Slavic Languages and Societies Commons^™

Review: Studies In Accentology And Slavic Linguistics In Honor Of Ronald F. Feldstein; Exploring The Us Language Flagship Program: Professional Competence In A Second Language By Graduations, Ljiljana Durašković, Grant H. Lundberg

Russian Language Journal

As the title states, this volume was compiled in honor of the work and influence of Ronald F. Feldstein on the fields of accentology and Slavic linguistics. Though Professor Feldstein did some work in most of the areas covered in the volume, the book is unified by the ideas of the Prague Linguistic Circle and Jakobsonian structuralism, of which Feldstein was an important representative for many Slavic linguists working today.

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) …