A Reflection on Andrei Levkin’s “iHoly eGrail of the Russian Cultural Moment: Literary and Political Strategies in the Modern Russian Context.”

Andrei Levkin

Andrei Levkin, a well-known author, political commentator, and the editor-in-chief of the online magazine polit.ru gave a lecture on Thursday, April 19, 2012 entitled “iHoly eGrail of the Russian Cultural Moment: Literary and Political Strategies in the Modern Russian Context”.  Mr Levkin started his presentation with a brief introduction to the changes in Russian cultural production that have occurred since 1991, a year he defined as important both because of the demise of the Soviet political system as well as the introduction of the internet to the Russian Federation.

According to Mr. Levkin, in the early 1990s the cultural space of the internet was segregated between intellectuals and “average” users who seldom interacted with each other.  Mr. Levkin asserted that many of the quality online cultural products produced during this period were displaced by pop culture artifacts.  This was presented in comparison to the growth of social media networks in the early 2000s.

With the popularity of social networks in Russia, especially vkontakte.ru and facebook.com, there has been a great expression of informal political discourse, Mr. Levkin said. The online format, he stated, allows for many participants, but the downside is that, so far, much of the content in Russia has either been pro-Vladimir Putin, or anti-Vladimir Putin and that this strict bifurcation allowed for little opportunity to discuss real alternatives.

During an engaging question and answer session, with translation provided by REEEC Director Dr. Richard Tempest, Mr. Levkin addressed questions about the differences in social media use for political discourse in Latvia and Russia (Mr. Levkin splits his time between these two countries).  Mr. Levkin pointed out the benefits of internet usage for political discourse, including that it is quite hard to censor comments and that reaction and interaction can happen as quickly as political events themselves change.

Throughout his talk Mr. Levkin identified a problem in the Russian context which many societies around the world are trying to navigate: how to negotiate a need for hard copies of intellectual artifacts in an increasingly digital age.  Mr. Levkin concluded his talk by questioning the life expectancy of the majority of Russian cultural artifacts created in our modern era, since so many of them exist exclusively in an online format.

Nellie Manis is a 2nd year MA student interested in Russian, East European, and Eurasian sociology and law with particular interest in the minority experience and the rights of under-served communities.  She received a BA in History and a BA in International Studies from Penn State University in 2008.  After completing her MA in 2013 she hopes either to pursue an MA in Translation and Interpretation, or pursue a career in the international sphere, while continuing to study Russian, French, and modern Greek.

Turkish Transnational Television Symposium

Sixth Annual Turkish Studies Symposium

Turkish Transnational Television:

Reshaping of Diaspora Identities in Europe and the Rise of a Regional Cultural Hegemon

April 27

2:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Levis Faculty Center (Music Room, 2nd Floor)

919 W Illinois, Urbana

 

Symposium Webpage

In a pronounced shift in foreign policy, Turkey now is playing a more independent, active and important role in the Middle East and displaying its reaction more prominently to a lack of European Union progress in offering Turkey full membership in the community. Politics and culture go hand in hand. The increasing influence Turkey is projecting through its foreign policy throughout the region has received significant attention in international media and academia. However, an equally important yet entirely new phenomenon—transnationalization of Turkish television—has not been fully addressed. More specifically, Turkish TV serials have emerged as significant instruments of foreign policy and cultural diplomacy. They also present a new way of creating connections to the Turkish diaspora in Europe and building a transnational Turkish public. These transformative developments warrant careful discussion.

Across Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, Turkish and Arabic speaking populations are tuning in to the numerous satellite channels that broadcast Turkish and Arabic-dubbed TV series and soap operas. This half-day symposium aims to understand the complex connections between media use, cultural belonging and worldviews. It will address the implications of the transnationalization of Turkish television for the Turkish and Arab immigrants’ experiences and identities in Europe as well as the increased popularity of Turkish TV series in regions from the Middle East to the Balkans to Central Asia.

