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Review: Siblings In Tolstoy And Dostoevsky: The Path To Universal Brotherhood, Naya Lekht, William Nickell

Russian Language Journal

This is a fine book that makes a strong contribution to the study of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, while also demonstrating a framework that could be usefully applied to other literature of the period. It convincingly shows that sibling relations in the works of these two authors have been woefully underexamined, and it demonstrates that time and again, key scenes and ideas in their novels are structured around sisters and brothers. Reading from this perspective repeatedly brings new clarity not only to the scenes in question, but also to entire novels, and indeed, to the oeuvres to which they belong. The …

"Living For The Soul": Dolly's Heroism In Anna Karenina, Mara Minion

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Most literary critics have either viewed Dolly Oblonsky in Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877) as a somewhat pitiable character who, unlike Anna, submits to the oppressive patriarchal system, or they have neglected her as an insignificant minor character. I feel that such views are reductive and ignore Dolly’s personal strength compared with Anna’s weak character. Dolly’s heroism goes beyond her social, marital, and maternal status. Dolly “lives for the soul,” demonstrating personal and spiritual virtue (Tolstoy [1877] 794).

Gary Saul Morson is the most important critical voice on the subject of Dolly in Anna Karenina and in many ways the most …

Making Scents Of The Past: Stalinism’S Sights And Smells In The Films Of Aleksei German, Sr., Tim Harte

Russian Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Embroidery In The Circle Of The Last Romanovs, Wendy Salmond

Art Faculty Articles and Research

This article essay examines the liturgical embroideries associated with the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna and her sister Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fedorovna. It suggests that the sisters’ needlework for sacred purposes was invested with a significance not seen in elite Russian society since the late seventeenth century. At a time when the arts of Orthodoxy were undergoing a state-sponsored renaissance, who was better suited to lead the resurgence of liturgical embroidery than the wife and sister-in-law of the Emperor, the last in a long line of royal women seeking to assert their piety and their power through traditional women’s work? In the …

Full Issue

Russian Language Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction

Russian Language Journal

No abstract provided.

Constructing A Russian Elicited Imitation Exam, Troy Cox, Jennifer Bown, Jacob Burdis

Russian Language Journal

A Russian student wants to know if it is worth the expense to pay for an official ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI). The director of a flagship program wants to measure the improvement of the oral proficiency of students returning from their in-country experience. A university department needs to provide evidence that their students are meeting learning objectives as part of accreditation. In each of these cases, a cost-effective, scalable solution to measuring oral proficiency would be helpful.

Review: Poetry Reader For Russian Learners; Siblings In Tolstoy And Dostoevsky: The Path To Universal Brotherhood, Richard Robin, Naya Lekht

Russian Language Journal

Overall, the book does a thorough job of documentation. In proficiency terms, it reads more like a fancy “Advanced High” text than “Superior.” The authors do not speculate about the potentially more controversial conclusions pertaining to some of the postulates underlying the program until toward the end of the volume. After all, it is unlikely that a school with only two years of Russian aiming for an “Intermediate Low” speaking proficiency will create a two-year curriculum with the intent to prepare participants for a fourth year at “Advanced.” Most of the interesting speculations come in Al-Batal and Glakas’s view of …

Review: Exploring The Us Language Flagship Program: Professional Competence In A Second Language By Graduations; Poetry Reader For Russian Learners, Grant H. Lundberg, Richard Robin

Russian Language Journal

Concepts of the Prague Linguistic Circle on the American Continent and the Theory of Emotive Language,” discusses the structuralist ideas of the PLC in her publications on the semiotics of language and literary analysis. Steven Franks and Catherine Rudin’s contribution, “Invariant -to in Bulgarian,” investigates the connection of invariant -to, found in relative clauses and wh-constructions, to inflectional -to, found in the neuter definite article. They use syntactic theory as well as comparative Macedonian data to examine the issue. Finally, Donald Reindl, “The Fate of German (Post)Velars in Slovenian Loanwords,” tries to impose some order on a seemingly chaotic situation. …

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) …

Hesse's Steppenwolf As Modern Ethical Fiction, Michał Koza

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Hesse's Steppenwolf as Modern Ethical Fiction" Michał Koza discusses the significance of "ethical fiction" in modern literature. Such fiction, according to Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, are not only milestones of ethical thinking, but more importantly offer a narrative for self-creation as an ethical subject. Harry Haller, the protagonist of Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf, is a man living on the border of modern subjectivity embodying a cultural and existential crisis. Koza argues that "ethical reading" enables one to see the relation between philosophy and literature that not only enter in a dialogue with each other, but also share …

A Theory Of Genre Formation In The Twentieth Century, Michael Rodgers

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "A Theory of Genre Formation in the Twentieth Century" Michael Rodgers explores the relationship between Vladimir Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading and magical realism in order to theorize about genre formation in the twentieth century. Rodgers argues not only that specific twentieth-century narrative forms are bound intrinsically with literary realism and socio-political conditions, but also that these factors can produce formal commonalities.

