Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Number 94
Fall 1999

Table of Contents
Letter from the Director

Komar visits UI
New Faculty Profile
Faculty News
Report from the Field
Grad Student News
Alumni News
Lecture Series Fall 1999
Send Us Your News!

Russian and East European Center News

Editor: Lynda Park

Editorial Assistant: Matt Rosenstein

The Center News is published bi-annually. We welcome your comments and suggestions. To get on our mailing list , contact Vicki Retzolk at the address below or e-mail: reec@uiuc.edu

Center News is produced for the Russian and East European Center by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Office of Publications.

Russian and East European Center
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(217) 333-1244;

fax (217) 333-1582

Balkanalia--Uof I Balkan Ensemble

by Dave McDonald

The pounding beat of the bass drum-like tupan, the dance-like syncopation of the hour glass-shaped darabukha drum, the agile run of the reeds, underneath the soaring vocal melodies, create a unique mass of sound that causes the heart to pound, the foot to tap, and the pulse to liven. The power of music is understood in all cultures and all nationalities. One of the greatest facets of musical expression is its easily translated significance across the social and political boundaries people so easily create. As the visiting performers from Bulgaria (Bulgari), played through the night at the cosmopolitan house here on campus last March, men, women, and children of many different backgrounds locked arms and danced a traditional Bulgarian circle dance (horo). Everyone linked together at the elbows in that particular horo had no trouble casting away their trepidation, and simply allowed the music to work its magic. Perhaps only music could have convinced twenty-five strangers to link arms and dance in a circle of laughter for hours into the night. It is moments such as this that bring people together to celebrate and reaffirm the time-honored idea that we, as members of a global society, can celebrate the universal qualities that make us who we are without worrying about where we are from. Certainly, this was music and people at their best.

Magical evenings such as this are not isolated instances of cultural exchange here at the University of Illinois. Underneath the daily commotion of lectures, tests, and term papers, there are groups of students and faculty willing to learn and perform music from other parts of the world in order to enrich the cultural tapestry of Champaign-Urbana. These dedicated musicians do this because nights such as the one mentioned above should be experienced by all who have ever found their pulse quickening at the sound of a well-played song. One such group, the U of I Balkan Ensemble Balkanalia, affords U of I students and community members the opportunity to explore a richly diversified Eastern European musical tradition. Founded by ethnomusicology professor Donna Buchanan in the fall of 1998, this ensemble attempts to bring life to a wide array of musical traditions stretching from Turkey and the Near East to Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, and Serbia. By presenting music from so many different cultures of the Balkans, Balkanalia seeks to celebrate cultural diversity and enhance global community here in Central Illinois.

Much like the Balkans themselves, the repertory of Balkanalia is multi-dimensional, crossing many cultural, linguistic, and ethnic boundaries. A typical performance might include a traditional Bulgarian horo, Albanian popular songs, and a Turkish longa. The musicians in Balkanalia perform on both traditional and modern instruments, including kaval (Bulgarian end-blown flute) and tambura (Bulgarian long necked strummed lute) alongside clarinet, saxophone, tuba, accordion, and electric keyboard. These instruments, coupled with a wide collection of various drums, give the ensemble a brilliant sound. Balkanalia also performs various styles of traditional and modern music. This provides an accurate sense of how the music might sound in its native land, both in the country and in the city. Additionally, Balkanalia strives to represent the many different musical cultures available in the Balkans today. It is this very commitment to representing all the musical colors of this region that makes Balkanalia one of the most exciting musical ensembles in Champaign-Urbana.

Balkan music possesses many unique characteristics. One of its most distinctive is its great rhythmic complexity. In addition to the symmetrical meters we encounter in the majority of Western music (4/4, 3/4, 2/4), Balkan music also includes asymmetrical or irregular rhythms and beat patterns (5/8, 7/8, 11/16). These complex rhythmic patterns, so often played at very fast tempos, are perfect for dancing. The use of drone with narrow, intense, harmonies are also characteristic of Balkan melodies. These distinctive melodies exhibit a combination of local Slavic idioms with Turkish influences. Add to this very difficult ornamentation and one gets an idea of how complex this repertory can be.

