This year there were many events to celebrate! From the twice-annual Slavic Talent Show to student-led talks, the Slavic Department offers a wide range of fun and engaging student events.
We invite you to keep an eye on our Social Media and OSU Webpage to keep up-to-date with future events as we take a look back at some of our favorite events from the last year.
Looking Back
Spring Talent Show - Kapustnik!
This semester saw the Slavic Spring Talent Show, also known as "Kapustnik", feature Slavic Department students showing off their creative talents. Each semester, language students at the Department are encouraged to work together to write and perform skits, sing songs, or give brief presentations in and about Slavic and East European Languages.
Kapustnik this semester also featured a large variety of Slavic and East European treats and foodstuffs -- much of it home made! Celebrating Kapustnik just wouldn't be the same without some kvas, buterbrody, and pryaniki.
We want to thank all those who came and to those who made and brought the delicious food (including department faculty!). We also want to give a special thank you to all who performed. We are always impressed by the passion and talent students bring to this event, whether in singing and playing instruments, giving a brief lecture about Eugene Onegin, or performing novel skits with classmates. See the list of performances below.
We are looking forward to next semester's celebration!
Program of performances:
- Oliver Griffith (R 2250, Shubina) - "On Pushkin's Path (Onegin Stanza)"
- Russian 1101 (with Irina Baskova) - И снова Ханна Погодкина... Со свежими новостями!
- BCS 1102 (with Matthew Boyd) - "Hajde da putujemo! / Let's travel"
- BCS 2104 (with Matthew Boyd) - "BHS" (After Malena by VIS Idoli)
- Joker Out Interview - Matthew Boyd
- Claire Kovcegov - "Бесприданница"
- Russian 1102 (with Lilia Caserta) - "Репка"
- Russian 1101 (with Lilia Caserta) - "В самолёте"
- Sophie Papp (Russian 3102, Caserta) - "Тиньков поясняет за изучение русского языка в Государственном Университете Штата Огайо"
- Romanian 1102 (with Adela Lechintan-Siefer) - "Alunelu" ("Little Hazelnut")
- Russian 1102 (with Michelle Andreyevna) - "Мой мармеладный - Катя Лель"
- Sam Smith, Sophie Baldwin, Georgianna Caputo (Russian 2104, Bachman) - "Ситуация с Гарри (Situation with Harry)"
- Ted Nagasawa (East European 5672, Collins/Joseph) - "Me and Pangur Bán" (Old Irish Reading)
- Russian 2144 (with Viktoriia Kim) - "Песня друзей"
- Aimma Farooqui (Russian 4102, Kim) - "Ландыш, ландыш белоснежный..." (Марина Цветаева)
- Grad Student Surprise!
Slavic Spring Tea 2024
In April we celebrated the hard work of our students: every Spring, students receive rewards and are inducted into the Dobro Slovo National Honor Society.
These awards are a recognition of their efforts, but also as a way for them to fund for future study and research. A number of students this year used this funding as a means of financing summer studies at home and abroad. We hope to encourage continued hard work from our students and to reward and recognize them accordingly!
A campus chapter of Dobro Slovo was first established at University of California / Berkeley on Oct 29, 1926 to recognize academic excellence among Slavic students. In 1963, with the help and encouragement of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) the National Slavic Honor Society – Dobro Slovo – was founded. The Society serves to recognize academic excellence in the study of Slavic languages and literatures and provides incentive for scholarly interest in Slavic life and culture. The Society was patterned after existing honorary organizations in other fields. Since 1963, Dobro Slovo has steadily grown to be an internationally recognized academic Honor Society with a distinguished membership. Each year SEELC honors six new inductees into the society.
The 26th Annual Kenneth E. Naylor Memorial Lecture with Dr. Bojan Belić
We hope you continue to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Naylor, and we would like to thank you for all those who have participated in this endeavor!
Later in the Spring we received word that Dr. Sunnie Rucker-Chang has been named the next Kenneth E. Naylor Professor, this time of South Slavic Cultures. We are excited to see what excellent work Dr. Rucker-Chang produces in this role, and we hope you are too!
Visiting Fulbright Professor Dr. Agnieszka Poczta-Wajda's Talk on Smallholder Farmers in Poland
On April 17th the Center for Slavic East European and Eurasian Studies featured a lecture by Spring 2024's visiting Fulbright Slavic Scholar, Dr. Agnieszka Poczta-Wajda. We were glad to have Dr. Poczta-Wajda with us this Spring and wish her the best of luck in her future work.
See CSEEES's article below for a synopsis of the lecture.
