Slavic Languages and Societies Commons^™

From Osbcurity To The Stage: A Stylistic And Pedagogical Exploration Of The Four Concert Etudes By Mikhail Bukinik, Luis Bernardo Castro

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research examines Mikhail Bukinik’s 4 Konzertetüden (concert etudes) for solo cello through both a stylistic performance and pedagogical approach. Despite Bukinik’s historical presence as a cellist and composer, these specific works have fallen into obscurity and remain largely absent from the standard pedagogical and performance canon. The research has two primary objectives. The first is to reintroduce these works to the modern repertoire, focusing on dissemination and performance practice. This involves a stylistic analysis of the four etudes, culminating in a recorded live performance during the lecture recital and the creation of a professional studio recording to serve as …

The Soviet New Wave: A Comparative Analysis, Katarina Parks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis aims to assert the Soviet New Wave into the global New Wave cinema movements of the late 1950s and 1960s. Focusing on three Soviet films—Marlen Khutsiev's I Am Twenty (1965) and July Rain (1967), and Georgiy Daneliya's I Walk the Streets of Moscow (1964)—this study proposes that these works fully commit to the New Wave expression in form, sensibility, and content, despite the aggressive censorship of Soviet authority. By comparing the Soviet films with the French Nouvelle Vague, as well as with British, Polish, and Czechoslovakian New Wave cinemas, the thesis identifies recurring motifs: the centering of young …

Unnoticed Witnesses Of History: First-Hand Accounts Of Ukrainian Women In South Carolina During Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine, Madeline R. Fyock

Senior Theses

Language and other cultural symbols have become widely contested in post-Soviet Ukraine, especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. The conflict prompted many in Ukraine and its diaspora to re-negotiate and affirm Ukrainian national identity through language, traditions, and culture. The ways in which national identity is signaled in Ukraine has been widely studied in the wake of 2022, but less research has investigated how similar trends are occurring in migratory contexts, where conflict and displacement play crucial roles in identity construction. This study examines the ways that Ukrainian immigrant women in South Carolina signal their …

From Sorochyntsi To St. Petersburg: National Identity In The Works Of Nikolai Gogol, Gary Jay Kogoy Jr.

Honors Theses

Nikolai Gogol's extant works depict a man torn between his birthplace of Ukraine and the nineteenth-century milieu of Imperial Russia. Notably, he did not reveal his name for some time after publishing his first story collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka; as a result, readers attributed the tales of Ukrainian life within not to Gogol, but to the charming "Ukrainian jester" persona of Rudy Panko. Even after revealing his identity and garnering respect in the St. Petersburg literary scene, his contemporaries often viewed him as sly and suspicious because of his ancestry. Perhaps due to external doubts regarding …

Horror Film And Soviet Identity: The Specter Of Soviet Imperialism, Alex Dyatkevich

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The thesis looks at how Soviet imperialism–the extension of Soviet Russia’s power over the other Soviet republics—is reinforced and used as a source of terror in Soviet horror film. I argue that while Soviet Russian horror movies from the creation of the USSR in 1922 to the end of Brezhnev’s Era of Stagnation in the mid 80s reinforce an imperialist Soviet identity, the horror movies released by non-Russian Soviet republics after the increase in freedom of expression during perestroika position imposed imperial Soviet identity as a source of terror.

The first chapter examines how USSR-era horror cinema was used as …

Unsuccessful? Universal Human Rights And The United Nations: Russian Imperialism In Ukraine And The Post-Udhr International System, Sofiia Novytska

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Human universality has always stood as a controversial subject and remains politically contentious today. Following the humanitarian crisis of World War II, the international community was determined to protect the integrity and dignity of people worldwide by developing the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, universal human rights were not invented by the Declaration and were already conceptually established in global ancient thought, further evolved into Early Modern scholarship, and later paved the way for modern humanitarian frameworks. The UDHR was not universally well-received, and was criticized for its revolutionary legal character, postcolonial contestation, and practical ambiguity. The …

Mountain Communities During A Time Of War: A Case Study Of The Hutsul Region In The Carpathian Mountains Of Ukraine, Pavlo Rybaruk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the ethno-ecological technologies employed by the Hutsul people within the highland agrarian economy of the Carpathian Mountains. Over centuries, the Hutsuls have developed ethno-ecological technologies that maintain ecological integrity while supporting community livelihoods.