Most striking about this ensemble, aside from its musical diversity, is the wide variety of backgrounds its members represent both educationally and ethnically. Balkanalia includes undergraduate and graduate students from several different Colleges within the University. The musicians in the group represent different majors and nationalities. Members of Balkanalia range from professional musicians to daring music lovers willing to learn and have fun. The only prerequisite for joining Balkanalia is a love for music and an open mind. For example, a flute player has the chance to learn kaval, a vocalist may also be involved in the percussion section, guitar players learn tambura, and everyone has the opportunity to sing. This gives experienced musicians the chance to expand their performance training and beginners the opportunity to learn how to play the region’s extraordinary music on traditional instruments. Through rehearsals, as well as private lessons, students are then able to broaden their musical horizons and bring a unique sound quality to the group.

In listening to music from other cultures we can experience the world from a new perspective. Through music we see the world’s peoples in their unique diversity as well as their universal community. Because of this, I sincerely invite anyone who enjoys music to see Balkanalia perform and experience another culture one song at a time.

Dave McDonald is a MM student in Musicology, specializing in Middle Eastern music.

Letter from the Director
Mark Steinberg

A full and, we hope, stimulating collection of activities is planned for this turn-of-the-millennium (by one calculation) academic year 1999-2000. This fall, the colloquium on “Directions in Russian and East European Studies” features talks by Valerie Kivelson (History, Michigan) on witchcraft and gender in the 17^th century, Boris Kolonitskii (Institute of History, St. Petersburg) on the “semiotics of shoulder boards,” Gail Kligman (Sociology, UCLA) on reproduction, representation, and resistance in Ceauçescu’s Romania, and Clare Cavanagh (Slavic, Northwestern) on Eastern European poetry, theory, and history. Other visits are being planned for the spring. As always, these talks are aimed at exploring leading trends in the field but also at provoking cross-disciplinary conversations among us. The visit to campus by the well-known conceptual artist Vitaly Komar, during which he interacted with hundreds of students and faculty in a variety of events, provoked many such conversations and arguments (including quite a few about “the meaning of art”). Upcoming events include films and poetry readings, bag-lunch talks, meetings (including with visiting scholars) of the Russian Studies Circle, and three conferences in the spring: a major symposium on “Russia after Yeltsin,” a conference (planned with the four other area studies centers, the program on Women in International Development, and Women’s Studies) on “Gender and Globalization,” and the annual meeting of the Midwest Slavic Conference (which we are hosting).

One particular project in which the Center is actively involved deserves special mention: the new Ford Foundation program at the University of Illinois on “Area Studies, Identity and the Arts.” Building upon a pilot-year program on diaspora cultures, the university has won a large three-year grant to mount a major program of activities in response to the Ford Foundation initiative, “Revitalizing Area Studies: Crossing Borders.” Generously supported by the colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Fine and Applied Arts, by International Programs and Studies, and by the Provost, many on this campus, including faculty and students associated with the Russian and East European Center, will be involved in an innovative program of comparative cultural study that explores the complex interactions of the global and the local, of disciplinary and interdisciplinary methods, and of theoretical, comparative, and area-based knowledges. The program (which I have been actively involved in planning on behalf of the Center) features a campus-wide, multidisciplinary faculty/graduate student seminar, an undergraduate seminar, resident scholars and artists, thematic field experiences abroad, and an outreach program to the schools. Within this general design, each year has a unifying theme: gender, culture industries, and religion and the sacred. Studies of Russia and Eastern Europe will be a part of the entire program and a central focus in the final year (which will include a summer seminar in Moscow).

I wish you a good year and hope to see you at many of these events.

Vitaly Komar Visits University of Illinois

The Russian and East European Center was pleased to host a visit by renowned artist Vitaly Komar in September. Founders of the Sots Art movement, Komar and his collaborator Alexander Melamid were among the best known post-war Soviet dissident artists when they emigrated to Israel in 1977 and New York the following year. During the last two decades in America, their international acclaim has grown as they have continued to explore and challenge the conventional boundaries and definitions of art and our perception of national mythologies and political iconography.

