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2012

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Articles 1 - 30 of 66

Full-Text Articles in Slavic Languages and Societies

In Search Of Real Fathers: Plenzdorf's Die Neuen Leiden Des Jungen W. And Vater, Mutter, Mörderkind, Michelle Schwoebel Dec 2012

In Search Of Real Fathers: Plenzdorf's Die Neuen Leiden Des Jungen W. And Vater, Mutter, Mörderkind, Michelle Schwoebel

Theses and Dissertations

Plenzdorf's works, one written before the fall of socialism in the German Democratic Republic (hereafter referred to as the DDR), and one after, portray relationships between fathers and sons, which act as a metaphor to express a personal perspective of the state, revealing that the DDR was neither as repressive or as omnipresent for the average citizen as outsiders are often given to believe. The father, or Übervater, a figure deeply rooted in the German consciousness, is represented by the state and proves itself as an entity which gives the protagonists in both works little notice, despite their best efforts …

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Austro-American Reflections: Making The Writings Of Ann Tizia Leitich Accessible To English-Speaking Audiences, Stephen Andrew Simon Dec 2012

Austro-American Reflections: Making The Writings Of Ann Tizia Leitich Accessible To English-Speaking Audiences, Stephen Andrew Simon

Theses and Dissertations

Ann Tizia Leitich wrote about America to a Viennese audience as a foreign correspondent with the unique and personal perspective of an immigrant to the United States. Leitich differentiates herself from other Europeans who reported on America in her day by telling of the life of the average working American. In so doing, Leitich uses her work as a foreign correspondent to create a new identity for Austria between the World Wars. Leitich uses America in the 1920's and 1930's as a cultural mirror in which the new Republic of Austria can see itself. Leitich's perspective of America is not …

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Evans's 'The Turducken' And Chekhov's 'The Seagull', Brian R. Johnson Dec 2012

Evans's 'The Turducken' And Chekhov's 'The Seagull', Brian R. Johnson

Russian Faculty Works

In his article "Evans's The Turducken and Chekhov's The Seagull" Brian R. Johnson approaches The Turducken as a travesty of The Seagull, examining six iconic scenes from The Seagull, in order to explore the satirical effect of the altered scenes. In December of 2008, Bedlam Theatre of Minneapolis presented The Turducken, "a holiday dinner theater spectacular inspired by Anton Chekhov's The Seagull." Playwright Josef Evans takes Chekhov's 1895 work and turns the classic piece into a musical and farcical satire. The plot of The Turducken follows the plot of The Seagull, and some scenes in The Turducken are recognizable as …

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Implications To The Traditional Higher Education Model In A Time Of New Economic And Demographic Realities, Phillip Imel Nov 2012

Implications To The Traditional Higher Education Model In A Time Of New Economic And Demographic Realities, Phillip Imel

Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the world’s developed countries the tendency is to a decreasing or stagnant, aging population. Traditional higher education has occurred early in life with little retraining in adulthood. The current demographic and economic realities demand a change in the role of traditional higher education as it must be more flexible and portable. Higher education must play a central role in the lifelong learning process as new technologies become available. Changes will occur with or without the approval of the established higher education hierarchy as businesses and governments demand quicker, cheaper, and better delivery methods to the current system. Technology is …

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The Russian Village, Urban Infrastructure Issues, And The Vertically Integrated Agriculture Model, Phillip Imel Nov 2012

The Russian Village, Urban Infrastructure Issues, And The Vertically Integrated Agriculture Model, Phillip Imel

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Russia’s population total has been in decline since 1992 and this is most evident in the villages of Russia. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the large farm collectives, many villages’ raison d'être ceased to exist. Today people continue to leave the villages for what they consider to be the better economic promise of the larger cities. There are serious societal and infrastructure issues related to the village exodus to the larger municipalities. In this paper, a vertically integrated agriculture model is examined as one step towards a more vibrant village economy. A vertically integrated model based upon …

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Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach's Ohne Liebe: A Translation And Commentary, Steven L. Peris Nov 2012

Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach's Ohne Liebe: A Translation And Commentary, Steven L. Peris

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores a short drama of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Without Love. It provides not only a complete English translation of the work, but also an interpretative introduction. By first examining the life of Ebner-Eschenbach, I am able to provide insight to the origins of the play. Because Ebner-Eschenbach faced so much opposition in her drama writing career this one act play becomes more relevant. It contains similar themes to her other works such as: gender roles, the role of the aristocracy, and love in marriage. Without Love examines the role of love in marriage by providing the reader …

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Diagnosing Prince Myshkin, Brian R. Johnson Oct 2012

Diagnosing Prince Myshkin, Brian R. Johnson

Russian Faculty Works

The article presents literary criticism of the book "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It focuses on the medical history of the character Prince Myshkin. According to the author, Myshkin's diagnosis of and treatment for epilepsy play an important role in his character and in the plot of the novel. Topics discussed include recognition, Dostoyevsky's medical knowledge, and the 19th-century medical concept of idiotism.