The study addresses three primary research questions: What are the most important ethno-ecological technologies of the Hutsul highland economy? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be applied to economic, agricultural, and tourism development in the Hutsul region? How might these traditional ethno-ecological practices be combined with contemporary approaches to encourage sustainable development in the region?

The research explores the devastating impact of the Russian …

Maxim Gorky’S Illusionary Reformation Of Human Nature And The Rise Of The Soviet Citizen: Socialist Realism As A Constructive Force In Mother, Alysia Gayle Meyer

Honors Projects

This paper examines the origins and evolution of the Socialist Realism movement headed by Maxim Gorky, as a defining ideological and artistic framework of the Stalin era. Emerging in response to the experimental avant-garde movements of Revolutionary Russia, Socialist Realism sought to construct the ideal Soviet Reality, reimaging society and its citizens through the lens of collectivism, labor, and ideological purity. Central to this exploration is Gorky’s first major Socialist Realist novel, Mother, which serves as a blueprint for depicting the ideal Soviet citizen. By analyzing the motivations behind this movement and its portrayal of utopian ideals, this study reveals …

No Unified Ableukhov: Orientalism And Imperialism In Andrei Bely's Petersburg., Tuesday Shaw

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

This project brings into dialogue the 1913 Russian novel Petersburg by Andrei Bely and postcolonial approaches to literature, primarily those developed by Edward Said in Orientalism (1978) and Culture and Imperialism (1994). Petersburg was the product of an artistic movement, Symbolism, that idealized breaking apart boundaries between artforms. Said’s notion of Orientalism, in contrast, is based on the idea that there is an essential division between “East” and “West.” While there might appear to be a tension in applying a theory premised on division to a work that apparently wants to dissolve all boundaries, attention to Petersburg’s depiction of …

Ritual As Resistance: Orality, Identity, And Soviet Kazakh Childhood In Sayin Muratbekov’S The Smell Of Wormwood, Dana Akhmerova

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This essay analyzes The Smell of Wormwood (1967), a short novel by Soviet Kazakh author Sayin Muratbekov, set in a Kazakh village during World War II. The narrative centers on Ayan, a nine-year-old orphan with a physical disability, who copes with trauma and marginalization by becoming a storyteller for the village children. Focusing on the role of Kazakh folklore—particularly storytelling and initiation rituals—I explore how these cultural forms shape the novel’s characters, structure, and central conflict. Drawing on Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner’s theories of ritual, I argue that Ayan’s storytelling creates an informal liminal space through which the …

Living By The Sword: Religiosity And The Terrorist Subculture Of Russian Revolutionaries, 1904-1910, Gregory I. Mcevoy

Dissertations and Theses

The Marxist dictum of “religion is the opiate of the masses” has led to a prevailing assumption in scholarship that the socialist movements of the early twentieth century have been inherently atheistic. Religion is often associated as a remnant of old, antiquated society and incompatible with the claimed modernity of socialist progress. This assumption has led to overlooking the religiosity within certain radical movements and revolutionary culture at large. Scholarship on the political underground in Tsarist Russia has, thus far, perpetuated this impression. While it is the true that the Bolsheviks and Leninist Social Democrats rejected religion as obscurantist and …

Displaced Ukrainian Writers After 2014, A Postcolonial Perspective, Sophie Ivanka Shields

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This paper analyzes post-2014 Ukrainian displacement literature from a postcolonial perspective. I argue that Ukrainian writers, displaced with the 2014 invasion of Eastern Ukraine and/or 2022 full-scale invasion by Russia, transform literature into a tool of cultural resistance against Russia, forging a postcolonial Ukrainian identity in their works that unites those displaced since 2014. I particularly focus on two long-form works by displaced writers: the novel Mondegreen: Songs about Death and Love (2019) by Volodymyr Rafeyenko, who was displaced in 2014 from Donetsk to Kyiv and again in 2022 to Pittsburgh, USA on the City of Asylum Exiled Writer and …

