process of building democracy. Like its two Baltic neighbors, Lithuania and Estonia, Latvia has enjoyed a happier transition to democracy and capitalism than other former Eastern bloc or Soviet republics. While disputes over policy, territorial boundaries, economic policy, and definition of citizenship have been problematic and while Latvia's economy bottomed out in 1992 and 1993, the country has enjoyed relative political calm and recent economic growth.

While it may perhaps be early to talk about a stable, never-changing …

Republic Of Poland, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Located in east-central Europe, Poland comprises an area of nearly 313,000 square kilometers (about the size of New Mexico). Borders with Germany on the west and Belarus and Russia on the east give Poland notable geopolitical significance. In addition, its flat topography, with no defensible geographical features, has made Poland a prime area for conflict, as the country not only lies between historically powerful nations but also has served as an unwilling conduit for forces between Russia and Germany.

Republik Of Lithuania, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Formally Lithuania is a republic. The national government is composed of three branches-executive, legislative, and judiciary. Lithuania has a stronger presidency than the other Baltic countries and is referred to as a "presidential democracy" that has come to resemble the French system, where the president presides over policymaking and the parliament (Seimas) is weakened by divisions between several parties and factions; however, this strength may be illusory for institutional reasons.

Romania, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Before 1989 Romania was among the most authoritarian regimes of those in the Socialist East Bloc. Nicolae Ceauçescu's secret police was among the most active, and the dictator ruled with impunity until the wave of popular revolutions that swept Eastern Europe in the autumn of 1989 reached Romania. An internal coup deposed Ceaçescu (whose body was shown on television after he was shot), but Romania did not move immediately to liberal politics as in Poland or Hungary. Democracy took time to develop, although success appears on the horizon after joining the North Atlantic Treat Organisation (NATO) in 2004 and possible …

Republic Of Hungary, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Hungary has been one of the more promising countries of Eastern Europe to make the transition from a Communist polity and economy to democracy and market capitalism. While the transition has not been smooth--economic pain paved the way for the socialists to return to power, and complexities or snags in legislation and procedure have made political institutions run less than smoothly--Hungary still exhibits successful institution building. While political actors regularly fight and coalitions and splits have occurred, there is little threat of political instability, and Socialists have not tried to turn back the clock on democracy or the free market.

Ukraine, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The independent nation of Ukraine was born on December 1, 1991, when Russia's Boris Yeltsin, Belarus's Stanislav Shushkevich, and Ukraine's Leonid Kravchuk agreed to disband the Soviet Union and create the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Since then, Ukraine's political history (much like its economic history) has been marked by the confusions, contradictions, and conflicts that go hand in hand with state building. Overshadowed on the world stage by its "bigger brother,'' Russia, Ukraine nevertheless has tried to forge its own path in terms of policies, political structure, political culture, and political identity.

The Ukrainian economy has been in a …

[Introduction To] Epic Revisionism: Russian History And Literature As Stalinist Propaganda, David Brandenberger, Kevin M. F. Platt

Bookshelf

Focusing on a number of historical and literary personalities who were regarded with disdain in the aftermath of the 1917 revolution - figures such as Peter the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, and Mikhail Lermontov - "Epic Revisionism" tells the fascinating story of these individuals' return to canonical status during the darkest days of the Stalin era. An inherently interdisciplinary project, "Epic Revisionism" features pieces on literary and cultural history, film, opera, and theater. It pairs scholarly essays with selections from Stalin-era primary sources - newspaper articles, unpublished archival documents, short stories - to provide students and …

The Space Of Freedom, Joseph C. Troncale

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

The exhibition, The Space of Freedom: Apartment Exhibitions in Leningrad, 1964-1986, invites visitors directly into the carefully re-created interior of a Soviet communal apartment. Within the kind of environment where the paintings first breathed freely, visitors have the opportunity to experience works by unofficial artists of the Soviet era who boldly executed and exhibited art that did not conform to the ideological prescriptions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. These artists had to substitute the private space of their apartments for the public space controlled and denied them by the Party. Planning and staging these exhibitions, the artists …

We (1924), Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

One of the first and most important works of modern dystopian literature, this novel by Russian writer Evgeny Zamayatin was written in 1919-1920 and published in English in 1924. The original Russian version was not authorized for publication in the Soviet Union until 1988, when Gorbachev's policy of culture openness (glasnost) allowed readers access to twentieth-century Russian literature inimical to the communist project.

Zamayatin, Evgeny Ivanovich (1884-1937), Yvonne Howell

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

Zamayatin, Evgeny Ivanovich (1884-1967), Russian engineer, fiction writer, critic-essayist, and editor. Zamayatin was born in the provincial town of Lebedyan in central Russia. He joined the Bolshevik Party in opposition to the tsar's regime while still a student of naval engineering in the imperial capital of St. Petersburg. He was imprisoned and exiled from St. Petersburg, an experience that provided material for his first short novels and stories.