Russian and East European StudiesFriday, April 15, 2022 - 9:00am to 4:00pm
University of Pennsylvania
3401 Walnut Street, Room 329a
Philadelphia, PA 19104
THE SLAVIC BAZAAR
19th Undergraduate Research Conference of the Department of Russian and East European Studies
The Max Kade Center
3401 Walnut Street, A Wing, Room 329A
Schedule (Schedule with full abstracts follows below)
9:00-9:30 | Coffee and Conference Opening
9:30-10:15 | Dostoevsky Panel
“Masculine Reason and Feminine Faith in Crime and Punishment”
Eric Tao, University of Pennsylvania
“Rejecting the ‘Isolated Sin’: The Role of the Reader as an Active Mediator in Dostoevsky's Confessional Moments”
Aakruti Ganeshan, University of Pennsylvania
10:15-10:25 | Break
10:25-11:10 | Tolstoevsky: The Final Works of Two Greats of the Nineteenth Century
“Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: The Suffering Child within the Design of God’s Kingdom”
Serena Camici, University of Pennsylvania
“A Pacifist’s Guide to Resistance: The Material Lessons of Tolstoy’s Character Hadji Murat”
Charles Alexander Smith, Columbia University
11:10-11:20 | Break
11:20-12:20 | Keynote
“The Soviet Program Era: Creative Writing Instruction under Socialism”
Olga Nechaeva, University of Pennsylvania
12:20-12:50 | Lunch
12:50-1:50 | Stalinism in Life and Literature
“The Machinations of the Great Terror”
Gabriella F. Rabito, University of Pennslyvania
“Kataev’s Time Forward! - An Exercise in Temporality and Transformation”
Benjamin Kosko, University of Pennsylvania
“Post-Revolutionary Soviet Biopower:
Andrei Platonov’s Happy Moscow and its Dissection of Stalin’s Utopian Body Politic”
Sophia Ampgkarian, University of Pennsylania
1:50-2:00 | Break
2:00-2:45 | The Rise and Fall of Communism
“The Tale of Two Regions: Nomads, Balts, and the Story of their Post-Soviet Existence”
Alexander Schrier, University of Pennsylvania
“The Political Driving Forces of The Prague Spring of Czechoslovakia”
David Dunlop, University of Pennsylvania
2:45-2:55 | Break
2:55-3:40 | Aspects of Post-Sovietism
“The Purchase of Mazeikiai Oil Refinery – Poland’s Involvement in a Geopolitical Game over Yukos Assets”
Michal Wyrebkowski
“Fragility of Lithuania's Nationalism and Obfuscation of its Holocaust Memory”
Vita Raskevičiūtė, University of Pennsylvania
9:00-9:30 | Coffee and Conference Opening
9:30-10:15 | Dostoevsky Panel
“Masculine Reason and Feminine Faith in Crime and Punishment”
Eric Tao, University of Pennsylvania
Throughout his body of work, the influential author Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky depicts a Russia that is rapidly changing. During the 19th century, old Russian identities were overturned by new ones, and in particular, traditional Christian beliefs were attacked by an emerging nihilist intellectual movement, a development that Dostoyevsky was deeply troubled with. In Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky examines the mental breakdown and subsequent salvation of one such new intellectual, who justifies his violent murder of two old women with his own form of “great man” ideology. This paper argues that Dostoyevsky invokes a masculine-feminine binary in order to frame his attack on the nihilist movement. In particular, Dostoyevsky presents the true motivations of the protagonist, Raskolnikov, as being fundamentally based not in any supposed ideology but in his insecurity in his own masculinity. In parallel to this toxic masculine vision, Dostoyevsky presents a feminine vision through the character Sonya, associating femininity with traits such as faith, love, and purity in spite of all reason. This conception of femininity is located within a broader European aesthetic movement depicting angelic women, centering around Goethe’s conception of the eternal feminine archetype. However, Dostoyevsky adapts this archetype to a uniquely Russian situation, calling upon the image of the holy fool in Eastern Orthodox culture and transporting it into a Saint Petersburg context. In this way, Dostoyevsky lays the groundwork for a new conception of Russian morality which was both profoundly influential in his time period as well as deeply resonant with the issues of today’s society.