Komar’s CAS/Millercomm lecture, “Revolutionary Icons: Washington and Lenin in American and Soviet Art,” on the evening of September 23 treated the audience of over 250 people to an entertaining and thought-provoking slide presentation. Komar discussed his and Melamid’s approach to the two figures whose images have transcended their political identities towards a mythological status. Komar and Melamid’s paintings generally place Lenin, Washington, and other leaders like Stalin in unusual settings, playing on popular images of these figures. For example, Lenin with outstretched hand hails a taxi in front of McDonald’s in downtown New York; Washington as “father of the nation” coddles a bare-bottomed, bald eagle-headed baby. The audience’s reactions attested to the artists’ ability to provoke both laughter and thought through their works, as he demonstrated some surprising correlations between the representations of political messages and historical figures in American and Soviet art.

The following afternoon, Komar led an IPRH seminar entitled “Komar and Melamid: From Sots Art to Eco-Collaboration with Animals,” in which he discussed several projects that he and Melamid have produced over the years. First, he traced the development of “Sots Art,” a sort of hybrid of Soviet Socialist Realism and American Pop Art, and its reception in Soviet Russia. Next, Komar described their “soul business” in New York and told an anecdote about buying and re-selling Andy Warhol’s soul. Komar then gave an account of a staged “archaeological dig” on the island of Crete that unearthed the mythical minotaur. He also explained the process behind their series of “Most Wanted” and “Least Wanted” paintings, for which Komar and Melamid used the results of polls designed to determine the tastes of the people of various nations. Finally, Komar discussed their latest project--collaborations with elephants in Thailand and a chimpanzee in Moscow’s Red Square.

Komar’s visit was co-sponsored by CAS/MillerComm, IPRH, Krannert Art Museum, FAA Lorado Taft Fund, and many other units on campus.

New Faculty Profile BORIS KOLONITSKII

We are fortunate this semester to have Boris Kolonitskii from the Institute of Russian History at the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN), who is a visiting faculty in the Department of History. Prof. Kolonitskii is a leading historian of the 1917 Russian Revolution, who has produced innovative work on political culture, language and symbols of the Revolution. His book, Interpreting the Russian Revolution, which he co-authored with Orlando Figes, was published by Yale University Press this fall.

When asked why he decided to work on the 1917 Revolution, he admits that it was part Soviet mentality which saw the Revolution as ground zero. He also recounts his school years when John Reed’s Ten Days that Shook the World made a deep impression on him. He, of course, read the 1957 edition with all portrayals of Trotsky deleted from the text. When he was working on his dissertation on the “Bourgeois Printed Propaganda in Petrograd, March-October 1917” at the Institute of Russian History, RAN, in the 1980s, he says he did not face many obstacles or opposition to his work, but was, nonetheless, well aware of the state censorship particularly regarding Trotsky. (The first time he saw a reference to Trotsky in a newly published book was in 1987.) Even with state censorship, he had access to western scholarship on the Revolution through the private collections of other scholars or in the spetskhran (a restricted special collection) of the library, where they kept the works of “bourgeois” scholars. So, he says, the books by Diane Koenker and Richard Pipes would be in the same collection as works of “bourgeois scholars.” Also in the spetskhran one found the forbidden edition of Ten Days that Shook the World from the 1920s.

When asked about the changes in his profession in the last ten years, he states that things have changed for both good and bad. While there is greater access to information now, he notes that it is much more difficult to devote oneself to academic work full-time because of the economic conditions and the quality of work is not necessarily higher now. During the Soviet period, works on the Revolution were often full of ideology, but recent works on the Revolution are still full of ideology but of another kind. He stresses that it is important to keep in mind that many scholars in the late Soviet period did excellent academic work, even with the ideological pressures. One just has to learn to read between the quotes of Lenin.

While at the U of I, Prof. Kolonitskii is teaching two courses: “Colloquium in History: The Russian Revolution” and “History of Russia since 1917.” In October, he delivered a REEEC colloquium lecture, “Symbolic Revolution of 1917: The Semiotics of Shoulder Boards.” In December, he will return to St. Petersburg, where he works as a resident research scholar at the Institute of Russian History, RAN, and teaches part-time at the St. Petersburg Institute of Cultural Studies and the European University.

