Volume Ten, 2017-2018
Editor-in-Chief
Roman Koropeckyj (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures)
Managing Editor
Dane Michael Reighard (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures)
Online Editor: Susan Bauckus (Center for World Languages)
Undergraduate Advisors: Olga Kagan and Yelena Furman (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures)
Editorial Board: Michael Lavery (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures), Jesse O'Dell (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures),
Yelena Severina (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures),
Peter Winsky (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures),
Lydia Roberts (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures),
Nicholas Fedosenko (Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages & Cultures),
Maia Woolner (History), Nana Osei-Opare (History), Amy Garey (Anthropology),
Melanie Jones (Comparative Literature)
The Erotic, Maternal, and Warlike Agency of Women in the Byzantine and Slavic Epic
Ravital Goldgof and Lily Shelton, Florida State University
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Each Greek and Slavic manuscript of the Byzantine romantic epic Digenis Akritis is radically different from the others, displaying contrasting styles of composition that ricochet between romantic literary and oral epic forms. Some of the most striking changes between versions are rooted in the folkloric tradition of the short epic song. The roles of women in the different versions of Digenis also differ strongly. Although female characters in Digenis lose agency in the shift from romantic to “oral” epic form, they gain a measure of new agency through their assimilation to heroic traditions.
One of the most unusual features of this epic is the presence of a fully-fledged female warrior, Maximou the Amazon. Her characterization strongly parallels that of the hero Digenis. Strong mothers, as found in the Greek and South Slavic folksong traditions, are also found in Digenis. Third is the figure of the almost entirely passive girl, a stock romantic character: the “damsel in distress.” In the strongly “epicized” Slavic Digenis, this figure’s erotic power is greatly decreased.
The analysis of techniques of oral composition (especially formulaic description) and speech through the characters of the girl, the mothers, and the Amazon allows us to examine the shifting roles of women in the various versions. Although the girl has the least agency, her specific romantic role allows her to accomplish conversion and achieve fame. The mother has more agency, as she has power over the men she gives birth to, although this is only evident in extreme circumstances. Maximou is the only character in the work as active and aggressive as Digenis, and she is the only woman to have power over men neither through beauty nor by threats. If her original purpose in the epic was likely the reinforcement of patriarchal structures, she may turn out to be an empowering model—and not only today. In the Slavic Digenis, perhaps under the influence of Maximou’s presence, the girl gains rudiments of warrior traits, despite her largely passive role.
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Reading Geroi i zhertvy revoliutsii: What Mayakovsky's Little-Known Text Tells Us about the Political Views of the Russian Avant-Gardist Ivan Puni
Anastasia Golubeva, National Research University Higher School of Economics
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This paper focuses on Ivan Puni’s political views through the lens of the book Geroi i zhertvy revoliutsii (Heroes and Victims of the Revolution). Ivan Puni was a Russian avant-garde artist active in the movement until his emigration to Europe at the end of 1919. As an artist, he experimented with several styles including Suprematism and Futurism. He also experimented with different political ideas. This paper demonstrates that Puni’s acquaintance with the Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky had a significant impact on his understanding of art and politics. Together they worked on a little-known book titled Geroi i zhertvy revoliutsii. Mayakovsky wrote short poems, and Puni, together with his wife Ksenia Boguslavskaya and the artists Makletsov and Kozlinsky, produced illustrations for the texts. Despite its muted reception, Mayakovsky held it in high esteem and considered it the predecessor of his famous ROSTA Windows. The book’s concept—to depict the heroes and the victims (in this case the enemies) of the October Revolution side by side—offers insight into the political beliefs of Mayakovsky’s circle, and an analysis of Puni’s paintings in particular reveals the artist’s views on art and politics. In so doing, it helps complicate the broader scholarly understanding of the ideology of the Russian avant-garde.
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The “Ins” and “Betweens” of Empathy: The Conceptualization of Empatiia in Ukrainian
Svitlana Iukhymovych, Macalester College and Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
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Empathy is the ability to identify with another through emotions, cognitive inference, or actions. The dependency of empathy upon embodiment impacts the way it is verbally communicated or even experienced by the speaker. I argue that the verbal denotations of empathy in Ukrainian reflect the way empathy is felt in the human body—that is, as a psychological crossing of the self-other boundary via emotional, cognitive, and proactive means. The words empatiia, sympatiia, and related linguistic forms spivchuttia, spochuttia, spochuvannia, spivvidchuttia, spivperezhyvannia, spivradist′, vpochuvannia, vzaiemorozuminnia, and vzaiemoporozuminnia reflect the experiential spectrum of empathy: from feeling to understanding, from vidchuttia to rozuminnia. Morphemes that modify the meaning of these conceptualizations of empathy are rooted in mental representations of physical movement through space. Russian analogues of empatiia follow this pattern. The nuances of denoting empathy in Ukrainian through words with Slavic roots as opposed to foreign borrowings suggest that the tension between post-Soviet and European linguistic influences within the Ukrainian academic and public discourse on empathy persists.
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Women in Early Nineteenth-Century Salons: New Possibilities and Limitations
Luke Jeske, University of Florida
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This article examines the opportunities and limitations that literary salons provided women in early nineteenth-century Russia. Educated women acted as hostesses of salons: intimate gatherings of the nobility that revolved around discussions of art and culture. The article begins with the introduction of two prominent hostesses, Ekaterina Karamzina and Zinaida Volkonskaia, and then leads to a more general assessment of women’s opportunities and restrictions in salons. Karamzina, wife of the famous writer and historian Nikolai Karamzin, conducted her salon based on his career and legacy without ever cultivating her own distinct point of view. Volkonskaia, on the other hand, employed her salon both as a means of establishing her own literary career and as a political group with close ties to the Decembrists. Some core commonalities unite these two women and salon hostesses in general: excellent linguistic and literary education, social authority within the salon, and exposure to the literary world. Male writers, however, ultimately determined the contours of their hostesses’ experiences. Women were expected to be a passive audience for male writers, constantly consuming the latest journals while only contributing in minor genres, rarely able to publish their own original works.