Speakers:

Beyazit Akman, Illinois State University
Omar Al-Ghazzi, University of Pennsylvania
Myria Georgiou, London School of Economics
Dima Issa, University of Balamand, Beirut

Moderators/Commentators: Mahir Saul (University of Illinois), Ercan Balci (University of Illinois)

Reception to follow.

Organized by the European Union Center (EUC).
Co-sponsored by the Center for Global Studies (CGS); the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center (REEEC); and the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (CSAMES).

Funded in part by an Institute of Turkish Studies grant.

 

 

 

 

 

The Music of Love Across the Balkans

BME Poster April 2012

Eggs To Pysanky

On Wednesday, April 4 REEEC hosted visit by Vera Samycia, a master artist of Ukrainian Egg painting known as Psyanky.  Vera demonstrated her craft at the Illini Union and later in the day at the Douglass Branch of the Champaign Public Library.

Vera Samycia uses a wax-resist method in dying her eggs.  She starts by outlining her design on the egg in pencil, then adds beeswax to all the areas she wants to stay white.  The egg is then typically placed in the lightest dye (yellow) which sits for 20 minuets.  After each dying Vera adds beeswax to the areas she wants that particular color to stay.  After every color is done, the egg is dried, the layers of wax are removed by heating the wax with a candle. Finally, Vera varnishes the egg with polyethylene, and the inside contents are blown out.

Kids at the Douglass Branch library were fascinated by the Egg painting process, and thought the coolest part was when Vera blew out the inner contents of a finished egg and left the shell in tact.  Seventy people attended the Illini Union presentation and 22 children and 13 adults attended the after-school event at the library.

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Vera’s event at the Illini Union made the front page of the Daily Illini, to read the story and watch a video of the event, please go to the Daily Illini’s website: http://www.dailyillini.com/index.php/article/2012/04/easter_eggs_get_ukrainian_makeover

Global Fest

Baba Yaga riding through the forest in her mortor, swinging a pestle in one hand and a broom in the other.

On March 10, Normal West High School hosted Global Fest. Global Fest is a celebration and promotion of the study of world languages and international studies through educational activities connected to the Illinois Learning Standards for students 6th through 12th grades. Global Fest participants learn about and share the knowledge of the world through introductory lessons in languages of Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East; interactive cultural activities and performances; arts and crafts displays; global knowledge competitions, and exhibits.

REEEC presented “Russian Horror Stories,” to 60 students. During the workshop, students were asked to name favorite horror stories and then broke into groups to discuss what elements made the stories scary.  Then Students looked at pictures of scary characters common in Russian Folklore, one of them being Baba Yaga, and then compared these characters to the scary elements in their own favorite scary stories.  Discussion of Russian folktale characters was followed by a reading of the popular Russian folktale “Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave.”   Students also wrote their names using the Cyrillic alphabet and sampled Russian candy.

More on Global Fest can be found in an article written in the Bloomington Pantagraph :  http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/students-get-taste-of-culture-at-festival/article_19dcbc2c-6b0f-11e1-b5c1-0019bb2963f4.html?mode=story

You can also see their feedback here:

http://reeecillinois.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=696&action=edit&requestfeedback=1#requestfeedback

Ukrainian Easter Eggs Presentation

Ukrainian Easter Egg Demonstration

On Wednesday, April 4 Mrs. Vera Smaycia will provide a Pysanky demonstration in Illini Union room 406 from 11 am – 1 pm. This event is open to the public.

Mrs. Smaycia has spent the past 30 years perfecting her art, conducting workshops, demonstrations and exhibits. She is a member of the Ukrainian National Women’s League and the Goodwill Ambassador of the Ukrainian National Museum. She belongs to the Illinois Artisans Program and has been the recipient of several grants. Vera has been recognized as a master instructor by the Illinois Arts Council.

