SESSION 1. MEDIEVAL SLAVIC CULTURE

Shannon Meyerhoff
Epic Themes and Characterization in Byliny and Beowulf

The genres associated with medieval literature are often contested: J.R.R. Tolkien, a premier Beowulf scholar, insisted that Beowulf – which is considered the oldest surviving “epic” poem in the English tradition – is not an epic, but an elegy. Similarly, it is argued that Russian (or Kievan Rusian) folk epics, or byliny, are not in fact epics, because they exist as a series of disjointed songs that were never combined to form a long, complete epic poem. In this paper, while using Virgil’s Aeneid as an uncontested model of the epic genre, I will compare Beowulf and the Russian bylina, Dobrynya and the Dragon, to determine the ways in which the themes and characterization present in the Russian folk tale validate its classification as an “epic” work.

Megan Curtiss
Crusade and Conciliation: Responses to Heresy in Eastern and Western Europe

The heretical sect of the Bogomils, founded in Bulgaria c. 950, is cited by most scholars as the primary influence on the Cathars, a similar heresy popular in Western Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. While both the eastern and western churches strongly opposed these sects, the Cathars had essentially been eradicated by the early fourteenth century, whereas the Bogomils continued to survive well into the fifteenth century. This paper will discuss these two heresies as a way to analyze the differing approaches of the eastern and western Christian churches to heresy and dissent. Why did the west, after exhausting the appeals of papal legates, the power of excommunication, and other techniques, turn to a crusade so violent it killed entire towns? Why, in contrast, did the eastern church, while certainly persecuting the Bogomil heretics, never go to such lengths? By looking at several primary sources from both east and west, I will seek to offer some answers to these and other questions.

Anastasiya Osipova
Holy Foolishness as Performance: a Divine “Test Drive”

Holy foolishness, a very peculiar form of asceticism, flourished in Russia from the 15th until the 17th centuries. Even though Russian Orthodox Church stopped official canonization of the holy fools in the 17th century, this form of religious practice remains active up to this day and has a profound influence on Russian culture. Such writers as Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bunin and Khlebnikov reacted to this phenomenon in their works.

A radical form of kenoticism – suffering for and in imitation of Christ – holy foolishness is an exercise in extreme humility. A person who decides to become a ‘fool for Christ’s sake’ willfully accepts torment and depravity by feigning madness. Holy fools actively ridicule the world of material possessions. Performing insanity while striving towards saintliness, acting in a seemingly obscene way while being driven by chaste motivation, they actively try to embody the duplicity of the world. Their goal is twofold – on the one hand, they try to defeat their own pride and, on the other hand, to help other people conquer theirs. A holy fool, therefore, serves as a “testing device” for his audience, who has to see through the deceptive physical appearance and recognize the real purity of his soul.

In my paper I will focus on the analysis of the figure of the holy fool as a public performer, who actively creates situations in which his audience would be challenged. I will delineate the typology of spaces in which holy fools act and the devices by which they engage and communicate with people, in order to see how all of this relates and is shaped by the idea of test and testing.

KEYNOTE LECTURE

Joseph Benatov
Who's Afraid of Eastern Europe?

This paper examines critically Julia Kristeva's theoretical work from the mid 1990s, in which she develops a new paradigm for understanding Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War. Kristeva identifies certain tenets of Eastern Orthodoxy as the underlying reason for the economic, political, and moral problems plaguing the region in the years following the collapse of the socialist regimes. I show in my analysis of Kristeva's argument that she is ultimately driven by a desire to preserve the dichotomy of a bi-polar system by positing religion as the new justification for a divided Europe in the absence of warring political ideologies.

SESSION 2. NINETEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIAN LITERATURE (TOLSTOEVSKY)

Bimol Karmaker
The Two Fools: Tolstoy’s Ivan and Dostoevsky’s Ridiculous Man

The holy fool, or fool in Christ, has been an important part of Russia’s cultural history. Not only were holy fools historical figures of the Pre-Peterine Russia, but also an indelible part of Russian literature and culture. Many authors wrote works about these foolish characters, and every writer scribed his own meanings and motives into the stories of these "fools". Often the stories about holy fools had their own religious and social contexts, especially with regards to the Russian idea of a utopia. Leo Tolstoy’s Ivan the Fool (1885) and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877) provide striking examples of each author’s hopes and plans for a perfect world. At a period in Russia and Europe where major reforms had been taking place, and the directions of thought turned towards the progression of humanity in a social, national, and intellectual sense, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky adapted the age-old Russian character of the fool to express their own ideas.