Abstract: A gap in research exists regarding food insecurity among small-scale farms in developed countries. This issue holds particular significance in nations with fragmented agrarian structures, such as Poland. A 2018 survey aimed to assess the level of food insecurity among small-scale farms in Poland and identify its determinants. The results revealed a surprisingly high incidence of food insecurity within the surveyed sample, highlighting the urgency of addressing this issue.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Agnieszka Poczta-Wajda is a visiting Fulbright Slavic Award recipient from the Poznań University of Economics and Business. Her research focuses on the issue of food security at the household level in developed countries. She has carried out scientific projects in the field of agricultural economics, especially the policy of supporting agriculture in highly developed countries, income deprivation of farmers, and liberalization of trade in agricultural products. Throughout her career, she has given lectures on macroeconomics and the economics of European integration. At her lecture, she shares her knowledge of these topics which are embedded in the context of the Polish economy and economic policy.
Link to article: https://slaviccenter.osu.edu/events/shoemakers-children-go-barefoot-self-perception-food-security-among-smallholder-farmers
Upcoming Events
Fall Semester Kick-Off
Join us August 20th for our Fall Semester Kick-Off!
While we love Ohio summers here at the SEELC, we love getting back to campus even more!
Join us in the Courtyard of Hagerty Hall on August 20th from 4:30-5:30PM to meet and greet fellow students, faculty, staff. There will be light snacks and drinks provided.
We would love to hear about all of your Summer adventures and to get excited about the upcoming semester!
If you would like to share your Summer Adventure on the Slavic Department website or social media, contact Ernst.150@osu.edu for more information.
The 2024 Kalbouss Innovative Approaches Lecture: Victoria Donovan
Join us for the 2024 Kalbouss Innovative Approaches Lecture featuring Dr. Victoria Donovan on September 9th in Thompson 165.
The Kalbouss Innovative Approaches to Slavic Cultural Studies Lecture was established in the spring of 2019 through the generosity of Associate Professor Emeritus George Kalbouss. Dr. Kalbouss taught in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures (now Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures [SEELC]) from 1973 to 2001 and his contributions are far too many to enumerate. An outstanding educator with a commitment to supporting Slavic studies in the state of Ohio, in 1967 Dr. Kalbouss created an Introduction to Russian Culture course which was the first of its kind. Having written and published the Russian culture textbook, he taught over 15,000 students through this course during his academic career at Ohio State University. Before his time at SEELC, Dr. Kalbouss had been an assistant professor of Russian at Dartmouth College from 1967-73, and an Instructor of Russian at Purdue University from 1966-67. Dr. Kalbouss received his Ph.D. in Slavic Languages from New York University in 1968, and his M.A. and B.A. degrees from Columbia University. Beginning in 1961, Dr. Kalbouss served in the United States Army Reserves’ Military Intelligence branch, retiring as Lieutenant Colonel in 1999.
The 14th Annual Hongor Oulanoff Lecture with Edyta Bojanowska
Join us on September 27th for the 14th Annual Hongor Oulanoff Lecture in Russian Literature.This year's lecture features Edyta Bojanowska from Yale University, with her lecture: ""Imperial Comparisons in Tolstoy's 'War and Peace'".
This event will be hosted in the Barbie Tootle Room of the Ohio Union, with food served at 5:30PM, and the lecture following from 6:00PM to 7:30PM.
Read below to see Dr. Bojanowska's abstract and to learn more about the Hongor Oulanoff Lecture!
“Imperial Comparisons in Tolstoy’s War and Peace”
Edyta Bojanowska, Yale University
"Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, about Napoleon’s 1812 Russian campaign, is well-known for its national mythology, but less so for its imperial one. Yet both myths interweave in Tolstoy’s dense historical canvas and his fictional characters’ human dramas. Using a postcolonial lens, this talk examines Tolstoy’s comparisons between the French and Russian empires and their Orientalisms. Balancing between alternately denying and affirming Russia’s imperial status, between rejecting some imperial attitudes and reinforcing others, War and Peace navigates the national and imperial contradictions of nineteenth-century Russia and its triangular relations to East and West. "
At Ohio State every autumn we host the Hongor Oulanoff Lecture in Russian Literature, generously endowed by our late emeritus colleague's wife Constance Oulanoff. Prof. Oulanoff (1930-2010) was one of the founding faculty of the department. Born in Prague into an emigre family, he was educated at the University of Paris in Arabic language and literature. While pursuing his studies in Europe he also assisted his father, Badma Badmanovich Oulanoff, with the Kalmyk refugee question, and they were instrumental in facilitating the emigration of Kalmyks to the U.S. in the 1950s. Hongor then studied at Harvard, where he received his PhD in Russian Literature in 1960. Hongor's published work is primarily on Russian prose of the 1920s, including on Veniamin Kaverin.
Be sure to check on our website for more information about the Oulanoff and other lectures, and to keep up to date with all of our events!
