the Russian gaze

[Max Pyziur]

On Fri, 30 Jun 2006, John Dunn wrote:

> Peter Morley may be right, or the spellings may have been copied from 
> pre-existing documents.  In any event, whatever the players may think 
> (and I doubt if many of them care) it is clearly not an issue for the 
> Ukrainian Football Association.  There are, however, two points.  The 
> first is that, as previous correspondence on this list has shown, the 
> transliteration of Ukrainian names has become a sensitive issue in some

As it should be to undo Russophilic/Russophone predilections.

> quarters, and in this context the apparent indifference of the Ukrainian 
> FA is in itself worthy of note.  The second is that to a Slavonic 
> Philologist who is of a more than usually pedantic disposition and whose 
> duties (at least until midnight tonight) include initiating students 
> into the mysteries of transliteration these questions are of a passing 
> interest, though I am struck less by the mixture of languages itself 
> than by the variations and inconsistencies within that mixture.  Anyway 
> the BBC TV commentator for tonight's game used Husev and Husin 
> throughout.

The ESPN commentators for the World Cup have been pretty bad showing 
categorical insensitivity to most if not all countries involved, save the 
US.  I can only imagine the BBC ones to be/have been worse.

The nice thing about ESPN's coverage of Ukraine's matches was that the 
highly offensive article "the" before "Ukraine" gradually disappeared to 
the point of extinction in the last match against Italy, thanks probably 
to consistent audience criticism.  Save, of course, that Irish bean-bag 
Tommy Smyth.

It was nice to see Erik Wynalda remind his ESPN co-commentators of 
Rece Davis and Julie Foudy early on in Group Play to can the "the".

> John Dunn.

Max Pyziur

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Morley <pete.morley at GMAIL.COM>
> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:37:48 +0400
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] the Russian gaze
>
> With regard to the Ukrainian spellings, could it simply be the case that the
> players themselves were asked how they wanted their names rendered on the
> shirts? In any case, while purists and probably Viktor Yushchenko would like
> all names to be Ukrainianised and consistent, the national team reflects the
> current reality, namely that some speak Ukrainian and some Russian as their
> first language. To me, the mix of transliterations is therefore a non-issue.
>
>
> John Dunn
> SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
> University of Glasgow
> Hetheringon Building
> Bute Gardens
> Glasgow G12 8RS
> U.K.
>
> Tel.: +44 (0)141 330 5591
> Fax: +44 (0)141 330 2297
> e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
>  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
>                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------