“Rejecting the ‘Isolated Sin’: The Role of the Reader as an Active Mediator in Dostoevsky's Confessional Moments”
Aakruti Ganeshan, University of Pennsylvania
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s canon of work often features dramatized moments of “confession,” instances where characters feel compelled to share essential truths or reflections on their motives. Pre-existing academic scholarship has sought to understand whether these revelatory moments are manifestations of Dostoevsky’s documented relationship with Russian Orthodoxy, in granting characters absolution, or whether they are a reflection of the confessional genre that was popularized by Rousseau’s 18th-century work Confessions. I argue that any strict distinction between these moments of confession as secular or sacramental is impossible, because such moments are never monologic, as per Rousseau’s tradition, nor do they always lead to the absolution of the character, as is typical of the sacrament of confession. To discern a central motivation underpinning such confessional moments, I closely examine several confessional moments from a variety of Dostoevsky’s works, including Notes from Underground, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov. Typically, academics have distinguished between the monologic narrative voice in Notes and the third-person omniscient narration in Demons and Brothers Karamazov, as well as the redemptive qualities of the characters in Brothers Karamazov that do not exist in Notes or Demons. My purpose in comparing confessional moments from these novels is to find some common motivation that may reconcile even the most contrasting of Dostoevsky’s works. I find that all of Dostoevsky’s confessional moments inevitably do serve a religious ideal by rejecting the “isolated sin.” The reader is cast in the role of an active mediator, allowing the burden of the character’s sin to be dispersed, concomitant with the notion of the collective sin espoused by the Russian Orthodox tradition. This conclusion not only yields a more nuanced understanding of Dostoevsky’s relationship to Christianity but also opens several avenues for further theoretical research, specifically, the significance of confessions made to ecclesiastic as opposed to non-ecclesiastic figures.
10:15-10:25 | Break
10:25-11:10 | Tolstoevsky: The Final Works of Two Greats of the Nineteenth Century
“Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: The Suffering Child within the Design of God’s Kingdom”
Serena Camici, University of Pennsylvania
This paper seeks to understand the recurring image of the suffering child in Fyodor Dostoevksy’s The Brothers Karamazov, in relation to the portrait of God’s kingdom and the incompatibility of logic and faith. It is an analysis of the literary structure in which Dostoevsky articulates a theological argument through Ivan Karamazov, which he then refutes within the same novel. An initial examination of Ivan’s rejection of God and His kingdom exposes the use of detailed accounts of child torment as evidence for a God that stands in contradiction to the Church’s teachings. Rather than bestowing the universal love and justice as promised in Scripture, Ivan’s God embraces the senseless torture of innocents as the currency for salvation and eternal harmony. The second half of this paper examines the narrative forces that serve as Dostoevsky’s rebuttal to Ivan’s reasoning, such as his mental deterioration and the positive effects of Ilyusha’s death. Ivan’s methodology and the application of his “Euclidean mind” to matters of theology attempt to logicize faith, which Dostoevsky demonstrates as fundamentally impossible. This paper concludes that Dostoevsky’s personal interpretation of eschatology is evident in the final chapters, when faith in God in spite of, or perhaps due to, suffering creates interpersonal harmony and character building. Therefore, God’s inexplicability is fundamental to faith. This paper also finds that while Ivan does choose to live in separation from Christ, he is not an atheist. This project allowed me to interpret nuances in Dostoevsky’s thematic articulation through not only plot points but also through character psyche. Understanding the integration of existential philosophical debates throughout this narrative is essential to an overall comprehension of the ideological underpinnings of prominent Russian literature.
