News and events
If you would like to receive an email with events organized by the Slavonic Department and related societies, please email us on slavon@hermes.cam.ac.uk.
On this page you will find information about research and public events linked to Russia, Ukraine and Eastern European Memory Studies.
- Public Lecture Series on Resistance in Russia and Eastern Europe
- New Publications and other Activities by members of the Department
- Current and Past Research events by category - a reminder of our catalogue of public events, lecture series and film symposiums
- Other Cambridge Events
- Google Calendar
Recent Achievements in the Department:
The Department would like to formally congratulate a team of our wonderful undergraduate students who recently entered a prestigious translation competition and received a special commendation from the Judges for their work.
The 2013 competition for the Rossica Young Translators Awards took place in March. The Cambridge team were the only winning entrants to have translated the Eduard Limonov text, which was singled out by contest judge Rosamund Bartlett as especially challenging. She writes: 'Limonov has strong political views, and a strong literary voice, captured with great fidelity in the translations submitted. Transposing contemporary conversational Russian (the bulk of this selected text consists of a conversation) requires enormous skill, and it was clear to see in the translations submitted how much work had gone into getting its nuances exactly right.'
The Cambridge team was comprised of:
Katherine Armstrong (Part IA(b) Churchill), Danielle Craig (Part IB(a) Clare), Joshua Heath (Part IB(a) Trinity), Christopher Heren (Part IA(b) Fitzwilliam), Rita Lindsay (Part IB(a) Pembroke), Charles Littlewood (Part IB(a) Clare), Helene Mertens (Part IA(b) Trinity Hall), David Parke (Part IB(a) Selwyn), Jake Perl (Part IA(b) Jesus) and Henry Pyke (Part IA(b) Trinity Hall).
Current and Forthcoming Departmental Events:
Literary Events
On the occasion of the publication of the inaugural Pushkin House Russian book prize shortlist, a discussion about the state of non-fiction writing on Russia will be held at Watestones Cambridge, 22 Sidney Street, on Thursday 16 May 2013 from 6pm, featuring Dr Rachel Polonsky, Dr Susan Larsen and Andrew Jack. Participants will discuss the six books selected by this year's jury, the themes they raise and the broader issues of current writing about Russia. [Tickets are free and available in store]
Dr Rachel Polonsky is lecturer in the department of Slavonic studies and a member of the inaugural Pushkin House Russian book prize jury, the winner
of which will be unveiled at the Hay Festival on May 29th. Dr Susan Larsen is lecturer in the department of Slavonic studies specialising
in gender and identity in Russian culture. Andrew Jack is a journalist with the Financial Times, former Moscow bureau chief and co-chairman of Pushkin House, an independent Russian cultural
centre in London.
Details of the prize can be found here
Other Cambridge Events
Please follow links below for information about other Russian, Ukrainian and Eastern European related events
RUSSGRADS (The Department also sponsors a graduate-run research seminar which meets fortnightly)
CamCREES (Cambridge Committee for Russian and E. European Studies)
Memory at War/East European Memory Studies
Google Calendar of Departmental Events
The Google calendar below gives basic details of all Slavonic and East European events in the University. Please follow links to the relevant websites: CAMCREES, Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, Memory at War and Russgrads for further information.
New Publications and other Activities by members of the Department
Alexander Etkind. Internal Colonization: Russia's Imperial Experience. New York - Cambridge UK: Polity Press, 2011, 264pp.
This book gives a new reading of Russia's cultural history. Alexander Etkind traces how the Russian Empire conquered foreign territories and domesticated its own heartlands, thereby colonizing many peoples, Russians included. This vision of colonization as simultaneously internal and external, colonizing one's own people as well as others, is crucial for scholars of empire, colonialism and globalization. Starting with the fur trade, which shaped its enormous territory, and ending with Russia's collapse in 1917, Etkind explores serfdom, the peasant commune, and other institutions of internal colonization. His account brings out the formative role of foreign colonies in Russia, the self-colonizing discourse of Russian classical historiography, and the revolutionary leaders' illusory hopes for an alliance with the exotic, pacifist sectarians. Transcending the boundaries between history and literature, Etkind examines striking writings about Russia's imperial experience, from Defoe to Tolstoy and from Gogol to Conrad. This path-breaking book blends together historical, theoretical and literary analysis in a highly original way. It will be essential reading for students of Russian history and literature and for anyone interested in the literary and cultural aspects of colonization and its aftermath.
