Department of Slavonic Studies
Research Events
Conferences
Design without Frontiers
20-21 September 2012, CRASSH, University of Cambridge
This conference – a collaboration between the University Library and the departments of History of Art and Slavonic Studies – complemented the Soviet Design for Life exhibition, and raised the profile of the Cooke Collection as a premier resource for the study of Russian and Soviet art of the twentieth century.
The conference bought together an international line-up of speakers to debate the way in which design was uniquely un-compartmentalised in Soviet Russia. Creative practice was marked by an emphasis on collaborative endeavour, reaching across disciplinary boundaries. Architects, poets, painters and designers were united in formal and informal collaborative networks, leading to innovative design collectives, and to the unprecedented erosion of any lasting divisions between architectural, graphic, textile, theatre, and urban design. The conference aims to investigate the roots and legacies of these collaborative networks by looking back to the Silver Age and forward to the late Soviet and post-Soviet period, as well as re-examining the Soviet avant-garde.
This conference and it's related open air film screening were graciously sponsored by the Russkiy Mir Foundation.
The conference was given as part of the 2012-13 Unveristy Library A Soviet Design for Life: The Catherine Cooke Collection of 20th Century Russian Architecture and Design.From July 2012 to April 2013 the University Library, Cambridge, held an exhibition of items from the Catherine Cooke Collection, a world-class assemblage of books, periodicals, posters, plans, photographs, and ephemera relating to Russian and Soviet art, architecture, urban planning, and design. Bequeathed in 2004, the collection includes items of great rarity and importance.
'A Soviet Design for Life' In the news:
- The Guardian, Monday, 2 July 2012: 'Discovery of Russian artist's sketch shows secret side of Soviet propaganda'
- University of Cambridge, Research News, Tuesday, 3 July 2012: 'A Soviet Design for Life'
Symposiums
А Hidden History of Soviet Cinema: The Legacy of Ihor Savchenko
10-11 November 2011
Winstanley Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge
Filmmaker Ihor Savchenko (1906-1950) was a prolific and influential near contemporary of Dovzhenko and Eisenstein whose body of work remains little known in the West. Born in Vinnytsia, Savchenko started his filmmaking career in Baku before moving to work in major studios in Moscow and Kyiv. His films include the first Soviet musical, light romantic comedies, wartime epics, and controversial biopics. Among the students in his directing master class at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) were some of the most celebrated filmmakers of the post-Stalin era: Marlen Khutsiev, Sergei Parajanov, Aleksandr Alov and Vladimir Naumov.
Sponsored by Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, the Symposium brings together scholars from Ukraine, Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States to discuss Savchenko’s diverse oeuvre.
More information and the complete Symposium programme may be found here on the website for Cambridge Ukrainian Studies.
Lectures
CamCREES 2013 public lecture series
True Believers: Collaboration and Opposition under Totalitarian Regimes
Given by Professor Anne Applebaum on Wednesday 6 March 2013
Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Anne Applebaum, delivered the third public lecture of the Lent Term 2013 as part of the Cambridge Committee for Russian and Eastern European Studies lecture series. The Lecture took place at the Umney Theatre, Robinson College from 5pm.
'Ukrainian Literature and Ukrainian Politics: Never Together'
On Monday 5 November, The Ukrainian Studies Programme in assosication with the Department of Slavonic Studies hosted a public lecture given by the International bestselling writer, Andrei Kurkov, the authour of 'Death and the Penguin'. The lecture was held in the Morison Room, Cambridge University Library.
Designs of Spring: On the Natural Form of Communism
Given by Professor Robert Bird, University of Chicago
Thursday, 10 May 2012, Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College, Cambridge
From the early 1930s the desire to re-make both human nature and the natural world united artists, scientists and other intellectuals in a broad cultural consensus, predicated on dialectical materialism and the primacy of practice. One notable aspect of the Stalin consensus (as I call it) was the way in which artists from across the Soviet media system drew inspiration from controversial innovations in botany and genetics, most directly linked to the name of Ivan Michurin. With a shifting focus on poetry, film and graphic art (children's books, caricatures and posters) I will trace how notions of biological form overlapped with aesthetic debates in the Stalinist period. I shall also examine what happened to this consensus in the Thaw period of the early 1960s, when artists re-discovered the archive of the avant-garde only to find that the alliance between science and art had become unsustainable. Artists to be discussed include: Aleksandr Dovzhenko, Fridrikh Ermler, Elizaveta Polonskaia, Nikolai Zabolotsky, Andrei Voznesensky, Petr Miturich, Vasilii Fomichev.
Thursday 13 October 5:30 p.m. Winstanley Lecture Theatre:
Dmitri Bykov was born in Moscow in 1967. He studied at Moscow State University's Faculty of Journalism, and journalism is something he remains engaged with: he regularly produces articles, essays and reviews for the leading Russian newspapers and magazines. He has senior editorial positions in various publications, hosts a weekly radio show and appears regularly on Russian TV.
Bykov's literary output is voluminous. He has published eight novels, several collections of short stories, three volumes of essays and eight collections of poetry.
Bykov's novel 'ЖД' (published in Russia in 2007 and recently translated into English as Living Souls) has become a bombshell. Its title is an abbreviation that evokes many meanings, primarily standing for Living Souls, an association with Gogol's Dead Souls. One critic described Bykov's novel as "a futuristic anti-utopia about imminent ethnic conflicts and the inevitable crisis of democracy and liberalism as we know them today." The novel is set in the not so distant future but the events described are drawn from the present day, especially life in the army. Bykov himself describes his novel as politically incorrect. He says: "It's the best book I've ever written - actually it's the best book that can possibly be written today, and it's very funny."