“A Pacifist’s Guide to Resistance: The Material Lessons of Tolstoy’s Character Hadji Murat”
Charles Alexander Smith, Columbia University
Leo Tolstoy wrote his last novel, Hadji Murat, from 1896 to 1904 before its final, posthumous and unabridged publication in 1917. The novel concerns the historical Avar leader (1818-1852) who was active in the resistance of the Caucasus to Russian imperial conquest from the 1830s until his early death at the hands of Russian invaders. Tolstoy’s historical novel about Murat’s life has been interpreted as an exoticizing tale about the historic Avar leader who fought the Russian Empire. In some critical accounts, Tolstoy is accused of making Hadji Murat into a noble savage. Against these claims, I argue that Tolstoy portrays Hadji Murat as a nobleman who resists the savagery of the Russian imperial grasp. In so doing, Hadji Murat subtly teaches readers a series of lessons about the proper manner for an individual to counter the authoritarian state. Tolstoy’s novel emerges as a veritable handbook for grassroots resistance, with lessons both philosophical and practical. It is significant that Hadji Murat teaches his lessons primarily through action and interaction with material culture, rather than through speech. For this reason, my analysis takes Hadji Murat’s peaceful use of weapons as a point of departure and as an effective signal towards Tolstoy’s late political philosophy. My paper concludes that Hadji Murat exemplifies a dignified conservativism: his relentless struggle to preserve what was, and his undying hope for future rejuvenation. My paper does not make use of Tolstoy’s explicitly political texts. For this reason, this analysis serves as a first critical step which opens the ground for further investigation into the material aspects of Tolstoy’s anti-imperial political philosophy—as an author who Dmitry Merezhkovsky once called the “seer of the flesh.”
11:10-11:20 | Break
11:20-12:20 | Keynote
“The Soviet Program Era: Creative Writing Instruction under Socialism”
Olga Nechaeva, University of Pennsylvania
Traditionally, creative writing has been seen as an American or British phenomenon. Russia and the Soviet Union are completely absent in most scholarly accounts. Yet in fact, the very first institution of higher education for writers in the world was organized in Moscow, in 1921, by the Russian symbolist poet Valerii Briusov (in comparison: the first American analogue, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, was founded some fifteen years later, in 1936). One reason for the knowledge gap concerning Soviet creative writing instruction might be the fact that, very often, Socialist Realism is not seen as “creative.” In my lecture I will show that not all literary works written by graduates of the socialist creative writing institutions, first of all, the Gorky Literary Institute (1933-), were identical and that socialist educational programs, in their own fashion, fostered authorial originality and the ongoing transformation of literary expression. I will also demonstrate that the state-sanctioned socialist creative writing system was not as different as might be assumed from the market-based system of MFA programs in the capitalist world.
12:20-12:50 | Lunch
12:50-1:50 | Stalinism in Life and Literature
“The Machinations of the Great Terror”
Gabriella F. Rabito, University of Pennslyvania
The Great Terror during the late 1930s orchestrated by Joseph Stalin in the USSR marked a heinous campaign of political repression. The state-sponsored violence and persecution led by the USSR’s secret police, Narodnyy komissariat vnutrennikh del (NKVD), resulted in mass casualties and fatalities, repression, and widespread fear. For this presentation, I will present on two aspects of my work: the NKVD’s targets of political repression, and the reorganization, restructure, mechanisms, and operations of the NKVD. First, I identify the targets of Stalin and NVKD officers labeled as “enemies of the people,” namely party elite (i.e. Bolshevik party members, Trotskyists, etc.), Red Army officials, Kulaks, members of the intelligentsia community, American émigrés, and family members of the “enemies of the people.” Secondly, I offer a detailed account of NKVD secret operations, specifically the Kulak Operation and National Operation, with archival documents to outline the hierarchical structure of the NKVD, the internal operations, commissions, key officials, and an album procedure that created a system of persecution in the USSR. Though a vast amount of scholarship is dedicated towards answering why the Great Terror occurred, a scarcity of information exists on the mechanics and operations that allowed for systematic persecution to manifest and develop. By understanding the systematic machinations of repression employed in the Great Terror, my research can broadly dispel the idea of evil being a caricature and demonstrate the mundane methods and systems that evil appropriates for its purpose.
“Kataev’s Time Forward! - An Exercise in Temporality and Transformation”
Benjamin Kosko, University of Pennsylvania
By the early 1930s, it appeared that Soviet society had finally shaken off the literary and artistic chaos that dominated the 1920s. A state position had finally been taken, and debates concerning symbolism, surrealism or futurism quickly become moot with the adoption of Socialist Realism as the official literary method of the Soviet Union. Beginning in the late 1920s, and reaching a peak by the 30s, the dominant mode of discourse in the Soviet Union concerned rapid industrialization, technological innovation and 5-year plans. It is in within this context that Kataev’s socialist realist masterpiece Time Forward! takes place.