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All This Is Your World: Soviet Tourism At Home And Abroad After Stalin, Marko Dumančić Jul 2012

All This Is Your World: Soviet Tourism At Home And Abroad After Stalin, Marko Dumančić

History Faculty Publications

Book Review in Nationalities Papers The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity

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Agnes Von Lilien: A Translation By Kari Stolzenburg, Kari M. Stolzenburg Jul 2012

Agnes Von Lilien: A Translation By Kari Stolzenburg, Kari M. Stolzenburg

Theses and Dissertations

The novel Agnes von Lilien by Caroline von Wolzogen, although celebrated during the period of Weimar Classicism, was not generally well known to English-speaking readers and researchers until recently. This project aims to address this situation by creating an easily accessible English translation of the novel complete with critical annotations for the benefit of researchers and lay readers alike. The annotated translation presented in this work is an excerpt of the full translation of the work drawn in particular from the first third of the novel. This novel, first published in 1798, reflects many ideals of the Enlightenment, as well …

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Subverting Socialist Realism: Vasily Grossman's Marginal Heroes, Maria Karen Whittle May 2012

Subverting Socialist Realism: Vasily Grossman's Marginal Heroes, Maria Karen Whittle

Pomona Senior Theses

Soviet writer Vasilii Grossman has been renowned in the West as a dissident author of Life and Fate, which multiple sources, including The New York Times have called "arguably the greatest Russian novel of the 20th century." Grossman, however, was not a dissident, but an official state writer attempting to publish for a Soviet audience. Grossman's work was criticized by Soviets as being "too Jewish", while Jewish scholars have called it "not Jewish enough." And, despite his modern critical acclaim, little scholarship on Grossman exists. In my thesis, I explore these paradoxes. I argue that Grossman attempts to reinterpret traditional …

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Embracing Stars: On The Corporeal Qualities Of Russian Glass, Julia B. Chadaga May 2012

Embracing Stars: On The Corporeal Qualities Of Russian Glass, Julia B. Chadaga

Russian Studies Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

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And Then, He Folds His Patterned Rug: Repressive Reality And The Eternal Soul In Vladimir Nabokov, Elizabeth Cook Apr 2012

And Then, He Folds His Patterned Rug: Repressive Reality And The Eternal Soul In Vladimir Nabokov, Elizabeth Cook

Masters Theses

While Vladimir Nabokov has deservedly earned fame as a stylist of the strange, most critics who study his novels approach his absurd and beautiful characters as little more than fractured victims of a wholly subjective reality. Compounding the misunderstanding is the tired debate over whether or not Lolita is literary, pornographic, or some cruel game of cat-and-mouse in which Nabokov seizes control of his readers' sense of morality. However, critics who read Nabokov as nothing more than a manipulative stylist neglect to realize that his characters suffer such absurd distortions of spirit and mind because their environment--the "average" reality of …

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Pushing The "Scented Envelope": Elisa Von Der Recke At The Cultural Crossroads, Carrie L. Cox Mar 2012

Pushing The "Scented Envelope": Elisa Von Der Recke At The Cultural Crossroads, Carrie L. Cox

Theses and Dissertations

Pushing the "Scented Envelope": Elisa von der Recke at the Cultural Crossroads Carrie L. Cox Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages, BYU Master of Arts This thesis serves as an introduction to the 5-volume electronic edition of the collected works of the influential German-language author Elisa von der Recke to be published by the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages at Brigham Young University. The compilation presents a modern edition of Recke's published writings and letters in German, with an extensive critical apparatus in English, including introductions to the edition, author and individual sections, biographical information, a complete bibliography of …

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Klassnaya Gazeta No. 5, Petko Ivanov, Jyoti Arvey, Kayla Cogle, Nadiya Hafizova, Tara Law, William Martinsky, Leland Sidle, Gabby Wang Mar 2012

Klassnaya Gazeta No. 5, Petko Ivanov, Jyoti Arvey, Kayla Cogle, Nadiya Hafizova, Tara Law, William Martinsky, Leland Sidle, Gabby Wang

Slavic Studies Student Projects and Publications

No abstract provided.

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Klassnaya Gazeta No. 4, Petko Ivanov, Jyoti Arvey, Kayla Cogle, Clayton Hillyer, Tara Law, William Martinsky, Leland Sidle, Gabby Wang Feb 2012

Klassnaya Gazeta No. 4, Petko Ivanov, Jyoti Arvey, Kayla Cogle, Clayton Hillyer, Tara Law, William Martinsky, Leland Sidle, Gabby Wang

Slavic Studies Student Projects and Publications

No abstract provided.

