Welcome back, one and all! We hope you enjoyed a pleasant winter break, both productive and restful, and we also hope you are ready for Spring 2013 (though it hardly seems like spring at the moment: ХОЛОДНО В ГРИННЕЛЛЕ!)! We look forward to seeing those on campus at our weekly Русский стол on Fridays at noon in the dining hall, and Русский дом invites you to come to its weekly Чаепитие (Tea Party), which this semester will be held on Wednesday evenings at 6 p.m. in Русский дом (see below).
Чаепитие!
The first Чаепитие will be held this evening, January 30th; Борщ, made by Антон/Anthony will be featured!
We also have a number of other events planned for the semester, including our annual Maslennitsa/Масленница celebration in March, Slavic Coffeehouse/Славянское кафе in April, and a screening of the Russian film Стиляги (Hipsters). Watch for future posts on Novosti for more information!
Guests in Grinnell for Spring 2013
We’d also like to welcome to campus an old friend of the department, RCEES concentration, and College, Mr. Konstanty (Kostek) Gebert, who is the 2012-13 John R. Heath Professor. Having just completed a stint as head of the Warsaw office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Kostek is an “international reporter and columnist at “Gazeta Wyborcza”, Poland’s biggest daily. He was a democratic opposition activist in the Seventies, when he was also an organizer of the Jewish Flying University, and an underground journalist in the Eighties under martial law. He is the founder of the Polish Jewish intellectual monthly Midrasz, and a board member of the Taube Centre for the Renewal of Jewish Life in Poland and of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, Germany. He has taught in Poland, Israel and the US. He wrote ten books, e.g. on the Polish democratic transformation and on French policy toward Poland, the Yugoslav wars and the wars of Israel, Torah commentary and post-war Polish Jewry. His essays have appeared in two dozen collective works in Poland and abroad, and his articles in newspapers around the world” (from: http://ecfr.eu/content/profile/C126). Kostek is teaching two courses this semester in the RCEES concentration (“Comparing Genocides” and “Polish-Jewish Relations in the Twentieth-Century”). He will also be giving a public lecture this semester; please watch for more news on this event. Welcome back, Kostek!
Students in Russia
Good luck to our students studying in Russia this semester! Arthur Richardson ’14 is studying on a Middlebury program in Irkutsk, Russia, and Stephanie Porter ’14 is studying in Saint Petersburg, in the Bard-Smolny program. We look forward to hearing from them as they experience Russia for the first time!
Funding Opportunities
Finally, watch for future posts regarding funding for summer and post-graduate study. For now, students should check out the Russian Department website for information on two important opportunities, the Anne K. Hanson Award, and the John Mohan Russian Study Award. Please contact Todd Armstrong if you have questions about these awards.
