Conference

[Zielinski]

----- Original Message -----
From: Ralph Bogert <rbogert at CHASS.UTORONTO.CA>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 9:17 PM
Subject: Re: Conference


> > Thank you for the information on the upcoming conference.  It looks
> potentially promising--but the program as outlined is Russocentrically
narrow,
> in both the interdisciplinary and an intradisciplinary sense.  Surely this
is a
> conceptual anomaly in view of the stated "open" and "international" scope
of
> the conference.  Peter the Great, his city and its cultural monuments, as
well
> as the traditions and heritage that they engendered have had and still
have an
> impact and presence other than the categories of Russian literature or
gender
> studies. There is, by way of a small and not at all exceptional example,
an
> entire South Slavic literary and (more broadly) cultural aura constructed
> around the Petrine and Peterburgian mystique, particularly in Serbia and,
even
> more particularly, Adriatic Montenegro (whence came Peter's first great,
> victorious admirals).
>   Could this conference, without failing to live up to its purpose, omit
> programming sections on the impact and importance of Petersburg for the
> outside world and on the importance of Peterburg's branch windows on the
world
> beyond Russia?
> --rb
>
Very good point. Even in countries traditionally not so friendly disposed
towards Russia Petersburg was and is a notion, a place of magic attraction.
Take Mickiewicz or Iwaszkiewicz or the group of Polish writers in Petersburg
shortly before and during the IWW (including Tadeusz Micinski and Stansilaw
Ignacy Witkiewicz-Witkacy).

jz

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