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Case Study: The Bosnia Project, Anna Mahalak Jan 2012

Case Study: The Bosnia Project, Anna Mahalak

VA Engage Journal

The purpose of this report is to critically examine William & Mary’s longest running student-run service trip. The Bosnia Project has sent William & Mary students to Bosnia each summer since 1998 to run a summer camp focused on teaching English with a partner Bosnian non-governmental organization (NGO). This collaboration with NGOs in Bosnia has changed and grown over time to adapt to the needs of Bosnian youth and take advantage of new technology. As the Bosnia Project enters its fourteenth summer, the following history and context for the project, as well as an exploration of results and opportunities for …

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Introduction: Framing The View: Russian Women In The Long Nineteenth Century, Sibelan E. S. Forrester Jan 2012

Introduction: Framing The View: Russian Women In The Long Nineteenth Century, Sibelan E. S. Forrester

Russian Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

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Civic Culture: Public Opinion And The Resurgence Of Civic Culture, Yuri Levada Jan 2012

Civic Culture: Public Opinion And The Resurgence Of Civic Culture, Yuri Levada

Russian Culture

There has hardly been a stretch in Russian history more saturated with sweeping changes than the period between 1988-1993. Packed into this exceedingly brief historical era are the rise of "perestroika" and the fall of its illustrious leader, Mikhail Gorbachev; the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence in its place of 15 independent states; the August '91 communist putsch and the democrats' triumphant ascension to power; the proliferation of virulent ethnic conflicts and the recognition of the abiding need for cooperation; the bloody October '93 confrontation between the executive and legislative powers and the surprising strength that the …

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Russian Folktale, V. Y. Propp, Sibelan E.S. Forrester , Translator Jan 2012

Russian Folktale, V. Y. Propp, Sibelan E.S. Forrester , Translator

Russian Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

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Introduction: Continuity And Change In Russian Culture, Dmitri N. Shalin Jan 2012

Introduction: Continuity And Change In Russian Culture, Dmitri N. Shalin

Russian Culture

This project on Russian culture goes back to the Spring of 1990 when several American and Russian scholars converged at the Russian Research Center at Harvard University and decided to join forces in a study of changes sweeping the Soviet Union. From the start, the participants agreed that they would not try to chase fast breaking news from Russia -- a hopeless task given the pace of recent changes, but rather would focus on the continuity and change in Russian culture, on the long-term social forces that compel the Russian people to reexamine old ways and reevaluate old values.

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Historical Culture: Russia In Search Of Itself, Boris Paramonov Jan 2012

Historical Culture: Russia In Search Of Itself, Boris Paramonov

Russian Culture

Russia's 75 year-long experiment with communism is over, but the question persists as to whether the Soviet regime was a historical aberration or an expression of the country's destiny. This question is as old as the Bolshevik revolution. It has produced a voluminous literature and will no doubt continue to attract attention in the near future. Alas, it can not be answered conclusively, for it is grounded in the questioner's ideological a priori and tells us more about the historian's biases than about Russian history.

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Moral Culture: Public Morality And Private Responsibility, Igor Kon Jan 2012

Moral Culture: Public Morality And Private Responsibility, Igor Kon

Russian Culture

When Mikhail Gorbachev unfurled his reform banners in the late 1980's, many observers inside and outside Russia hailed perestroika as a moral renaissance. The Soviet Union was indeed a spiritually bankrupt society at the time, its citizens demanding a clean break with the past and yearning for a better future. Despite the new openness or glasnost, the changes have been slow in coming and often very controversial. A public opinion survey conducted in February 1991 showed the country morally adrift and deeply divided about the course of reforms.

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Psychological Culture: Ambivalence And Resistance To Social Change, Alexander Etkind Jan 2012

Psychological Culture: Ambivalence And Resistance To Social Change, Alexander Etkind

Russian Culture

"National character," "modal personality," "collective unconscious," "ethnic mentality," "cultural identity" -- these and similar notions are designed to capture psychological traits that distinguish one social group from another. Attempts to isolate such hypothetical qualities are not different in principle from efforts to describe religious, legal, or other social patterns found among people who have lived together for a length of time, except that psychological constructs tend to focus on subjective characteristics and are somewhat harder to identify. For the first time, the link between culture and psychology came under close scrutiny in the nineteen century. German linguists Steinthal and Lazarus …

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Intellectual Culture: The End Of Russian Intelligentsia, Dmitri N. Shalin Jan 2012