New Center Faculty

Alexandre Ardishvili is a new Assistant Professor of Human Resource Education. His research interests are international human resource development and entrepreneurship. He holds a PhD in Human Resource Education and an MBA from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in Management from the University of Moscow.

Angela Cannon is a new Visiting Research Associate in the Slavic and East European Library. She is a PhD candidate in Slavic Linguistics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and holds an MLS from Rutgers University.

Michael Charles is the Director of the Police Training Institute and a Professor of Human Resource Education. He recently received a PhD in Law from St. Petersburg University MVD in Russia. He also holds a PhD in Social Sciences from Michigan State University. Since 1990, he has been charge of a police exchange program between PTI and the Russian militia, the only such program in the US.

Zsuzsa Gille is a new Assistant Professor of Sociology. Her research interest is environmental and economic sociology in Hungary. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She will begin teaching in the spring semester. She position was seeded by REEEC.

Richard L. Jaehne is the Director of the Fire Service Institute since 1997. Previously he was the commandant of NATO’s Operational School in Germany. His area expertise is on NATO and the Balkans. Additionally, FSI will begin a new exchange program with its counterparts in Russia.

Jordana Mendelson is an Assistant Professor of Art History. While her primary field is contemporary Spanish art, she has a research and teaching interest in modern Russian/Soviet art. She received her PhD in Art History from Yale University.

Faculty News

Dmitry V. Bobyshev presented a paper and read poetry at the International Congress of Poets, dedicated to the celebration of Pushkin’s 200^th birthday anniversary, in St. Petersburg, Russia in June 1999. He also published two poems in Zvezda, no.7 (July 1999) and a poem in Znamia, no. 8 (Aug. 1999) and did an interview on "Radio Russia" in June 1999.

Donna A. Buchanan published “Democracy or ‘Crazyocracy’? Pirin Folk Music and Sociocultural Change in Bulgaria” in New Countries, Old Sounds? Cultural Identity and Social Change in Southeastern Europe (Munich: Verlag Südostdeutsches Kulturwerk, 1999) and presented an invited paper in the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia colloquium in April 1999 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She continues to direct and perform with “Balkanalia,” the newly-established UIUC Balkan Music Ensemble (see main story).

Michael Charles received a Ph.D. in Law from St. Petersburg University MVD, Russia in June 1999. He also received the medal of celebration of the 40^th anniversary of the victory in the great patriotic war for outstanding service to Russia and the medal of excellence for service in the internal troops of the MVD of Russia during this time. In addition he published, both in English and Russian, a number of articles on police training in Russian law enforcement journals in 1998-99

Zsuzsa Gille published “Conceptions of Waste and the Production of Wastelands: Hungary since 1948” in Environmental Issues and World-System Analysis, eds. W. Goldfrank et al. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999).

Keith Hitchins published A Nation Discovered: Romanian Intellectuals in Transylvania and the Idea of a Nation (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedica, 1999).

Diane P. Koenker continues to serve as the Editor of the Slavic Review. She was also invited to give a lecture, “Class and Class Consciousness: Socialism in Russia,” at Carleton College in May 1999.

Boris Kolonitskii published Interpreting the Russian Revolution, with Orlando G. Figes (Yale University Press, 1999).

Carol Leff was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure in 1999.

Jonathan Ludwig presented “Woland: Preservation of the Human” at the Canadian Association of Slavists meeting in June 1999 and published “New Textbooks for New Curricula: Teaching Russian in the 1990s,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies (September 1999).

Sherban Lupu published two CDs in 1998, “George Enescu, Violin Music” and “T. Grigoriu, Violin Music”.

Peter Maggs delivered a week of lectures at the Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute in Budapest in May 1999. He also translated (with A. Tarassova and A. Zhiltsov) and edited (with V. Nazaryan and A. Tarassova) Civil Code of the Republic of Armenia (Yerevan: Iris, 1999). He is currently preparing a draft civil code for Moldova.

Zorica Nedovic-Budic received the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association 1999 Service Award.

Temira Pachmuss published D. S. Merezhkovsky: Reformers (Tomsk, 1999) and “Z. Huppius and D. Filosofov’s correspondence,” “Boris Savinkov in the life of Znaida Hippius,” and “Two Baltic-Russian poets: Vera Bulich and Karl Hoershelman” in Pamiatniki mirovoi kul’tury (Moscow, 1999).

