“Modern Nationalism and Deciphering the Legacy of Kievan Rus”
“Revealing Truth through Mimesis”
“Tolstoy and Gender Roles: The Ambiguity of Moral Behavior”
“Lordship and Bondage in The Death of Ivan Ilych”
“Decisions and Responsibilities: the State and/vs. the Individual”
“Laying the Foundations for Russian Autocracy: A Study on the Mongol Influence in the Rise of Muscovy”
Felipe Matsunaga
In 1237 Mongol armies under the command of Batu, a grandson of Genghis Khan, invaded Kievan Rus, a medieval East Slavic state that primarily encompassed portions of modern day western Ukraine and Russia and eastern Belarus. Due to their superior military tactics and the disunity of their opponents, the Mongols quickly destroyed Kievan Rus and established a system which allowed them to indirectly rule the fragmented remnants of the state. This period of foreign domination, which historians have termed the Mongol Yoke, lasted for approximately two and a half centuries and saw the Principality of Muscovy rise as the leading Russian polity. From this preeminent position, Muscovy later strove to unify the other regions of modern day Russia under its autocratic banner.
Scholars of Russian historiography have long engaged in a contentious debate on the impact of the Mongol presence in the development of the Russian state. One influential school of thought blames the invaders for infusing an autocratic character into Muscovy and subsequently Russia, whereas another commends the Mongols for bestowing to Muscovy a desire to unify the other Russian principalities under one banner. A closer analysis of the historical record, however, reveals that the Mongols did not directly impart autocratic or unifying tendencies to Muscovy. Rather, the invaders created the circumstances and provided the administrative framework that would later allow Muscovy to adopt an autocratic government with a mission of national unification.
“Modern Nationalism and Deciphering the Legacy of Kievan Rus”
Ana Miniuk
The legacy of the medieval state of Kievan Rus perpetually remains a point of contention among historians. Although Rus is widely regarded as a predecessor of the three modern East Slavic nations of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, historians from each of these nations nonetheless attempt to nationalize the medieval state’s history, each arguing that their own nation possesses the best claim to the legacy of Kievan Rus. In reality, however, there is no simple answer to this question. In my presentation, it will be argued that due to the Mongol invasion and decimation of Rus in the mid-thirteenth century, neither Ukraine, Russia nor Belarus may be considered direct continuations of Kievan Rus. Although they share a cultural past, they are, at best, cousin states of the powerful medieval polity. My presentation will explain the rapid changes in the political and economic climate of Rus brought about by the Mongols, and their effect on the collapse of Kievan Rus and the ascent of a strong, centralized northern state - Muscovy, in its place.
“Revealing Truth through Mimesis”
Velika Nespor
Where do the religious obtain their faith, the truth that they have internalized? Is it from the Church, from tradition or from something within the individual? Throughout the history of Russian Orthodox Christianity, this truth has come from the Bible and iconography, which is the Holy Book’s pictorial equivalent. In fact, the job of an icon is “to elevate the spirit,” according to Nikolay Leskov, the author of The Sealed Angel, who asserts that these sacred paintings bring their onlookers closer to God. But, not just any religious picture can be considered an icon. As one sees in Leskov’s story, icons must be painted in a specific way mandated by hundreds of years of tradition lest they become heretical. Icons depict Saints, men who after death were deemed examples of how to lead a Christian life for everyday sinners. Philistines, therefore, cannot be portrayed in icons first and foremost because they are still living and secondly because their lives are not Christ-like. It is this tradition that Isaac Babel turns on its head in his short story, Pan Apolek, which is about an icon painter who depicts sinful peasants in biblical stories for a fee. While the clergy condemns him for heresy and for leading Christians to worship false icons, his followers, including the narrator, exalt him for literally uniting believers with the stories to which they relate. While the church creates and maintains the difference between the aberrant and the gospels that they worship, Pan Apolek breaks down that difference, elevating the commoners’ feelings of self-worth and strengthening their relationship to the gospels. Thus, through the heretical icons painted by Pan Apolek, Babel switches the origin of religious truth from that of the objective Church cannons so loved by Leskov and his heroes to the subjective way in which people personally practice their faith.
“Tolstoy and Gender Roles: The Ambiguity of Moral Behavior”
Melissa Goodman
The question of morality for Leo Tolstoy is innately linked to the capacity for perceiving and responding to human stimuli. In his stories, Tolstoy explores this conception of morality through protagonists whose moral identities are defined through a series of tests presented by peripheral characters. The character of interest for Tolstoy is predominately male. Consequentially, the female characters in Tolstoy’s stories often appear as static, one-dimensional infrastructural elements used in the construction of their more complex male counterparts. As a result, Tolstoy’s stories may at first seem to constrain male and female characters in rigid, static gender roles, from which both genders are unable to break out. Upon a closer analysis of the relationship between male and female characters, however, I will argue that Tolstoy’s use of gender roles goes beyond commenting on stereotyped social castings of men and women. Male-female interactions express more deliberately the relational cause-effect dynamic of a male character’s understanding and treatment of the women around him and the evolution or degradation of his morality. Therefore, while the narrative approach of depicting women through the lens of the male protagonist limits the potential complexity of Tolstoy’s female characters, Tolstoy simultaneously comments on the significance and essential role of women by using them as the variable for which the reader judges and measures the male protagonist’s morality.
“Lordship and Bondage in The Death of Ivan Ilych”
Thanasi Skafidas
Tolstoy’s short story The Death of Ivan Ilych was written in 1886, and was the first major fictional work that he published after his late 1870’s conversion. This was a time when Tolstoy turned from his artistic and literary works towards more theological and philosophical writings. As a result, it is not surprising that much of the criticism has focused on Tolstoy’s notions of death, regeneration, and the pitfalls of bourgeois society. However, upon a closer examination of this novella a Hegelian metaphor can be perceived. Namely, the relationship between Gerasim and Ivan Ilych can be seen in terms of the master-slave dialectic.
“The Writer’s Commission: Prophetic Undercurrents in Pushkin’s The Prophet and Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita”
Sonja Andersen
Who has the right to be called a writer? This question runs as an undercurrent throughout many Russian literary works, especially Pushkin's The Prophet and Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. While they are not formally connected and reflect different literary and historical periods, these two works share a similar attitude towards this question. In order to communicate a message which wakes humans from their stupor of self-satisfied dogma, the writer requires a spiritual force to drive and inspire him. According to these literary works, a person must undergo a certain loss of “humanness” in order to be a writer.This paper will look at the two works in this light, drawing out their relevant imagery, motifs, and word-play.
“Decisions and Responsibilities: the State and/vs. the Individual”
Patrick DeGregorio
Mikhail Bulgakov’s began work on his crowning achievement, The Master and Margarita, in 1929 and finished shortly before his death in 1940. The novel was published in a censored version in the monthly magazine, Moskva, in 1966-67. The decision to withhold the manuscript during his lifetime reflected the dangers in publicly criticizing the state lest he wanted to risk a permanent sentence in a Siberian work camp. Russians in the 1930s witnessed the brutal period of forced collectivization, as well as an erosion of religion imposed by the state socialist ideology. This ideological prison pushed Bulgakov to a breaking point, and in 1930 he requested either the showcase of his forbidden plays at the Moscow MKHAT Theater, or officially requested permission to emigrate. Upon receiving a personal call from Joseph Stalin, Bulgakov decided to stay in the Soviet Union, and The Master and Margarita reflects an intimate understanding of these specific changes and their impact on the Soviet citizenry. My talk will examine the role of the Soviet state as the good/evil dichotomy and relate the importance of private and public space with that of religion.
