Query
Adams, Amy
aadams at HOLYCROSS.EDU
Mon Feb 10 15:11:46 UTC 2014
Dear All ~
Anna Reid's book is marvelous; students will love all the information,
local color and humor. In my course on Siberia in fiction I also include
excerpts from James Forsyth's "A History of the Peoples of Siberia"
(Cambridge UP 1992). Because we read native tales and fiction, it's
important in my course to give students a background in ethnography as well
as geography, resources, and even the genetics of Siberia. On this last
point, Spencer Wells's "Journey of Man" series as it relates to Central
Asia and Siberia is very interesting.
Best, Amy
On Mon, Feb 10, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Anna Reid <annareid01 at btinternet.com>wrote:
> Forgive me for mentioning my own 'The Shaman's Coat: a Native History of
> Siberia'. It's journalism-cum-colonial history, and is, dare I say it,
> quite fun, as well as covering all the bases. The selected bibliography
> might be useful - a commentary rather than a bare list. A quick scan of the
> bookshelf recalls Yuri Slezkine's 'Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small
> Peoples of the North' as being excellent, and Felix Roziner's 'A Certain
> Finkelmeyer' - about a Ministry of Fisheries official who gets his poetry
> published by pretending that it is translated from an obscure indigenous
> language - as being blackly comic, and on the money.
>
> Anna Reid
>
>
> On 9 Feb 2014, at 14:54, Valentino, Russell Scott wrote:
>
> > I obviously left a lot out from this rich set of topics (the two that
> Sibelan and Robert have pointed included). Also, there are two books by the
> Chukchi author Yuri Rytkheu, both relatively recently translated by Ilona
> Yazhbin Chavasse, and both published by Archipelago books. A Dream In Polar
> Fog is a Jack-London-like adventure story set in Chukotka, though actually
> it is the first half of a squarely Socialist Realist novel -- in the second
> part the main character becomes a deputy to the Supreme Soviet. Only the
> first part has been published in English and it makes no mention of a
> second part. The other is The Chukchi Bible, which is a collection of
> fictionally retold folk tales and myths, apparently told to Rytkheu by his
> shaman father.
> >
> > And thanks to Molly Blasing, who let me know about Russia's ongoing
> Cinetrain project (http://cinetrain-project.com/), which yielded some
> very positive reviews at Sundance last year.
> http://rbth.ru/arts/2014/01/17/russia_standouts_at_sundance_33331.html.
> >
> > Russell
> >
> >
> >
> *******************************************************************************
> > Russell Scott Valentino
> > Professor and Chair
> > Slavic Languages and Literatures
> > Indiana University
> > 502 Ballantine Hall
> > Bloomington, IN 47405
> > (812) 855-3272
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
> [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Robert Chandler
> > Sent: Sunday, February 09, 2014 2:10 AM
> > To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Query
> >
> > I was hoping someone else would mention Hamid Ismailov's novel THE
> RAILWAY, which I translated. As well as being both funny and moving, it
> incorporates a great deal of C20 Central Asian history and very subtly
> conveys the coexistence in Central Asia of very different cultures -
> Muslim, traditional Russian, Soviet - and the frictions between them.
> >
> > All the best,
> >
> > Robert
> >
> > On 8 Feb 2014, at 16:33, "Valentino, Russell Scott" <
> russellv at INDIANA.EDU> wrote:
> >
> >> Cindy,
> >>
> >> This is a big open space in our field, as far as I can tell, and the
> boundaries between East Asian and Slavic have historically not been very
> porous in disciplinary terms, so it's great to see that you're considering
> it. There a lots of ways to go about thinking about it. Here are a few
> suggestions.
> >>
> >> You might consider using sources on Siberia, of which there are quite a
> few. There is also some pretty good travel writing that enables one to
> introduce things, and then popular histories and treatments of specific
> questions relating to Russia's and the USSR's "civilizing" role in Northern
> and Central Asia. In the travel writing category, I'm using Ian Frazier's
> Travels in Siberia now, and while it has some errors, it's entertaining and
> a good starting point for students who don't know anything. It also
> discusses George Kennan's Siberia and the Exile System at some length,
> which is a good intro to the question of the historical usage of Siberia
> and the Russian Far East as a prison colony. There is also the very
> entertaining 1930s travel narrative on Central Asia of Fitzroy Maclean
> (prototype for James Bond) in his Eastern Approaches. I don't recommend
> Colin Thubron's In Siberia, which is thoroughly depressing and also, now,
> dated. Still in the realm of travel lit there's Arseniev's Dersu the
> Trapper, and then Kurosawa's film adaptation.