Bykov's latest novel, 'Списанные' ('List) is the first installment of a grotesque fantasy trilogy. The protagonist, a young TV script writer, suddenly finds himself on a secret list which includes, in addition to him, 180 other Muscovites aged 16 to 60. Nobody knows who, or what, has put them on this list. Fear, humiliation, hopes, rumours and the ghosts of the noughties - all find their way into this novel, part-thriller, part-fable and part-political satire.
Provocative, flamboyant and with his fingers in dozens of pies, Dmitry Bykov revels in controversy. Though his literary versatility and verbal violence mark him out among contemporary Russian writers, he remains relatively unknown in the West.
His Excellency The Russian Ambassador, "Culture, International relations and foreign policy of Russia"
Thursday 3rd November 5:30 p.m. Winstanley Lcture Theatre:
The Department of Slavonic Studies and Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies (CamCREES), in association with the Cambridge University Eurasian and Russian Societies are pleased to invite you to a talk by His Excellency Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the United Kingdom. Alexander Vladimirovich Yakovenko will deliver a speech dedicated to "Culture, international relations and the foreign policy of Russia". The talk will be followed by a Q&A session and a reception.
Alexander Vladimirovich Yakovenko arrived in London to assume his duties as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the Court of St.James's on 29th January 2011. Before his appointment, Dr. Yakovenko served as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation in charge of multilateral diplomacy (UN, UNESCO and other international organizations, economic and humanitarian co-operation, human rights, environmental co-operation, climate change, education, culture and sports).
Mr. Yakovenko has spoken and written extensively about the importance of Anglo-Russian relations
Performing Memory: Current Trends in Russian Documentary Theatre (Mikhail Kaluzhsky)
Thursday 1st March, 5:30 pm, Umney Theatre, Robinson College:
Jointly sponsored by the Department of Slavonic Studies and the Memory at War Project.
Mikhail Kaluzhsky is supervisor of the documentary performance program at the Josef Beuys Theatre (Moscow). His work for the Beuys Theatre includes 'Artists Anonymous' (co-author, performer), 'Legacy of Silence' (playwright, director, performer), 'Me Anna and Helga' (playwright). He is also co-curator of the international theatre laboratory 'Working With Documents' that will take place in Moscow in March 2012 and head of the public debates program at the Andrei Sakharov Centre (Moscow).
Mr. Kaluzhsky is author of 'Music Repressed' (Repressirovannaia muzyka, 2007) and writes frequently about culture and media for journals such as Russkii Reporter, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Bolshoi Gorod, Snob, Booknik.ru, Toronto Slavic Quarterly, Ost Europa and others.
Please click here for a short history of Verbatim Theatre in Russia
Recent Politics and Protests in Russia: A Roundtable Discussion
Fiday 2nd March, 2:00-4:00pm, GR06/07 (English Faculty)
with speakers Sir Anthony Brenton (British Ambassador to Russia from 2004-2008), Dr Alexander Etkind (Cambridge), Dr Rory Finnin (Cambridge), Mr Mikhail Kaluzhsky (Joseph Beuys Theatre and Andrei Sakharov Centre, Moscow), Dr Susan Larsen (Cambridge), Dr Vlad Strukov (Leeds)
The award winning documentary Justice for Sergei Introduced by William Browder
Thursday 15th March, 5:30 pm, Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College
JUSTICE FOR SERGEI tells the story of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in November 2009 at the age of 37 in a Moscow detention centre, still awaiting trial. In 2008 Mr Magnitsky claimed to have uncovered a massive fraud committed by Russian government officials. After testifying against the officials involved, Mr Magnitsky was arrested and imprisoned without trial by those very same government officials. His death fuelled international outrage, but the officials allegedly responsible have not been brought to justice. Justice for Sergei tells the story of an ordinary man who paid the ultimate price. It brings to light issues of corruption and the rule of law in today's Russia.
Film Symposiums
Open Air Screening of 'Aelita'
Friday, 21 September, 8pm, in front of the University Library
Special Event, organised by the Departments of Slavonic Studies and History of Art, in association with the Cambridge Film Festival. Sponsored by Russkiy mir and Gazprom (part of the conference Design without Frontiers, http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1683/)
Open air screening of the remarkable 1924 silent film, Aelita (dir. Iakov Protazanov), in front of the University Library, West Road. With live accompaniment by Neil Brand. Introduced by Professor Ian Christie.
Iakov Protazanov's 1924 film is set in 1920s Moscow. Engineer Los is among a group of technicians who receive a strange radio message that seems to be from another world. Los begins to dream about a woman on the disatant planet Mars, little realising that Aelita, the daughter of its totalitarian ruler, is actually observing him through a telescope. Fate deals him a tragic blow - but also presents him with an opportunty... He builds a spaceship and travels to the red planet to be united with her, and with his comrade Gulev leads a proletarian uprising. But is everything quite what it seems? The USSR's first science fiction film was a huge hit when first released, with children even being named 'Aelita' in its honour. It featured extraordinary costumes and sets designed by avant-garde artist Alexandra Ekster. This will be a remarkable occasion - the film will be ccreened in front of theUniversity Library's imposing facade, and shown in a newly restored version, with a live score performed by Neil Brand.
Workshops
Please click here for previous events