Karl-Heinz Schoeps was the recipient of the LAS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 1999. This academic year, he is an associate in the Center for Advanced Study with a project on Nazi Writers after the collapse of the Third Reich in 1945. In October 1999, he delivered an invited paper at Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA, “From Tallhover to Hoftaller or the Eternal Informer” on the novel Tallhover by the former East German author Hans Joachim Schaedlich.

M. Mobin Shorish delivered the following papers at the Center for the Study of International Cooperation in Education at Hiroshima University, where he was a visiting faculty, January-March 1999: “Globalization and Culture,” “Perspective on Women’s Education in Developing Countries,” “Colonial Legacy and Reform.”

Olga Soffer was honored with the title of Doctor of Historical Sciences Honoris Causa, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of the History of Material Culture (IIMK), April l999. She also published the following articles in 1999: (with J. M. Adovasio, D. C. Hyland, B. Klima, and J. Svoboda), “Textil, Kosakarstvi a Site v Mladém Paleolitu Moravy,” Archeologické rozhledy LI:58-94; “Dynamic Landscapes and Late Pleistocene Social Geography: Clovis and Kostenki Compared,” in The Human Tide. Pleistocene Range Expansions, Colonizations, and the Paleolithic Archaeological Record, edited by O. Soffer and A. A. Velichko. Anthropologie (Brno) XXXVII/2: 155-162; “Why Archaeology Needs Anthropology - A Personal Perspective,” Anthropology Newsletter, 40:5, pp. 43-44.

Marek Sroka published “The University of Cracow Library under Nazi Occupation: 1939-1945,” Libraries & Culture 34:1(1999): 1-17.

Mark Steinberg, still director of the Russian and East European Center, published an essay on “Reforming the Area Studies Curriculum” in NewsNet in September 1999, and an article, “The Injured and Insurgent Self: The Moral Imagination of Russia’s Lower-Class Writers,” in Rethinking Russia’s Social Crisis: Workers and Intelligentsia in the Late Imperial Russia (Berkeley, 1999). He presented a paper, “The Language of Popular Revolution, 1917,” at the Midwest Russian History Workshop in Ann Arbor in October 1999. Recent honors include an Arnold O. Beckman Research Award for 1999-2000 and being named a mentor in the LAS Teaching Academy.

Aaron Trehub compiled and edited The American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies for 1994, with M. G. Nowak (M.E. Sharpe, 1999).

Visiting Scholars Fall 1999

Boris Kolonitskii, St. Petersburg, Russia (see faculty profile); Eva Grunstein-Neuman, Berlin, Germany (visiting faculty in Political Science); Mikhail Loukianov, Perm, Russia (USIA Regional Scholar Exchange Program). Mortenson Associates: Marina Danilova, Russia; Aliya Sarsembinova, Kazakhstan; Irina Shubina, Kazakhstan; Shemshat Soltanova, Turkmenistan. Police Training Institute Exchange Scholars: Col. Volodya Sergevnin, Vladimir, Russia; Lt. Diana Zadorskaya, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Report From the Field: Vladimir, Russia
by Susan Smith

Research in Vladimir, which is three hours by bus to the northeast of Moscow, is a challenging and rewarding experience. The challenge stems from the difficulties of everyday life in a time of transition, and the rewards come from rapid personal and professional growth. During my stay in the city in 1998-99, I discovered a vibrant circle of local historians who quickly welcomed me into their midst. My interactions with them immeasurably enriched my research experience.

Everyday life in Vladimir is difficult for most Russians. One can find food at the market (mostly root vegetables, coffee, tea and a few other staples), but the prices have been rising. The price of bread rose noticeably while I was there. The great majority of people depend on the produce of their private garden plots and gathering of mushrooms and berries to get them through the winter. Housing is still subsidized, so there are few homeless people, but having enough money for food, let alone for new clothes, is a concern for many.

