A New Track for Russian Majors

The growing number of heritage speakers in foreign language classes is a phenomenon noticed by many language instructors nationwide. Usually these are students from families that moved to the U.S. when they were toddlers. Many of them have a certain level of spoken language proficiency but lack skills in reading or writing. Several Russian programs in American universities have already developed major/minor requirements for heritage speakers with courses specifically designed for the needs of these students. Within GSLL, the Russian Program is introducing a new track, Track C "Russian Major for Heritage Speakers," in addition to the current two tracks in our major requirements. Along with our regular offerings in Russian literature, film, and culture, it incorporates two new language classes, "Russian for Heritage Speakers I and II.” Also, together with advanced students of Russian, majors in this track will take a course tentatively titled "Writing in Context" or "Readings in Russian Literature." We will be offering "Russian for Heritage Speakers I" for the first time in fall 2008.

Russian Club News

The Russian Club has already met four times this semester. We started off with our traditional mushroom hunt at the CU Mountain Research Station, where we found a truly unprecedented number of fungi of all sorts this year -- the view of forest clearings strewn with giant edible mushrooms was astounding! More than 15 members of the club participated in the hunt! We followed up the first hunt with another hunt just a week later, focusing primarily on porcini, of which we did find two at the Brainard lake site! Tatiana Mikhailova and Mark Leiderman acted as our guides, helping the students to distinguish between the edible and poisonous varieties and sharing all kinds of yummy mushroom recipes.

Upon student requests, we also went to see a new mafia flick, Eastern Promises at the new Century theater in Boulder -- students enjoyed being able to hear Russian slang (albeit spoken with foreign accents by the film's actors) and learn about the Russian organized crime and human trafficking.

Our last event so far has been a trip to the Boulder Dushanbe Tea house, where we participated in the traditional afternoon tea ceremony. The Department generously contributed $100 towards the students' enjoyment!

This semester we are also planning to attend the traditional Nutcracker performance in December, go to Russian Denver and perhaps participate in a traditional Russian winter sport if the weather cooperates.

Russian Tea

The Russian Tea is still continuing on Wednesdays every week. After the mushroom hunt, Tatiana brought us some delicious mushroom pies to sample. Other students periodically bring home-cooked foods, such as breads and cakes, contributing to the cozy, home-style atmosphere.

Comfort Food Day

Comfort Food Day had a wonderful debut this year in March, drawing large lunch-time crowds of hungry students to its booths, featuring a variety of ethnic foods, cultural artifacts and brochures representing all languages taught on campus. The Russian program served pirozhki and vareniki, and rewarded the winners of the cultural trivia contest with traditional Russian chocolates. We are looking forward to participating in the Comfort Food day this year as well!

Russian Cultural Week

The Russian program organized Russian Cultural Week, April 16 - April 20, 2007. For five days students were exposed to the wealth of Russian and Slavic cultures. The week started with a lecture and slide show by Mark Leiderman on the traditions of Russian carnival. On Tuesday, students accompanied by Artemi Romanov had a chance to visit magnificent Russian imperial palaces in St. Petersburg, Pavlovsk, Peterhof and Tsarskoe Selo; to learn about the palaces' history, architecture, and priceless art; and to find out secrets of the Russian imperial court. On Wednesday over one hundred people joined Elena Kostoglodova, Tatiana Mikhailova, and their students for the sumptuous annual feast consisting of numerous traditional Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish dishes prepared by the students. It also featured short and long films by students, as well as a creative version of an old children's cartoon. On Thursday Laura Osterman presented a lecture about Russians who live in rural areas. Laura showed slides and video clips from her field work in Russia, including village holiday and birthday celebrations, funeral memorials, spring plowing, handicrafts and fortune telling. The Russian Cultural Festival ended with a celebration of Troitsa organized by Vicki Grove and students from the Russian Fairy Tales class. Students sang traditional songs in Russian, participated in effigy contests, played traditional games, ate a lot of food and had enormous fun.

In a departure from the Maslenitsa festival of recent years, in April the Russian Program sponsored a springtime Troitsa festival, to which the Russian Fairy Tales class contributed food, games, costumes, and effigy figures. The weather was beautiful, the food was abundant, and the turn-out was high. Students ate blini and other traditional Russian foods, and participated in such games as the egg-toss, the blini toss, and tug-of-war. Thanks to all faculty and students who participated to make this event such a great success!

Three Russian GPTIs (Meghan Vicks, Galina Siarheichyk and Anastasia Kostetskaya) helped to organize and run the Russian Cultural Week 2007 events. Students are looking forward to the Russian Cultural Week in spring 2008!

Troitsa

Russian Film Series

Fall 2007 begins a third year of the Russian Film Series run by Mark Leiderman, Tatiana Mikhailova, and Meghan Vicks. As usual, the program brings together new films with "oldies but goodies" - the classics of Russian film from the past. As usual, serious and experimental films alternate with comedies. This series became popular not only among students taking Russian classes (and not only them, since all films have English subtitles) but also among the Russian community of the Boulder and Denver area. All screenings are accompanied by a short introductory lecture by one of the series’ organizers and sometimes are followed by a lively discussion. Films are screened every other Tuesday at 8 pm.

Click here for a link to the film series schedule.

Slavic Studies Discussion Group

The Slavic Studies Discussion Group is an interdisciplinary body with faculty and graduate student membership from both CU-Boulder and nearby colleges and universities. The Group was funded by grants from the CU Center for the Arts and Humanities until 2007 and is now supported by GSLL. The Discussion Group typically meets once a month during the academic year to hear informal presentations from our faculty and faculty from the Denver area on their research followed by discussion, as well as presentations by visiting speakers from Russia and Europe. The Discussion Group seeks to foster interdisciplinary dialogue among faculty and students. To that end, we plan meetings around speakers from varying fields with an interest in some aspect of Eastern Europe.

This year’s events, as reported by organizer Rima Salys:

• “The Hunter and an Introduction to Central Asian Cinema,” Prof. Vida Johnson, Tufts University, Jan. 31st, 2007.
• “Illusory Empire? Victor Pelevin’s Chapaev and Post-Soviet Eurasian Identity,” Prof. Edith W. Clowes, University of Kansas, April 3rd, 2007.
• “Motherhood: Mythology and Social Institution,” Prof. Svetlana Adonyeva, University of St. Petersburg, Sept. 14th, 2007.
• “The Year in Russian Cinema,” Elena Stishova, Senior editor at Iskusstvo kino, Oct. 25th, 2007.

GSLL Outreach Activities

In October 2007 Artemi Romanov’s students in RUSS 3010 and RUSS 4010 translated into Russian (and Artemi edited) a document that tourists from around the globe use when they visit Colorado’s Capitol: Visitor’s Guide to Colorado Capitol.

Artemi was contacted by the manager of Visitor Services of the Colorado State Capitol, Simon Maghakyan. According to Simon Maghakyan, in the last several years there has been a significant growth in the number of Russian-speaking tourists visiting Denver. At the same time there has been a lack of informational materials in Russian. GSLL students decided to help out and translated the guide into Russian. It proved to be a challenging but very rewarding task. For example, students produced 14 correctly translated versions of a single sentence: “The discovery of gold near Denver in 1858 brought many fortune seekers across the plains to the Rocky Mountains.” The Visitor’s Guide in Russian has been printed and the first guests who used it in late October were an official delegation from Bulgaria.

The following GSLL students worked on and significantly contributed to the project: Lyn Hoflin, Adam Littleton, Lyubov Panchenko, Brandon Rodriguez, Adrian Sawczyn, Leonid Vaisberg. All of them have been invited to the Colorado State Capitol for a VIP tour.