Transcultural Perspectives In English Language Education: Teaching English In The Czech Republic From An American Lens, Bailey Price

Honors Projects

This project aims to provide a thorough examination of the English language education landscape in the Czech Republic, shedding light on key aspects such as the age of initiation, fluency attainment expectations, and the influence of various educational tracks. It delves into the sociocultural factors shaping English language acquisition, including the perceived necessity of learning English, parental language practices, and generational differences in proficiency. To capture the perspectives of American English teachers working in the Czech Republic, my research explores their attitudes, expectations, and challenges. This considers factors such as the necessity of knowing the Czech language and the perception …

Spectre Of Justice: Russian Reform In The Courtrooms Of Dostoevsky And Tolstoy, Abby Moore

Senior Theses

The Great Reforms of Alexander II are regarded as transformative policies in the history of Tsarist Russia, drastically changing the empire’s social and political fabric. The judicial reforms of 1864 in particular addressed longstanding issues within the existing criminal justice system, yet they also liberalized the institution at large. Following in the West’s footsteps, the reforms introduced an unprecedented level of democracy into Russia’s courtroom. Among the critics of these changes were renowned authors Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy, both of whom used the realm of fiction to explore their respective concerns with reformed Russian jurisprudence. Both authors bring distinct …

The Romani People In The European Cultural Imagination: Alexander Pushkin, Prosper Mérimée And Virginia Woolf, Nadya Siyam

Theses and Dissertations

Scholarly literature on Roma is scarce compared to other racial groups as a lack of academic interest, financial limitations, and other social and political factors has constrained it. This resulted in a cross-cultural circulation of misinformation about Romani people and the reproduction of Romani myths and stereotypes in fiction. This project aims to analyze selected literary works on Gypsies from three Eastern and Western European countries and two periods to unpack the cultural and political roots of Romani literary misrepresentation. This research employs a range of theoretical frameworks chosen to put the Gypsy protagonists under maximum spotlight without unnecessary repetition, …

From Provincial Palace To Country Cottage: A History Of The Russian Dacha, 1700s To Present, Melissa Renee Rosenak Bevency

History Undergraduate Departmental Honors Theses

In Russia, the dacha is typically a second home with a garden, located outside of but not far from a major city. However, this definition fails to fully encapsulate the cultural phenomenon, which has transformed in tandem with Russia throughout the years. The dacha's first manifestations appeared during the reign of Peter the Great, the name coming from the verb "to give," as dachas were given as land allotments by the tsar to his servitors. These grand estates were limited to Russia's most elite and were maintained by enserfed peasants. However, in centuries that followed, the dacha became more accessible …

Ukrainian Beauty, Daryna Gladun

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

‘Ukrainian Beauty’ is a collection of poetry that emerged from my two years in MALS. It confronts the misrepresentation of a female body and experience in a male-dominant society of a rising democracy.

The poetry collection commences with an essay, ‘Ukrainian Beauty—91’ and beyond,’ which delves into the historical and political backdrop of the first national pageant, ‘Ukrainian Beauty,’ held in February 1991, a pivotal year marked by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The 20 poems in the collection reference the late 1980s-1990s artworks by the Kharkiv School of Photography and Odesa Conceptual Artists, Les Podervianskyi’s radio plays, texts …

The Human Faces Of Dissident Socialism: The Fight For Human Rights In Soviet Ukraine, Alexander Nicholas Sosenko

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the transformation of a Ukrainian literary and aesthetic avant-garde movement in the 1960s, the Sixtiers, into an emblem of the 1970s global human rights campaign. This historical interpretation intertwines the brief flicker of early-1960s Ukrainian art and poetry with the joyous and tragic stories of Soviet citizens fighting for human rights. The Ukrainian Sixtiers’ experience with political persecution made them ideal players in the international human rights movement in its formative years. They adopted positive foreign influences and modified them for their own situation, whether in intellectual work or human rights activism. This represents a Soviet Ukrainian …