Despite these problems, I found a lively intellectual life in Vladimir centered around local history. The first week I was there, I was invited to attend a conference on local history. There were several subsequent conferences, one at which I presented a paper, “Tikhonravov kak arkheolog [Tikhonravov as an archaeologist],” later published in Rozhdestvenskii sbornik 6 (1999). Another article, “K istorii arkheologicheskogo izucheniia Vladimirskogo kraia [Toward a history of archaeology in the Vladimir region],” is forthcoming. Each year more books on local history are published. Indeed, the reading room of the archive, which seats sixteen, often filled up by mid-morning. There has been an explosion of interest in the history of the region since 1991. Several organizations dedicated to local history have been formed in Vladimir, as well as in smaller towns in the province.

This community of local historians helped me in my research tremendously. Researching my dissertation, “Knowledge, Civil Society and the State in Mid-nineteenth Century Russia: Vladimir Province, 1837-1861,” required an in-depth study of materials in the regional archive in Vladimir (GAVO). I found that working in the archive, rather than being a solitary experience, was the time to exchange ideas with the local archivists and researchers. Their knowledge and dedication were an irreplaceable part of my research experience.

Susan Smith is a PhD candidate in history. She conducted her research on IREX and Fulbright-Hays research grants.

Graduate Student News

C. Michael Elavsky (communications research) presented “Ahoj, jsem Radek: Radek Pastrnak, Buty, and the New Face of the Czech Republic” at the 1999 National Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, United States Branch at Middle Tennessee State University in October 1999.

Dennis Grammenos (geography) is a tenure-track assistant professor of geography at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago starting fall 1999.

Irene Kolchinsky (Slavic) published “The Last Futurists: ‘Nebyvalists’ and their Leader Nikolai Glazkov,” Slavic and East European Journal, 43:1(1999).

Jeff Sahadeo (history) presented “Symbols and Rituals of Russian Empire in Tashkent, 1865-1881” at the Canadian Association of Slavists annual meeting in June 1999. For the current academic year, he was awarded the Graduate College Dissertation Completion Fellowship.

Yevgeny Slivkin (Slavic) published “Last Stop of the Death Machine: An Attempt at a Rational Reading of ‘The Runaway Streetcar’ by N. Gumilev,” Slavic and East European Journal, 43:1(1999).

Susan Smith (history) presented “Tikhonravov kak arkheolog” at the conference “Provintsial'noe obshchestvo i kul'tura (k 200-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia A.S. Pushkina)” in Kovrov (Vladimir province) in January 1999. The paper was published in the proceedings, Rozhdestvenskii sbornik 6 (1999). She was conducting her dissertation research in Russia on IREX and Fulbright-Hays grants.

Jon Stansell (Slavic) presented a paper called “Varying Levels of R^ Aspiration in Czech: An Analogical Modeling Project” at the Deseret Language and Linguistics Symposium in Provo, Utah in February 1999. It will be published in the conference’s report. Also in February, he presented a paper entitled “Communities of Dissent in Tubthumping and the Playboy of the Western World” at the BYU “Community and Text” conference. In addition, his poem, entitled “Transubstantiation,” was accepted into the 1999 issue “The Sounds of Poetry” published by the National Archive of Poetry.

Natasha Tolstikova (advertising) presented “MMM as a phenomenon of the Russian consumer culture” at the Association for Consumer Research 1999 European Conference in Jouy-en-Josas, France.

Christine G. Varga-Harris (history) published “Green is the Colour of Hope?: The Crumbling Facade of Postwar Byt Through the Public Eyes of Vecherniaia Moskva,” Canadian Journal of History (Aug. 1999).

1999 GRADUATES

PhDs Chris Cosner (Slavic) assistant professor at Depauw University; Sascha Goluboff (anthropology) assistant professor at Washington and Lee University; Jonathan Heuner (history) assistant professor at the University of Vermont; H. Glenn Penny (history) assistant professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City; Kirsten Rutsala (Slavic); Randi Storch (history) assistant professor at SUNY, Cortland; Russell Zanca (anthropology)

BAs in REES William Dickey, Jeremy Pickell, Philipp Libenson

FLAS RECIPIENTS 1999-2000

Summer 1999: C. Michael Elavsky (communications) – Czech; Krista Mantsch (LIS) – Czech; Beth Admiraal-Reitsma (political science) – Russian; Dmitry Tartakovsky (history) - Yiddish