Although written in different styles, with different plots, and ideological intents, these stories share fundamental concepts and motives for being written. They are the product of a search, not only of the Russian national character, but also for the purpose of Russians, and mankind, in the history of the universe. I argue that both stories, in the spirit of the revolutionary utopists of Russia, show us a fiercely humanistic ideology and philosophy that tries to change not only the people of Russia, but of the entire world as well.

Neil Nardi
A Ridiculous Paradise

In this paper I will examine Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short work, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. The analysis focuses on the man’s dream, using it as a lens for determining the meaning and theme of the story. Ultimately, through scrutiny of the dream and other aspects of the story, I demonstrate the ridiculousness of the dream-world, citing its fragility and ideological foundations in an effort that reveals the true paradise of the story: an earthly paradise in which brotherhood leads to salvation.

This conclusion was reached after consideration of the historical and literary contexts as well as close reading of the text itself. Knowledge of Dostoevsky’s stances on certain ideologies – Westernization, Socialism, and his own intellectual theory, pochvennichestvo – enables the reader to recognize certain themes throughout the story. Contained within the tale are sharp attacks at rationalism and socialism. Furthermore, Dostoevsky focuses particular attention on the implications of godlessness and love without suffering, eventually concluding that such concepts are not viable. In the presentation, I will also perform an analysis of the main character, considers certain symbols of the story, and discusses the structure of storytelling that Dostoevsky employs. The conclusion of the presentation explains the view of salvation advanced by The
Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and reveals who or what in the story is, in fact, ridiculous. Ultimately, Dostoevsky advocates an idea of salvation that requires sacrifice and spirituality, thereby exposing rationalism and godlessness as ridiculous endeavors.

Julia Rubalevskaya
Dysfunctional Characters in Tolstoy

In this paper, I will argue that the peculiarity of many of Tolstoy's characters is a sort of dysfunctionality which consists of their constantly being tortured by an existential question, but being unable to rest at a single conclusion, which keeps them in a perpetual state of crisis, overturning conclusions one after the other. I define functionality as the capacity to function well in a state of peace-that is, that a character may be "alright" in the human sense, living calmly without being in the thrall of a crisis. The Tolstoyan peculiarity is that the characters are not only in constant crisis – it would be surprising to find a novel written about being in a state of calm – but also that they are never satisfied with one idea or resolution. Thus, they can never settle on one conclusion, but cycle through them in constant search of an ultimate meaning they cannot accept.

I intend to demonstrate this in detail by contrasting what I would consider a "functional" character-the protagonist of Hemingway's For Whom the Bells Toll with the dysfunctional character of Prince Andrew Bolkonsky in War and Peace. I may consider further examples of dysfunctional characters in Tolstoy's other works to emphasize the point.

Jonathan Richter
Pierre’s Fantastic Truth-Reflecting Spectacles

Most fundamentally significant in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace is the issue of the nature of Truth itself: in the “real” War and Peace universe, what is Truth- and what is Untruth? Although he isn’t its only hero, Pierre Bezukhov is central in War and Peace as the great conveyor of the Truth that unifies the novel’s world. Pierre is one of War and Peace’s most complex and changing characters, but, in my opinion, he manages throughout the novel to serve a distinct function in his encounters with its various other main characters, as the War and Peace universe’s reflecting device of truth and reality. Pierre can be seen as functioning to “reflect” in two basic ways: firstly, as the omnisciently-narrating Tolstoy’s inside agent, reflecting an object’s Truth or Untruth back to the reader; and secondly, as an honest Tolstoyan (in the religious sense) reflecting Truth back to the characters themselves.

I will examine the bespectacled Pierre’s functional role as reflector of Truth/Untruth to the reader, first as demonstrated in the novel’s first scene at Anna Pavlovna’s party and then the scene in Book Four in which Pierre witnesses the execution of prisoners. Next, I will analyze the second role of Pierre’s character, as reflector of Truth to the War and Peace universe’s other active inhabitants, with a focus on Pierre’s climactic philosophical confrontation with Prince Andrew at Bogurachuvo. Finally, the leitmotif of Pierre’s spectacles will be examined in the context of Pierre’s functional role in the novel.