In Memoriam: Albert Bates Lord

1999

Since World War II the USA has occupied a dominant position in Slavic Studies, and in more recent times probably the preeminent position, especially in Slavic Linguistics. The beginning of this American ascendancy in the field can be traced back to the arrival of Roman Jakobson, the great Russian Slavist, in the New World at the time of World War II. Of course, Slavistics had existed in America before Jakobson arrived, but his presence seemed to galvanize the field most dramatically. Home-grown American specialists appeared to assume a new lease on life (one thinks of Horace Lunt, for instance). With the subsequent influx of refugee scholars from warravaged Europe, aided by ample amounts of "cold-war money," Slavic Studies boomed in America in a way no one could have imagined before the War. With the end of the Cold War, the situation has changed somewhat, but by now the seeds had been sown, plants had come forth and blossomed, giving the USA a large, vibrant, and highly innovative Slavic academic community, which is truly the envy of the world. The strength of American Slavistics has been reflected by the ever more valuable contributions the Americans have made to the quinquennial International World Congress of Slavists, and the 1993 Bratislava Congress is no exception. Its papers represent an eclectic mix of contributions and cover the entire spectrum of American scholars, ranging from the older, well-established generation such as Henrik Birnbaum, Walter Schamschula, Rado Lencek, and Horace Lunt, to the first wave of postwar Slavists such as Michael Shapiro, Olga Yokoyama, Ronelle Alexander, and Michael Flier, and coming finally to the recent crop of young Slavists such as Laura Janda, Joseph Schallert (now at the University of Toronto), and George Fowler. The list is impressive, and yet more so is the fact that the USA could have provided many times over the number of Slavists qualified to attend the world's major conference in the field. The competition for a place on the American delegation is keen indeed. The contributions to this volume comprise two groups. The first, devoted to Literature, contains thirteen papers. The second, devoted to Linguistics and Poetics, contains twenty papers. Reflecting the dominant role played by Linguistics in American Slavic Studies since World War II, the second group's larger number of papers is mainly on linguistic topics. Indeed Jakobson founded a journal after his arrival in America, which he called "The l.nternational Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics," which is still going strong today under its present editor, Dean Worth. It is not possible in this review to comment on all papers individually, so I shall limit myself to just three contributions, i.e., Robert MacMaster's in the Literature section, and the pieces by Johanna Nichols and Laura Janda in the Linguistics and Poetics section. These three contributions give a fair indication of the standard of scholarship which is to be found in this volume. Much of MacMaster's "Tolstoi and History" is chillingly evocative and strangely relevant to the Russia of today, e.g., the ambivalence it displays towards the West, and its seemingly endless trouble and unrest in the Caucasus, especially in Chechnia and Daghestan. MacMaster argues that Tolstoi, unlike Pushkin, did no real historical work. In the 1850s and 1860s he devoted himself to moral concerns alternating with artistic concerns. Thereafter until 1910 he shows a disenchantment with history. For MacMaster the big questions are: what was Tolstoi's idea of human experience in history, and how did he see the place of history in human life as a whole. Macmaster attempts to give partial answers to these questions by discussing

Барышников А.Е. От Франкенштейна к Дирку Джентли: поиск нового в романо-британских исследованиях (будет опубликована осенью-зимой 2015). Abstract A.Ye. Baryshnikov From Frankenstein to Dirk Gently: a quest for a new agenda in Romano-British studies This paper considers some theoretical and methodological problems of Romano-British Studies. The ‘Romanization’ debate, perhaps the most prominent discussion in Romano-British studies for the last quarter-century, determined to the deconstruction of a traditional, Romanization-based agenda which is now often labeled as a colonial, anachronistic and vulgar concept. Critical notes (they sometimes go too far in my opinion) picture Romanization some kind of Frankenstein, roughly made theoretical construct baffling our understanding of cultural change in Roman Britain. The deconstruction of Romanization forces scholars to seek new agendas and approaches to fulfill the appearing methodological gap. Such an attempt had been made recently by M.J. Versluys who had stated that the Romanization debate must be reinvigorated. The first part of a paper reviews several ideas and approaches proposed during the debate (globalization, identity, creolization, bricolage). In my opinion they all have a rational kernel and may be used as a research tool; some of them (e.g., identity) can be applied on micro and meso levels to reconstruct a life of individuals and local communities, others (globalization) work well on macro level and help to see wide and far-reaching cultural processes. The second part of a paper is devoted to the author’s vision of a new agenda. I offer some kind of ‘synthetic’ approach which is based in three positions: a nuanced conception of cultural interaction, a combination of methods and concepts, interconnectivity of processes and transformations. Cultural interaction is the complex phenomenon leading to sociocultural transformation and consisting of many different and interconnected cultural processes such as different romanizations (I use this term in the narrowest of senses, to denote the outspreads of the elements of Imperial culture and ethos), resistance, perdurance of local cultures, diffusion, objective processes of ecological and demographic change. The complexity of transformations can’t be understood with only one method and theory; to catch the history of Roman Britain in all its aspects scholars should stop trying to figure out new ‘grand concept’ and combine different approaches and tools. The last but not least is interconnectivity of all processes and transformations. It can be illustrated with honey bees example. They were native to Britain, the people of the island were familiar with wild honey and honey hunting. The Roman expansion changed a lot: with migration from Empire came villas and gardens, new plants, the technology of beekeeping was introduced, changes of food ration; moreover, it led to changes of ecosystem and played some role in the spread of literacy. Flavius Cerialis probably didn’t think about bees when he was writing to Crispinus; but without beeswax his letter couldn’t be scribed. Tracing this interconnectivity scholar sometimes can feel like Dirk Gently, a famous detective from novels by Douglas Adams.

2003

BOOK REVIEWS 269 out to be an eccentric ramble which uncritically treats Vološinov as Bakhtin and devotes much space to recounting legal wranglings with Linneberg's ex-wife (which, however, perhaps accomplishes the Bakhtinian feat of enabling one to understand the perspective of the Other).

Canadian-American Slavic Studies 51 (2017) 143-157, 2017

On Friday, September 25, 2015, in Memorial Church at Harvard University, a memorial service was held to celebrate the life and career of Professor Edward L. Keenan Jr., Andrew W. Mellon Professor of History, Emeritus, who passed away on March 6, 2015. The memorial service gathered together hundreds – family members, former colleagues and students, and countless friends. The eight speakers at this memorial described Edward (Ned) Keenan's influence on them, but also his inestimable impact on the field of Russian history; and his widow provided a window into his thinking about the many roles he played over the course of a diverse and significant career that spanned four decades. The memorial service marked a sad moment in the field of Russian studies, and the words offered at it are important for understanding how the field of Russian history in the United States grew and was transformed in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

eds. From Medieval Russian Culture to Modernism: Studies in Honor of Ronald Vroon. Russkaia kul'tura v Evrope. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2012. 352 pp. $69.95 (paper). ISBN 978-3-631-60110-5.

2009

Slavonic and East European Review 98.1, 2020