> >>
> >> There's a nice, relatively discrete section in Orlando Figes' Natasha's
> Dance, called "Descendants of Genghis Khan," which details the considerable
> Mongol/Tatar historical influence on Russian culture, and which does a nice
> job of countering the common place that the Mongols left the Russians alone
> and only collected tribute. It also incorporates the work of painters like
> Vereshchagin on Central Asia, and Levitan on the lonely steppe, with
> Chekhov's Sakhalin and Steppe alongside. I like Jack Weatherford's Genghis
> Khan and the Making of the Mongol World for another intervention in common
> assumptions about the purely destructive role of the Mongols, though this
> book only has a small section on Russia per se. There are a couple of
> intriguing references to the influence of Chinese cuisine on Russian and
> Eastern European cuisine (pickling technology via the Mongols) in Joyce
> Toomre's introduction to A Gift for Young Housewives, a translation of the
> famous Molokhovets cookbook.
> >>
> >> Camp literature.
> >>
> >> A. J. Haywood's Siberia: A Cultural History appears to be set up like a
> travel book, but it's actually a pretty thorough treatment, and has some
> good material on e.g., the construction of the Trans-Siberian RR. On the
> more popular side Benson Bobrick's East of the Sun does a good job with
> some of the personalities and descriptions of exploration, especially
> Bering and Weller, and which also has an extensive bibliography. Steven
> Marks' has lots of mini-treatments of the export of Russian culture (e.g.,
> Anarchism, Tolstoyan pacificism) through various parts of Asia in his How
> Russian Shaped the Modern World.
> >>
> >> The two Japan-Russia/Soviet conflicts of the 20th-century could
> function as anchors for an approach from that angle. I'm still looking for
> a good book-length treatment of the Russo-Japanese war, especially one that
> incorporates cultural ramifications, and would like to hear of other
> people's suggestions; on WWII, I find Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's Racing the Enemy
> very good, though it is essentially a diplomatic history so very thick on
> the documents and details and maybe not appropriate for many undergraduates.
> >>
> >> Anyway, a few suggestions.
> >>
> >> Russell
> >>
> >>
> >>
> *******************************************************************************
> >> Russell Scott Valentino
> >> Professor and Chair
> >> Slavic Languages and Literatures
> >> Indiana University
> >> 502 Ballantine Hall
> >> Bloomington, IN 47405
> >> (812) 855-3272
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
> [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Ruder, Cynthia A
> >> Sent: Friday, February 07, 2014 10:50 AM
> >> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
> >> Subject: [SEELANGS] Query
> >>
> >> Colleagues:
> >>
> >> As part of an "Asian Studies Graduate Certificate" that we are
> preparing, we need to produce a prototype syllabus for a course on Critical
> Issues in Asian Studies. Since Russia is the largest country in Asia, and
> since Central Asia must be part of any discussion of Asia, we would like to
> include readings that address these issues vis-a-vis political, historical,
> cultural, economic, and other concerns. Does anyone have any suggestions
> as to sources--in English--that might be appropriate here? We have a
> couple of ideas, but want to draw on the collective experience of
> SEELANGers to see what we are missing.
> >>
> >> Thank you in advance for your advice. Please reply OFF LIST to me at
> cynthia.ruder at uky.edu
> >>
> >> Sincerely, Cindy Ruder
> >>
> >> Cynthia A. Ruder, Associate Professor
> >> University of Kentucky
> >> MCL/Russian Studies
> >> 1055 Patterson
> >> Lexington, KY 40506-0027
> >> 859.257.7026
> >> cynthia.ruder at uky.edu
> >>
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> >>
> >>
> >> *******************************************
> >> Russell Scott Valentino
> >> Professor and Chair
> >> Slavic Languages and Literatures
> >> Indiana University
> >> Ballantine Hall 502
> >> 1020 E. Kirkwood Avenue
> >> Bloomington, IN 47405-7103
> >> Phone 812-855-2608
> >> Fax 812-855-2107
> >>
> >>
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> >
> >
> >
> > Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD
> >
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--
Amy Singleton Adams
Associate Professor of Russian
College of the Holy Cross
Worcester, MA 01610 USA
(508) 793„2543
aadams at holycross.edu
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