By closely examining the manner in which Kataev characterizes individuals through their relationship towards labor within the above context, we are able to locate the fundamental essence of Socialist Realism (as understood by Kataev). More specifically, the paper explores how Kataev utilizes notions of time and temporality in tandem with Soviet industrial goals to demonstrate the dynamic between the poetics of Socialist Realism and the corresponding acceleration of production. This dynamic, which seeks to both propel the present forward and halt the past, is where the central idea of the novel is uncovered - that through an unwavering commitment to socialist progress man is able to not only recreate the physical world around him, but redefine his ontological position within it.
“Post-Revolutionary Soviet Biopower:
Andrei Platonov’s Happy Moscow and its Dissection of Stalin’s Utopian Body Politic”
Sophia Ampgkarian, University of Pennsylania
In the years following the Bolshevik Revolution, Joseph Stalin’s ambition of establishing a novel revolutionary culture involved an emphasis on hygiene and cleanliness. By defining personal bodily care as a duty to the State in order to become an ideal ‘Soviet man,’ Soviet political leaders were able to foster a certain biological unity with every USSR citizen and thus shape a homogeneous body politic. In his novel Happy Moscow, written between 1933 and 1936, Andrei Platonov observes this Soviet body politic through a magnifying glass. With detailed descriptions often nearing surgical precision, he traces out the life of Moscow Chestnova as she navigates between occupations, lovers, and philosophical ponderings as a child of the 1917 revolution. Characters’ hearts beat in a myriad of rhythms, food intricately travels down their intestines, a small boy’s brain full of pus is operated upon, bones are manipulated and sniffed, corpses are dissected and admired – all within a broader arch of the scientific quest for immortality and the construction of the Moscow metro. Through close linguistic analysis, this paper explores how Platonov paints the Stalinist body politic as a vessel defined by contradictions, simultaneously containing health and disease, cleanliness and filth, youth and decay, and life and death. Platonov’s Happy Moscow is particularly relevant in studying the reasons for the failure of the Soviet body politic, and offers useful insights about contemporary relationships between politics and health.
1:50-2:00 | Break
2:00-2:45 | The Rise and Fall of Communism
“The Tale of Two Regions: Nomads, Balts, and the Story of their Post-Soviet Existence”
Alexander Schrier, University of Pennsylvania
Just thirty years ago, the overall political landscape of Central Asia and the now Baltic Republics was surprisingly almost akin to each other. Nowadays, these two post-Soviet regions find themselves on opposite ends of the political spectrum: the Baltic Republics all now have stable, vibrant democracies while in countries such as Kazakhstan, an autocratic president looms over a nation that has become less developed economically and just recently placed on the national stage over the bloody January protests in Nur-Sultan.
Hence, the dilemma that comes to mind is for what reasons did these two regions become completely polarized on the political spectrum? What do these “roots” imply for future governance? This paper aims at unmasking these questions.
The methodology includes a survey of the similarities between these two regions prior to their independencies, and then a thorough comparison of the geostrategic locations, pre-independence history, and post-independence governance - all sections primarily use scholarly articles and journal pieces. The paper concludes by arguing for the geographical determinist theory in explaining this rift. If true, the prospects for upholding liberty and democracy in Central Asia are low as the ones who do fight for these ideals are battling against the embedded autocratic forces which have been present in these countries for thousands of years.