Intellectual Culture: The End Of Russian Intelligentsia, Dmitri N. Shalin

Russian Culture

No group cheered louder for Soviet reform, had a bigger stake in perestroika, and suffered more in its aftermath than did the Russian intelligentsia. Today, nearly a decade after Mikhail Gorbachev unveiled his plan to reform Soviet society, the mood among Russian intellectuals is decidedly gloomy. "The intelligentsia has carried perestroika on its shoulders," laments Ury Shchekochikhin, "so why does it feel so forlorn, superfluous, forgotten"? G. Ivanitsky warns that the intellectual strata "has become so thin that in three or four years the current genocide against the intelligentsia would surely wipe it out." Andrey Bitov, one of the country's …

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Religious Culture: Faith In Soviet And Post-Soviet Russia, Jerry Pankhurst Jan 2012

Religious Culture: Faith In Soviet And Post-Soviet Russia, Jerry Pankhurst

Russian Culture

The former Soviet Union is undergoing a religious revival. People inside and outside the Russian Orthodox church are reexamining its ancient ways, rediscovering its long-forgotten saints, searching its institutional memory for answers to urgent questions facing the nation. The Western reaction to this remarkable resurgence of religion in Russia has been mixed. All observers welcome the fact that free inquiry about religion and free religious worship have been restored in the Russian Federation. At the same time, many are concerned about the xenophobic tendencies that have accompanied the religious revival in Russia and that became especially evident after the liberal …

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Soviet Everyday Culture: An Oxymoron?, Svetlana Boym Jan 2012

Soviet Everyday Culture: An Oxymoron?, Svetlana Boym

Russian Culture

Mikhail Mishin, a Soviet satirist, wrote that Russians recognize themselves in the famous fairy-tale character Ivan the Fool. He bides his time napping on the heated furnace and gets up only to undertake major heroic feats. Ivan the Fool might be a great hero, but he has no idea how to survive his everyday life. Everyday life, captured in the Russian word byt, is a more dangerous enemy to him than the multi-headed fire-spitting dragon. The everyday is Russia 's cultural monster. The nation might worship its heroes and their fabled ability to withstand hell or high water, but …

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Literary Culture: "New Soviet Man" In The Mirror Of Literature, Maurice Friedberg Jan 2012

Literary Culture: "New Soviet Man" In The Mirror Of Literature, Maurice Friedberg

Russian Culture

The roots of Soviet literary culture extend beyond the establishment of the Soviet state itself. Maxim Gorky's Mother written, ironically, some years before the Bolshevik Revolution in the United States (the country, it might be noted, that also contributed to the cause of the tradition of May Day observances) is one hallmark of that culture avant la lettre. Nikolai Chernyshevsky's What Is to Be Done, a novel often cited in Communist hagiographies as the inspiration of generations of nineteenth-century Russian revolutionaries (including, significantly, the founder of Soviet state himself, as well as his martyred brother) is another. And yet, we …

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Artistic Culture: The Trial By Freedom, Daniil Dondurei Jan 2012

Artistic Culture: The Trial By Freedom, Daniil Dondurei

Russian Culture

"The poet in Russia is more than just a poet." This line from Evgeny Yevtushenko's verse hints at the unique place that artistic culture has occupied in Russia 's tragic history. From Radishchev and Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn and Tarkovsky, writers, painters, film makers -- cultural producers of every kind -- undertook to explain Russian society to itself. The common view that depicts Soviet art as subservient to ideology is well grounded in facts, but it tends to conceal as much as it reveals. Soviet artists served the state, and thus could not help but being influenced by the nation's poisonous …

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Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun Jan 2012

Labor Culture: Labor Morality Under Socialism, Vladimir Magun

Russian Culture

Soviet leaders had always taken a keen interest in workers' behavior and labor motives and sought to keep labor morality under strict state control. A complex network of values and regulations was developed for this purpose after the October Revolution of 1917. They were best articulated in the "political economy of socialism" which purported to present a scientific picture of the country's economic life. Textbooks on socialist economy were widely circulated in the Soviet Union and appropriate courses included into a core curriculum for all higher education institutions in the country. Basic tenets of socialist political economy were taught in …

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The Intelligentsia Without Revolution: The Culture Of The Silver Age, Andrei Ariev Jan 2012

The Intelligentsia Without Revolution: The Culture Of The Silver Age, Andrei Ariev

Russian Culture

The most effective definition of "the intelligentsia" might read: “Russian intellectuals who are generally opposed to the government.” But even Russia’s traditionally powerful government has collapsed at times, leaving a vacuum of authority. This was precisely the historical situation at the beginning of the twentieth century. It made an indelible impression both upon thinkers, such as Rozanov, and on politicians, such as Lenin.

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