Academic Year 1999-2000: C. Michael Elavsky (communications) – Czech; Romana Klymkowych (law) – Czech; Krista Mantsch (LIS) – Polish; Kendra Millis (Slavic) – Polish; Vladka Shikova (REES) – Russian; Gregory Stroud (history) – Russian; Dmitry Tartakovsky (history) - Yiddish

Slavic Review Editorial Assistants 1999-2000

Beth Admiraal-Reitsma (political science); Matt Rosenstein (Slavic); Dmitry Tartakovsky (history)

Winners of the 1998-99 Student Essay Contest

Graduate winner: Alin Ceobanu (sociology), “A Romanian Tale: Corruption Between Perverse Effect and Deliberate Action”

Undergraduate winner: Jennifer Conter (history), “Gender, Morality, and the Individual: Russian Middlebrow Literature Before the Revolution”

NEW ADDITIONS TO REEEC FAMILY

We have four new babies in our midst this year. It must be something in the water!

Stephen Herzog (history) and his wife AJ had a boy, Jonah Michael, on June 30. Jeff Sahadeo (history) and Petra Alince (LIS) had a girl, Caroline Elizabeth, on July 9. Rebecca Barnes Weitzenhoffer (Slavic) and her husband Scott had a girl, Salem Kathryn, on Sept. 1. Vicki Retzolk (REEEC staff) and her husband Mark had a boy, Dylan Trey, on Sept. 22.

Alumni News

David Graber (MA’86, German) covers business news of Central and Eastern Europe for BNA International, Inc. (a legal publisher) in Washington, DC.

Erik Moore (MLS’99, LIS) works for Data Research Associates, a company that deals with library automation.

Matt Tittle (MA’96, Slavic) has been appointed the Assistant Director for International Affairs of the Campus Honors Program at U of I. He is also completing his Ph.D. dissertation in the Educational Psychology Department and Program in Second Language Acquisition & Teacher Education at U of I.

Dan Peris (PhD’94, history) is an equity analyst for Argus Research Corporation, an independent research company that sells its research on stock portfolios to investment brokers throughout the country.

Colloquium Series on “Directions in Russian and East European Studies” for Fall 1999

October 7

“Male Witches and Gendered Categories in Seventeenth-Century Russia”

Valerie Kivelson (History, University of Michigan)

October 28

“Symbolic Revolution of 1917: The Semiotics of Shoulder Boards” Boris Kolonitskii (Institute of Russian History, St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and History, U of I)

November 4

“Political Demography: Reproduction, Representation, and Resistance in Ceauçescu’s Romania”

Gail Kligman (Sociology, UCLA)

December 2

“Poetry and History: Western Theory and Eastern European Practice”

Clare Cavanagh (Slavic Languages and Literatures, Northwestern University)

Brown Bag Lecture Series for Fall 1999

August 31

“The Rule of Law and Russian Culture--Are They Compatible?”

Ronald Pope (Political Science, Illinois State University)

September 17

“Toward an International Perspective on Economic Efficiency in Polish Peasant Farming”

Darla Munroe (Geography, U of I)

September 28

“A Nation of Students--The Role of Education in Hungary in the 1920s and Today”

Stephen Herzog (History, U of I)

October 19

“A Wall Crumbles--Now What? Germany 10 Years After the Collapse of East Germany”

Eva Grunstein-Neuman (Political Science, U of I)

November 12

“Authenticity in Performance: How Folklore Ensembles Present Russian Culture to Russians in the 1990s”

Laura Olson (Germanic and Slavic Languages & Literatures, University of Colorado)

November 16

“Kuda ischezaiut bibliotechnye knigi: ‘Spisanie’, ‘iz”iatie’, ‘prodazha’ i ‘obmen’ v sovetskikh bibliotekakh”

Mikhail Afanas’ev (Director, State Public Historical Library, Moscow, Russia)

Send Us Your News!
We would love to hear from you. Please send the following information to reec@uiuc.edu or send by snail mail to: Editor, Center News, Russian and East European Center, 104 International Studies Building, University of Illinois, 910 South Fifth Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA.
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