Following the event on campus, Mrs. Samycia will give a presentation at 4:00 pm at the Douglass Branch of the Champaign Public Library.

To learn more about the craft of painting Pysanky, visit Vera’s website.

Ostrich Egg with Black and White Pattern

Birds, chicks, hens, and Roosters symbolize fulfillment of wishes and fertility

A design called Tripilian 7 by Vera and her mother

International Symposium – The Micropolitics of Small Town Life in Eastern Europe

Call for Papers

On behalf of the Program in Jewish Culture and Society and the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Research Group Pathways of Law in Ethno-Religiously Mixed Societies, funded by the German Research Foundation at Leipzig University, we invite proposals for an international symposium, The Micropolitics of Small Town Life in Eastern Europe. The symposium will be held at the University of Illinois on March 5-6, 2013

Description: Research in urban history of Eastern Europe – as anywhere else in the world – focuses on cities, namely the metropolis. Yet until the beginning of the twentieth century, small urban communities were the principal habitat of the vast majority of people in Eastern Europe. Surprisingly little is known about the political and social universe of small towns. Without privileging a single national history or question, the symposium examines, on a microscopic scale, power dynamics, values, belief systems, and everyday interactions from the early modern period until the beginning of the twentieth century. From this perspective, we hope to challenge established grand narratives of historical development and organization. We especially welcome proposals that zero in on the mentalities, communal structures and organization, and the functions and dysfunctions of small town life in a comparative framework.

Timothy Snyder of Yale University will give the keynote lecture.

Themes:

·     Theory of communication – media of communication
·     Demography – settlement politics – spatial orders
·     Legal settings: rights and responsibilities
·     Corporations and religious communities
·     Political consciousness and urban ideology
·     Neighborly relations
·     Female agency
·     Public associations

Proposals are welcome from any discipline of the humanities and social sciences. Please send a short abstract (300 words) and CV to smalltownlife2012@gmail.com by April 20, 2012.

The symposium organizers will cover room and board and assist with travel expenses (up to $500 for domestic participants and $1500 for international guests).

Symposium Organizers:

Eugene Avrutin – Department of History, University of Illinois (eavrutin@illinois.edu);
Yvonne Kleinmann – Institute for Slavic Studies, Leipzig University (kleinm@rz.uni-leipzig.de)

A reflection on “Russia’s Leadership and U.S.-Russia Relations”

Kuchins at his WILL Interview with David Inge

On February 2nd Dr. Andrew Kuchins presented a REEEC Distinguished Lecture entitled “Russia’s Leadership and U.S.-Russia Relations.”  Dr. Kuchins is a senior fellow and the director of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program. He is an internationally known expert on Russian foreign and domestic policies who publishes widely and is frequently called on by business, government, media, and academic leaders for comment and consulting on Russian and Eurasian affairs.  Kuchins currently teaches at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and has also taught at Georgetown and Stanford Universities. He holds a B.A. from Amherst College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins SAIS.

Kuchins made the point that it doesn’t matter who becomes the next Russian president and that external factors will matter more to Russia’s political system.  According to Kuchins the likely return of Putin raises questions about his political capital:  Will he reform?  Can a re-set of U.S. foreign policy occur?  Kuchins noted that three political factions will try to push their influence.  The liberals want Russia to pursue more integration and cooperation with its neighbors. The power balancers believe that the west has overplayed its roll and want power ceded to Russia.  Russian nationalists advocate neo-imperialism, and want to create buffer-zone while uniting Russia with Diasporas in near-abroad.

Kuchins made the point that while Putin is often thought to be opposed to American policy, it is forgotten that he pursued his own reset in 2000-01. The pursuit of a reset stopped when Russia’s situation changed. Moscow’s opinion of Washington became negative and Russia’s own sense of reemergence was strengthened.  Also, as Russia’s fiscal situation improved, financial sovereignty helped to inform political attitudes towards foreign policy in 2003-08. Russia was reemerging while American uni-polarity was diminishing.

