Slavic Languages and Societies Commons^™

Death By Delusion: Representations Of Mental Illness In Gogol, Dostoevsky, And Nabokov, Bryan Reed

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This paper is dedicated to an analysis of representation of mental illness in 19th-20th century works of Russian writers: Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Double), Nikolai Gogol (“Nevsky Prospect”, “The Overcoat”, and “The Diary of a Madman”), and Vladimir Nabokov (Despair). My analysis is primarily focused on the approaches these authors employ to represent mental illness. When I began my research, I also set out to trace the evolution of portrayals of mental illness in Russian literature, from one of its founders, Alexander Pushkin, to Nabokov as an émigré writer living in Germany during the 1930s and representing the literary tradition in …

A Mongoose In Moscow: Adapting 'Rikki-Tikki-Tavi' To Soviet Animation, Willard L. Schorer

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Through following the journey of Rudyard Kipling's Rikki-Tikki-Tavi in its literary translation from English to Russian and from the page to the screen, this project will attempt to take an interdisciplinary approach in examining the process of adapting stories from beyond the socialist sphere into animated fairy-tales for the Soviet Union’s children; a process that is further complicated when the original author held beliefs completely antithetical to those promoted by the state. Historical contexts, as well as the limitations imposed by state censorship, will be taken into consideration alongside close readings of the original English texts, its Russian language iterations …

Between Space And Time: Conceptualizing Memory In The Archival Novel, Samantha Nicole Schwartz

Senior Projects Fall 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Shalamov's Testament: Pushkinian Precepts In Kolyma Tales, Andres I. Meraz

Senior Projects Spring 2020

In a letter from 1972, the author of Kolyma Tales and survivor of the gulag Varlam Shalamov, declared “In my prose, I consider myself the inheritor of the Pushkinian tradition <…>.” Indeed, in Kolyma Tales, Shalamov exhibited a studied understanding of Pushkin’s artistic technique. Through his implementation of Pushkinian artistic principles, Shalamov was seeking to restore the poet’s image to what it had been prior to the Soviet Union’s politicized interpretation while simultaneously revealing the truth about life in the labor camps to a readership that could not otherwise fathom what the inmates endured on day-to-day basis. In writing …

Voice Of Silence: Women Inmates' Perspective On Sexual Violence In The Soviet Gulag, 1936-1956, Louisa Jane Fulkerson

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Revolutionaries In Form: The Russian Futurist Poets In The Cultural Politics Of The Early Soviet Union, 1917-1928, Noah Wurtz

Senior Projects Fall 2020

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

"The Raw Material Of Talk:" Svetlana Alexievich's Literary And Humanistic Response To Suffering, Mana Hao Taylor

Senior Projects Spring 2019

This paper examines Svetlana Alexievich’s genre of documenting voices of survivors of traumatic Soviet experiences through three of her books: The Unwomanly Face of War: And Oral History of Women in World War Two, Voices from Chernobyl: An Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, and Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets. It engages in a literary analysis based on the study of the narrative structure and the unique authorial techniques used by the author as a witness of other's pain and a listener actively engaged in the storytelling process. Studying these narratives of suffering, deprivation, and identity crises reveals …

Limited Absolutes: A Study Of "War And Peace" And The Pluralizing Experience, Sophia Melora Scanlon

Senior Projects Spring 2018

On the one hand, War and Peace contains statements that read as "absolute" or universalizing claims; these appear often in structures like that of the syllogism. This aspect of Tolstoy's style has earned the title of "scriptural." On the other hand, however, Tolstoy's universalizing language is continually undermined through his equally persistent "subjective" language, which confuses and threatens all "absolute" claims. I'm interested in the possible failure of the Tolstoyan "absolute," and the potential which the other "subjective" or "limited" authorial mode might offer. Through a number of "revelatory" experiences, I explore the division and imbalance of these two modes, …

Seize The Means Of Reproduction! Gender Wars In Zamyatin's We, Alexandra Gage Michaud

Senior Projects Spring 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

Does Russia Love The Whip?, Maeve Emma Mcqueeny

Senior Projects Spring 2017

State-sponsored violence has permeated the lives of the Russian people for over a millennium. But it has been and is accepted as the price to be paid for national security to combat enemies from without and within, and to keep the country moving forward.

I will show the persuasive methods that allow totalitarian conditions to prevail in a society: from distortion of national memory to romanticize violence; coping mechanisms which breed a mentality of unawareness and denial that allow for the perpetuation of violence; and the effect of transgenerational trauma which allows violence to infect family tradition. I will show …

Ideological Infection In Dostoevsky's "Demons", Sam Joshua Reed

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This project is an exploration of ideology in Dostoevsky's 1871 novel "Demons." In this work, Dostoevsky portrays the connection between utopianism and extremism. This project explores how romantic and political idealism becomes the foundation for violence and terrorism, through the relationship of the 1840's liberal Stepan Trofimovich Verhovensky and his nihilistic sons.

Dostoevsky's "Bobok": A Translation To The Language Of The Stage, Daniel Julian Krakovski

Senior Projects Spring 2016

As a joint major in Russian & Eurasian Studies and Theater & Performance, my senior project is a translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short story entitled “Бобок: записки одного человека” [Bobok: Notes of a Certain Individual] (1873) from Russian into English. This translation then served as the textual foundation for what eventually—after a six-month rehearsal process—became a solo performance featuring an actor named Fergus Baumann. I co-directed the performance in tandem with my collaborator Eileen Goodrich. Our production was featured in the Theater & Performance Senior Project Festival, which provided us with three performances in the Luma Theater of the Richard …

"Between Sunset And River": Nabokov's Bridge To The Otherworld, Jesse R. Weiss

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil: The Poetics Of Violence In Isaac Babel's Red Cavalry, Benjamin Julius Dranoff

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College