“The Political Driving Forces of The Prague Spring of Czechoslovakia”
David Dunlop, University of Pennsylvania
The Prague Spring of Czechoslovakia is seen as one of Communism’s greatest attempts at reforms, an attempt to create “humane socialism.” From his position as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), Alexander Dubček, who served from January 5, 1968, to April 17, 1969, cast himself as the champion of this de-Stalinization revolution. This paper dismantles Dubček’s righteous image, revealing him as a conniving opportunist. The sources analyzed to reach this conclusion focus on Dubček’s career as a politician, and include scholarly articles and historical accounts ranging from fellow KSČ members, Dubček’s closest allies, and even himself. The most relevant parts of Dubček’s career to focus on—to discover his true nature—are the years that he spent rising to power as the First Secretary of the KSČ, and removing any threats to his position. Dubček’s methods for gaining and manipulating his power can be separated into two waves of intricate plotting. The first wave spans from October, 1961, to January 5, 1968. The second wave begins immediately after the end of the first wave, and continues through March 21, 1968. While Dubček’s policies were grounded in reforms, a close analysis reveals the ulterior motives behind them. Mapping these behind-the-scenes motives shows how Dubček used the Prague Spring as a secret war against the First Secretary of the KSČ who preceded him—Antonín Novotný.
2:45-2:55 | Break
2:55-3:40 | Aspects of Post-Sovietism
“The Purchase of Mazeikiai Oil Refinery – Poland’s Involvement in a Geopolitical Game over Yukos Assets”
Michal Wyrebkowski
The paper aims at investigating the Polish involvement in the mid-2000s geopolitical game over the last assets of Yukos, against the larger backdrop of the usage of energy resources in Russian foreign policy. Yukos was once one of the biggest Russian oil companies, which was nationalized in a lengthy process due to Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s growing economic and political influence. The paper first presents a narrative retelling of the events leading to the purchase of Yukos’ Mazeikiai oil refinery in Lithuania in 2006 by the Polish national oil company PKN Orlen. Primary sources and an interview with PKN Orlen board member are used to inform the study. Polish economic and geopolitical rationale in buying the oil refinery is analyzed in the context of the Russian aim of an establishment of a “Transnational Corporation Russia”. The Mazeikiai oil refinery is used as a case study for Law and Justice’s particular energy security doctrine, which goes beyond the principles of affordability, accessibility, and acceptability of energy supplies to a country. It justifies using stock listed companies as vehicles for realizing national interest of Poland, defined as undercutting Russia in its effort for energy dominance in the Baltic States. The paper is timely given the Russian aggression on Ukraine and Europe’s effort to decrease its oil and gas dependence on Russia. By researching the topic, I was able to find a major exception to the paradigm of thinking of energy security in terms of affordability, accessibility and acceptability of energy supplies and investigate how national sovereignty and energy independence are interconnected in Central and Eastern Europe.
“Fragility of Lithuania's Nationalism and Obfuscation of its Holocaust Memory”
Vita Raskevičiūtė, University of Pennsylvania
In 2014, a Jewish human rights lawyer swung a sledgehammer fourteen times against a bronze plaque commemorating Jonas Noreika, an anti-Soviet Lithuanian partisan, best known by his nom de guerre, “General Storm.” The destruction of the memorial was a symbolic gesture to protest the Lithuanian Genocide Resistance Research Center's refusal to acknowledge Noreika's involvement in the crimes against humanity that targeted Lithuanian Jews during the Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1945. A month later, the plaque on the exterior of the public library in which Noreika worked during the war was glued back together and defiantly displayed again.
Lithuania is a country in which 95% of its Jewish population, 250,000 people, perished during World War II. Numerous archival documents revealed the massive collaboration in the genocide by the non-Jewish local paramilitaries and the Provisional Government, most notably General Noreika, during the Nazi occupation. However, Lithuania showcased to have more political will to start an investigation on the involvement of four Jewish Soviet anti-fascist partisans in the Koniuchy massacre that killed 38 Lithuanian civilians than to take down the plaque for the Nazi collaborator who contributed to the death of thousands. This paper analyzes the reasons behind Lithuania’s persistent denial of its active involvement in the Holocaust. Undertaking primary sources, secondary literature, and conducted interviews, the study concludes that Lithuania’s insecurity about its role in the Jewish genocide stems from the fragility of its nationalism. My findings reveal that Lithuania is constructing its imagined community on the narrative of national suffering by integrating the Holocaust non-memory. The research elaborates on Lithuania’s ontological insecurity regarding its national identity and the strategies used to reconcile the historical memory of being a perpetrator and a victim in its national myth.