Time Distortion In Bierce's "One Of The Missing" And Uroshevic's "Ракописот Од Китаб-Ан" ("The Manuscript From Kitab-An"), Kalina Maleska

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Time Distortion in Bierce's 'One of the Missing' and Uroshevic's 'Ракописот од Китаб-Ан' ('The Manuscript from Kitab-An')" Kalina Maleska examines the relationship between literature and astronomy in the context of time. The two stories share several common elements: they explore the possible manipulations of time in unexpected and extraordinary ways and come close to certain scientific explorations of time. For "One of the Missing," Albert Einstein's theory of relativity provides an interesting foundation for understanding Bierce's treatment of time. For The Manuscript of Kitab-An, the speculations of time travel starting from the Einstein-Rosen concept of the black …

Review Of "The Modernist Masquerade: Stylizing Life, Literature And Costumes In Russia" By C. Mcquillen, Sibelan E.S. Forrester

Russian Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Translation Of "Conversations In The Realm Of The Dead" By M. Stepanova, M. Stepanova, Sibelan E. S. Forrester , Translator

Russian Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Crisis Of Self-Understanding In Dostoevsky, Joshua Miller

The Kabod

This paper seeks to explain the characterization of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. It makes the argument that Raskolnikov exemplifies the inexhaustible depth of the human consciousness, the quest for self-understanding, and the radical schism of the psyche which Dostoevsky wrote about in other works such as Notes From Underground. Contrasting Crime and Punishment with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, this paper concludes that Conrad's main character Marlow loses himself in the schism and that Raskolnikov finds peace through confession and repentance.

One Big Thing: Suffering As The Path To New Life In Crime And Punishment, Kelly M. Kramer

Montview Journal of Research & Scholarship

After spending a whole semester reading and thinking about Dostoevsky, the main thing that has struck me about him is his treatment of the theme of suffering. Despite, and even through, his extremely complicated characters and events, he nevertheless focuses his novels, particularly Crime and Punishment, on presenting a nuanced yet unified picture of suffering. After a brief analysis of several of the relevant characters and plot points, his thoughts on what suffering does to and for the individual will be presented. In contrast to our culture’s almost idolization of suffering as an experience which gives one instant respect, …

Power And Pride: The Mythologization Of The Cossack Figure In Russian History And Its Impact On Modern Russian National Identity, Rachael Ulrich

Kaleidoscope

Our expedition traveled to the Don Cossack Ust- Khopiorskaia Stanitsa to record mythologized cultural practices in the form of rituals and performances. Located on the banks of the Don and Khopior River junction, about 1,500 people reside in a village consisting of several streets of wooden and stone houses, a cultural center, a school, and a few small markets. Most remaining residents in the village are pensioners, who support their meager incomes with backyard gardens. The young who have finished primary school leave for the nearest city, Volgograd, to find work or pursue further studies, because opportunities for neither exist …

Resilient Russian Women In The 1920s & 1930s, Marcelline Hutton

Zea E-Books Collection

The stories of Russian educated women, peasants, prisoners, workers, wives, and mothers of the 1920s and 1930s show how work, marriage, family, religion, and even patriotism helped sustain them during harsh times.

The Russian Revolution launched an economic and social upheaval that released peasant women from the control of traditional extended families. It promised urban women equality and created opportunities for employment and higher education. Yet, the revolution did little to eliminate Russian patriarchal culture, which continued to undermine women’s social, sexual, economic, and political conditions. Divorce and abortion became more widespread, but birth control remained limited, and sexual liberation …

The Literary Unconscious: Ideology And Utopia In The Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel In England And Russia, Isra Ahmed Daraiseh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this volume, I have examined a number of works of nineteenth-century realist fiction from England and Russia, using the double interpretive method recommended by Fredric Jameson in The Political Unconscious. In particular, I have employed the dialectical double hermeneutic suggested by Jameson, who argues that the most productive approach to literary texts is to consider them from the double perspective of ideology and utopia. That is, critics should approach literary texts by seeking out the ideological roots that lie beneath the textual surface and from which the texts grow, while at the same time keeping a careful eye out …