But now the Russian middle class has been undergoing a radical change and is continues to grow. When Putin started, Russia was more monolithic, but now society is more polarized.  And Putin will have to decide whether or not to adjust for more pluralism as his political brand is becoming more tarnished.

While he was on campus, Dr. Kuchins was a guest on WILL AM 580’s Focus program.  That interview can be found here: http://will.illinois.edu/focus/interview/focus120203a/. Additionally, he visited the REES 201 course – Introduction to Eastern Europe to speak on the broader impact of Russia’s elections and its government on surrounding nations. He also presented the same topic at an OLLI lunchtime lecture to a capacity crowd on February 3. That lecture is embedded below.

Download: Kuchins%20OLLI%20Lecture.mp3?w=80df0527

Discourse Across Borders: Slavic Studies from Kievan Rus to Present Day

February 24: 12 noon-5 pm & February 25: 9 am-7 pm

On February 24^th and 25^th, the Slavic Graduate Students’ Association (SGSA) will host the Third Annual Graduate Student Conference in Slavic Studies. The conference will take place at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the Foreign Language Building (FLB) in the Lucy Ellis Lounge (1080). The conference theme is Discourse Across Borders: Slavic Studies from Kievan Rus to Present-Day. With this year’s theme the conference organizers wanted to explore the shifting subtleties of national and cultural traditions in East European literature, art, language, pop culture, politics and performance. Several Slavic Department graduate student scholars were interested in looking at the influence of socio-political aspects on representational and creative systems.

The SGSA reached out to Slavists and young scholars across disciplinary fields and regional institutions. Consequently, SGSA is hosting several out-of-state panelists. We hope that this interstate and interdisciplinary show of interest proves for a rewarding and invigorating exchange of ideas.

The scope of this conference is large, as is evidenced by the number of diverse panel topics. This year’s panel subjects span the traditional and modern scopes of Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Czech and Moldavian culture. Specifically, panelists will discuss topics like, “Ressentiment, Colonial Subjects, and Death”; “Ukrainian Literature, Cinema and Art”; “Device and Mechanism”; “Identity and Mythology”; “Polish Pop Culture”; and “Emigration, Code and Language.”

The Discourse Across Borders: Slavic Studies from Kievan Rus to Present-Day conference will feature two keynote speeches, one on each of the conference days. On February 24^th, Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky (Miami University, Oxford Ohio) will discuss national identity and cinema in his talk titled: “National Cinema and Cinematic Nationhood: The Case of Modern Ukraine.” On the final conference day, February 25^th, Dr. Volodymyr Chumachenko (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) will conclude the conference with his talk: “Novel As a Sign of Time.”

SGSA invites you to attend.  You can find additional information and a full schedule online at https://wiki.cites.uiuc.edu/wiki/display/SGSA/Home .

Steven Witt named Head of the International and Area Studies Library

On December 16, Steven W. Witt was named Head of the International and Area Studies Library and Associate Professor of Library Administration.

Steve, who came to Illinois from the Ames Library at Illinois Wesleyan in 2003, is a leader in international librarianship, having served in IFLA as Chair of the Social Science Libraries Standing Committee, Chair of the Special Libraries Division, and Chair of the Library Types Division. In these latter roles, Steve served as a member of the IFLA Governing Board, and also as the co-editor of IFLA publications, including Social Science Libraries: Interdisciplinary Collections, Services, Networks (201) and Digital Library Futures: User Perspectives and Institutional Strategies. In addition to these positions, Steve has served as on the faculty of Senzoku Gakuen University in Kawasaki, Japan, and as Library Director at the Southern Illinois University campus at Niigata, Japan. Steve received his B.A. and his M.S. in Library Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is currently working on his Ph.D. in Library and Information Science at GSLIS.

Steve’s office will be in the International and Area Studies Library, and he may be reached by e-mail.