The Intersection Of Foreign Influence And Democratization: A Case Study Of Eurasian Powers Influence On Belarus’ Democratic Movement Since 2020, Dalton Xavier Maggs

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In 2020, the world took notice of Belarus’ dictator, Alexander Lukashenko’s brutal repression of the Belarusian people, demonstrating their wish to topple his hybrid authoritarian regime to make way for a liberated and democratic Belarus. While that wish has yet to be achieved, the question of “How do the regional powers of Eurasia influence the internal democratization struggle of Belarus?” has been vital to understanding geopolitics over the past three years. Through analysis of government reports, statements, and interviews with experts in the Eurasian region, I showcase the foreign policies of the U.S., EU, Russia, and China relating to Belarus. …

The Confounding Body: Female Corporeality, Androgyny, And Disgust In The Work Of Virginia Woolf And Zinaida Gippius, Yelizaveta Shapiro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Confounding Body: Female Corporeality, Androgyny, and Disgust in the Work of Virginia Woolf and Zinaida Gippius examines how the discourses of degeneration, eugenics, and sexology shaped representations of women’s bodies in British and Russian modernist literature. Focusing on the writing of Zinaida Gippius (1869-1945) and Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), I challenge the longstanding argument that both authors attempted to escape the material body by resorting to androgynous tropes. I argue that the material female body takes center stage in both Gippius’s and Woolf’s work and functions as a powerfully paradoxical entity: one that generates disgust and enables oppression while housing …

The Search For Existential Meaning: Tracing Leo Tolstoy’S Nihilism Through His Later Works, Elisabeth Koyfman

Student Theses and Dissertations

In this senior thesis, I explore the writings of acclaimed 19th-century author Leo Tolstoy through the lens of existential and ethical nihilism: a philosophical ideology espousing an assertion of a meaningless existence shaped by similarly meaningless governing social, political, and religious conventions. Prior to the author’s religious conversion at the age of 50, Tolstoy’s writings reflected a nihilistic worldview that opposed any socially accepted definition of a meaningful existence. Although within the span of 1800s Russia nihilism was strongly associated with atheism and terrorism, Tolstoy distanced himself from any accepted cultural value or label—including the negative political associations and other …

Morphosemantic Integration Of -Ing Anglicisms Into Russian And Kazakh In The Context Of Trilingual Code-Switching, Timur Akishev

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current dissertation is an attempt to determine and describe the characteristics of the process of linguistic integration of English noun loans into Russian and Kazakh. One of the main objectives that my study was guided by was the analysis of the relationships between or across the linguistic and quantitative parameters of the loans based on the data drawn from the Russian National Corpus, an online database containing multiple examples of using the Russian language. Another important objective of the research conducted was to provide a holistic interpretation to the process of secondary adaptation of the nominal Anglicisms from Russian …

Echoes Of Eternity: The (Meta)Physics Of Time And Space In Eugene Vodolazkin's Laurus, Samuel Jayasi

World Languages, Literatures and Cultures Honors Theses

This study will consider ways in which Eugene Vodolazkin demonstrates his aesthetic and cultural understanding of what he calls “Christian reenchantment” in his novel Laurus. While “national medievalism” and “Christian reenchantment” share concerns about postmodernism, Vodolazkin’s novel investigates not so much issues of Russian national identity, but the consciousness of the age itself. Leaving aside any possibility of representing some kind of new utopia to counter the problems of postmodernism as too historically traumatic, Vodolazkin recreates the “medieval mindset” as a way to introduce “Christian reenchantment” of the (fictional) world. In the novel, the return to the medieval way …

Bookends: Freemasonry In Russia, Past And Present, James Patrick Greene

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to explore Russian Freemasonry in both the reign of Peter I and in theRussian Federation following the collapse of the Soviet Union, two periods where the relevant scholarship has largely fallen silent. The first chapter argues that early Masonic influences were both present at the court of Peter I and accepted by the Tsar. These intellectual trends, traceable in the libraries, social connections, and writings of individual Jacobites, would reemerge in the institutional Freemasonry in the reign of Catherine II. The printing and translation activities of Novikov and Lopukhin indicate a strong interest in these mystical ideas …

