Query

Wed Feb 12 14:10:21 UTC 2014

Dear Colleagues:

To everyone who has contributed to this discussion and offered sources for our Graduate Asian Studies Certificate I extend my sincere thanks.  The recommendations have been great.  Thank you.

Cindy

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

________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on behalf of Robert Orr [colkitto at ROGERS.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 3:36
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Query

For a Polish angle, there's

http://www.urpress.com/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=7116

Izabela Kalinowska's Between East and West ; Polish and Russian
Nineteenth-Century Travel to the Orient

And "Flashman at the Charge", which includes Flashman's escape from
Starotorsk - recapture on the Arrow of Arabat - crossing the Caspian and
Aral Seas - re-escaping to india via Afghanistan and blowing up a couple of
ships on the way while high on drugs, is worth at least a footnote here.

There is a Russian version:

Флэшмен на острие удара/Flashman at the Charge

http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/7332788/

-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Robert Chandler
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 9:53 AM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Query

Yes, I too had meant to mention Anna Reid's excellent "The Shaman's Coat".

Robert

On 10 Feb 2014, at 14:14, 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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Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD

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