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The Great Neoliberal Paradox: How Did the Neoliberal Reforms in Post-Soviet Russia lead to an Illiberal Russian State?
Joshua R. Kroeker, University of British Columbia
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This article examines the application of neoliberalism in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union and its long-term results throughout the Putin era. As a general movement of the 1980s and 1990s, Western states and economists as well as their counterparts in the post-Soviet territory believed that neoliberalism and “shock therapy” would be the most sufficient method of replacing the soviet-totalitarian planned-economic system with a free market-based democracy. The application of neoliberal reforms in the post-Soviet space went ahead without heeding Western advice, namely to implement the reforms on a transparent and democratic basis. Rather than bring about the equality of the masses in Russia, rampant corruption and black-market trading tainted the reform effort. As the bread lines for the masses grew longer and the coffers of the corrupt became fuller, the neoliberal experiment took the blame for this economic divergence. As this article will argue, Russian society was willing to trade its chance at democracy for economic stability and a relative degree of prosperity. The leadership of Vladimir Putin has done just that: it has created an illiberal and authoritarian state, which limits individual and economic freedoms, but also one that is strong, superficially prosperous and quasi-stable. The failure of the neoliberal reforms have played well into the hands of Putin, allowing him to once again erect a Great Russia at the cost of a free-market system and democracy.
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West Hollywood's “Little Russia”: An Inquiry into Cultural Policy, Gentrification, and the Russian-Jewish Immigrant Community
Dante Matero, University of California, Los Angeles
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This paper considers the role of US cultural policy and gentrification in the continuing diminution of Russian-Jewish culture in West Hollywood’s “Little Russia.” Russian Jews flocked to West Hollywood during various waves of immigration throughout the twentieth century and have long been stakeholders in the city’s cultural landscape. As this population ages and gentrifying forces encroach, however, it is experiencing significant culture loss. This process is aggravated by U.S. multiculturalist policies that do not recognize the dominant culture’s often problematic relationship with minority immigrant communities, most often seen in an uneven allocation of governmental resources. As an aging, mostly ESL (English as a Second Language) community, the Russian-Jewish immigrant community of Little Russia has specialized needs that must be met through various services, including cultural preservation efforts and accessible transportation.
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Vladimir Putin's Enduring Popularity: Finding Answers through Cultural Factors
Gulnur Tlegenova, University of California, Los Angeles
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This paper examines how Russian president Vladimir Putin appeals to deeply held values and symbols in Russian culture—specifically collectivism, paternalism, and conservatism—in order to reinforce his popular support and improve his image. The sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union on Russia, Putin’s counter-sanctions following the events in Crimea, and a drop in oil prices have all contributed to a severe economic recession. Nevertheless, according to the Levada Analytical Center, Putin’s approval rating has held steady at around 80 percent since 2014. This paper argues that cultural factors have until now been underestimated as correlatives to political esteem, as Putin’s enduring popularity has defied the convention belief that economic performance determines a president’s approval rating.
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The Colder War? A Threat Comparison of Russia and the Soviet Union
Nicole Tom, University of California, Los Angeles
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The tense relationship between the United States and Russia for nearly the past decade can be attributed largely to conflicting policies and a lingering air of distrust. While Russian policies remain a source of apprehension for the United States, however, several factors have lessened the threat Russia poses. This paper argues that present-day Russia is less of a threat to the United States than the Soviet Union for the following four reasons: developments in information technology, an increase in economic interdependence, a lack of proxy wars, and shifts in ideology. Due to modern technology, an improved access to information has made each country’s actions more transparent and lessened the other side’s risk-taking. Likewise, the establishment of economic interdependence between Russia and the United States has both created incentives against initiating conflict and provided more peaceful means of imposing penalties such as sanctions. Additionally, a lack of proxy wars has limited the chances of misstepping and provoking rapid conflict escalation between Russia and the United States. Finally, shifts in ideology from the Soviet era to today have played a role in altering long-term goals, such as an ideological shift from needing to securely establish a communist government to simply ensuring national security and stability. As a result, the nature of U.S.-Russian discord from the Cold War to today has changed in such a way that the threat posed by Russia has decreased.
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Dreamer or Strategist? Reconsidering Czech Photographer Josef Sudek
Alexandra Whittaker, The City College of New York
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This paper seeks to expand the accepted interpretation of Czechoslovak photographer Josef Sudek’s (1896–1976) life and work. Critics and scholars have consistently portrayed Sudek as a dreamy, impractical, and reclusive figure, contributing to the rich mythology surrounding his personality. Such portrayals have overlooked Sudek’s shrewdness and pragmatism. Sudek’s capacity for practical, strategic thinking is evidenced by his successes in navigating difficult political situations in Communist Czechoslovakia. As the government began to impose collectivization, Sudek helped establish a new division in the Union of Czechoslovak Artists in order to allow himself and his fellow photographers to work freelance and keep their private studios. Faced with restrictions on trade, he used his network of contacts abroad to obtain photographic papers from the West. Finally, he published his photographs despite state censorship by collaborating with Marxist theorist Lubomír Linhart. Altogether, Sudek’s ability to strategize allowed him to maintain the integrity of his working process and artistic vision under Communism.
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