To Whom Did Pushkin Write? The Narrator-Reader Friendship In Eugene Onegin, Tatum Grace Hall

CMC Senior Theses

In this thesis, I argue that in his novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, Alexander Pushkin transcends the traditional narrator-reader hierarchy to foster a sense of friendship between himself and his reader. I suggest that Pushkin’s desire for friendship with his reader necessitates a keen awareness of his and his reader’s collective engagement within the novel. If Pushkin seeks friendship with his readers, he must treat them as friends. Consequently, the reader’s role in Eugene Onegin is elevated to that of Pushkin’s intimate. In my analysis, I identify three methods by which Pushkin successfully fosters a sense of overlapping experience …

Samozvanets (The Pretender), Matthew Garrell, Alikzandr Malakov

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

he Russian word Samozvanets most directly translates to Imposter in English. However, for this thesis, I have selected the alternative interpretation of Pretender. Imposter implies the taking or assuming of another’s position. Pretender, more personally, carries the meaning of presenting self as something one is not. It is through the lens of the Pretender that I examine the idea of what it means to be a member of a particular ethnicity, and to engage with one’s cultural heritage. I do this through a collection of fictional stories, investigating various lives within the Russian diaspora following the dissolution of the Soviet …

Gamblers And The Game Of Life: A Literary Examination Of The Professional And The Addict, Annika Ozizmir

CMC Senior Theses

The gambler is a mysterious persona in life and in literature. Who is the gambler? While we can envision the gambler as many different kinds of people, this thesis seeks to answer this question by focusing on certain literary figures who gamble. Its author analyzes two archetypes in particular, that of the professional gambler and that of the addict. To illustrate these types, the author looks to four protagonists from a mix of four novels and short stories: Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, “A Gentleman’s Game” by Jonathan Lethem, “Queen of Spades” by Alexander Pushkin, and The Gambler by Fyodor …

Baba Yaga: An Ecofeminist Analysis Of The Witch Of The Woods, Maya Lozinsky

Scripps Senior Theses

In this thesis, I will argue that Baba Yaga’s prevalence in Russia’s culture and media provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into the junctures between the climate crisis and gender inequality in Russia. Despite the persistent gender inequities present in current Russian society, ecofeminist frameworks and ideologies are already deeply embedded in Russian culture. Women, as a group, have always been politically active in Russia, from resisting the introduction of Christianity in the 9th century, to the feminist resistance group Pussy Riot founded in 2011. I will examine Baba Yaga’s history, her role in the Russian folktale, and her …

Russian And Ukrainian: Like Two Drops Of Water, Elizabeth Edwards

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Ukraine and Russia, both in the international spotlight, have similar national languages that are often misrepresented as being entirely mutually intelligible. While both languages do, in fact, have the same lineage, Ukraine has, over time, developed linguistic independence in a distinct language separate from Russian. The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has renewed public interest in both the Ukrainian and Russian languages, but there are still stark differences, both socio-politically and linguistically, which are not widely known or appreciated. A brief, historical description of a few lexical, phonological, and orthographic differences between the two languages can illustrate the importance of …

"I Am Not Alive": A Bionian Reading Of Life And Death In Balzac's Le Colonel Chabert And Tynianov's Podporuchik Kizhe, Andres Meraz

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

This essay investigates the themes of life and death in Balzac’s novel, Le Colonel Chabert (1832), and Tynianov’s novella, Podporuchik Kizhe (1927). In these works, life and death are as much socio-political and legal constructs as they are organic or ontological states—that is, the chronological, biological beginning and ending of a “life.” In other words, life and death become conceptual spaces into which one may enter, or from which one may be excluded. Additionally, this essay asserts that while the approach taken in one text may to be a kind of conceptual inversion of the approach taken in the other, …