Chukovsky's fairy tales

[Alexandra Smith]

Dear Colleagues,

Since there was an interesting discussion of fairy tales a couple of  
weeks ago (related to Robert Chandler's translation of some fairy  
tales), I thought that it might be worth mentioning Chukovsky's  
fairy-tales in verse that were severely criticised in the 1920-30s.  
There is a very interesting and informative documentary film on  
Chukovsky and the fate of his fairy tales in the Soviet Union (it was  
made in 2006). It can be viewed here:  
http://video.yandex.ru/users/marina221084/view/110/


With best wishes,
Alexandra






------------------------------------------
Alexandra Smith (PhD, University of London)
Reader in Russian Studies
Department of European Languages and Cultures
School of  Languages, Literatures and Cultures
The University of Edinburgh
David Hume Tower
George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9JX
UK

tel. +44-(0)131-6511381
fax: +44- (0)131 -651 -1482
e-mail: Alexandra.Smith at ed.ac.uk


Quoting Ben Dhooge <Ben.Dhooge at UGENT.BE>:

> CFP: “Platonov revisited. Past and present views on the land of the
> philosophers” (Ghent University, May 26-27, 2011)
>
>
>
>
>
> The Department of Slavonic and East European Studies at Ghent University
> (Belgium) is pleased to announce the international conference “Platonov
> revisited. Past and present views on the land of the philosophers”.
>
>
>
> The conference will be held at Ghent University (Ghent, Belgium) on
> Thursday, May 26 and Friday, May 27, 2011
>
>
>
>
>
> Keynote speakers:
>
> Philip Bullock (University of Oxford, Oxford)
>
> Hans Günther (Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld)
>
> Natal’ya V. Kornienko (Institute for World Literature, Moscow)
>
> Thomas Seifrid (University of Southern California, Los Angeles)
> Yevgeny A. Yablokov (Moscow)
>
>
>
>
>
> Abstracts are invited for presentations addressing the changes in the
> perception of Platonov and his works over the last twenty-thirty years.
>
>
> While in Europe and the United States Platonov’s Chevengur and Kotlovan
> found their way to the public as early as in the 1960s and the 1970s, in
> Russia these masterpieces were published only in the perestroika era. Of
> course, Platonov’s works had already been known before, but often in an
> incomplete form. The publication of the novel and the novella – with the
> post scriptum of the author! – and the subsequent edition of other unknown
> and forbidden works in enormous print numbers stimulated not only the
> interest of the reading public, but also gave a strong impulse to the
> existing scholarly study of Platonov’s work, both in Russia and abroad. Soon
> letters, notes and unknown literary works of the writer-engineer, reactions
> on the campaign against Vprok, reports of the writer’s appearances at the
> Writers’ Union and much more were brought into the open. These newly
> available materials, the new possibility to write about literature outside
> of (the previously almost obligatory) ideological presumptions, the fruitful
> contacts between Russian and non-Russian scholars, the publication of
> translations of parts of Platonov’s oeuvre all contributed to the successful
> development of Platonov studies and transformed it into the fully fledged
> scholarship it is today.
>
> Now, more than twenty years later – and even more than thirty years after
> the appearance of the first studies on Platonov – it is a good moment to
> stand still and to have a look at the past and the present (and maybe even
> the future) of Platonov studies. It is the aim of the conference to reflect
> on the changes in the perception of Platonov and his works over the last
> twenty-thirty years in Russia and abroad. The aim of the conference is not
> to disclose the newest discovery or analysis regarding Platonov, but to
> reflect on the changes in the readers’ reception and the scholarly study of
> Platonov’s oeuvre. The following questions take a central place:
>
> 1.     have our views on Platonov (the man, the engineer, the writer, the
> thinker) and his oeuvre changed since the first publications in Russia and
> the West and the subsequent startup of Platonov scholarship?;
>
> 2.     what effect has the publication of archive materials of the
> Stalin-era had on the study of Platonov’s works?;
>
> 3.     to what extent was and is the reception of Platonov’s work or aspects
> of his work (mythopoetics, philosophy, metaphysics, 
) influenced by the
> ideological context of the reader / scholar?;
>
> 4.     has the dominance of politicized readings of Platonov’s oeuvre come
> to an end or has the opposition between anticommunist and procommunist
> readings been followed by other ideologically inspired readings?;
>
> 5.     why should we read Platonov now? During the perestroika era and in
> the first years after the collapse of the Soviet-Union one would read
> Platonov to retrieve the exceptional legacy of a brilliant but repressed
> writer, but what is the reason for reading him now?;
>
> 6.     is it possible to read Platonov outside of his (more and more
> historically distant) socio-political context?;
>
> 7.     how has the redefinition of the canon of 20th-century literature in
> general and Soviet literature, in particular, affected our understanding of
> Platonov?;
>
> 8.     is the study of Platonov affected by revised concepts and terms and
> new scholarly paradigms (cf. modernism vs. avant-garde)?;
>
> 9.     what will the latest landmark in Platonov scholarship – the
> acquisition of Platonov’s personal archive by the Institute for World
> literature – mean for the current Platonov scholarship, and will – and if
> so, to what extent – the disclosure of Platonov’s personal archive force
> scholars to reevaluate the scholarly work written the past 40 years?;
>
> 10.  what have been the effects of the publication of new works of the
> writer and the “depoliticization” on the reception of Platonov’s works and
> how have these elements affected translations, readers’ responses to the
> oeuvre and its translation, reviews, discussions in the media, adaptations
> of the oeuvre to other media, the popularity of Platonov’s works, the status
> of Platonov’s work in the Russian canon and in the canon of world
> literature?
>
>
>
> We welcome contributions from a variety of methodological approaches and on
> any topic relating to this problem.
>
>
>
>
>
> Please submit an abstract (in English or in Russian, maximum 500 words) to
> Thomas.Langerak at UGent.be or Ben.Dhooge at UGent.be. Please add your name,
> departmental affiliation, email address and the title of your proposed
> paper. The deadline for proposals is November 1, 2010. Abstracts will be
> peer-reviewed. Notification of acceptance of proposals will be provided by
> January, 2011. All abstracts will be made available prior to the conference
> through the conference website.
>
>
>
> Presentations should be in English or Russian. Each presentation will be
> allowed 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute open discussion.
>
>
>
> An edited volume with a selection of papers is planned.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Information on registration, transportation, accommodations, and the
> conference venue will be forthcoming.
>
>
>
> Please forward this call for papers to your colleagues and graduate students
> who may be interested in presenting or attending.
>
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Thomas Langerak (Ghent University)
>
> Ben Dhooge (Ghent University)
>
> Department of Slavonic and East European Studies
>
> Ghent University
>
> Rozier 44
>
> 9000 Gent
>
> Belgium
>
>
>
> For details or questions, please contact the members of the Organizing
> Committee: Thomas Langerak (Thomas.Langerak at UGent.be) or Ben Dhooge
> (Ben.Dhooge at UGent.be).
>
>
>
>
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