41st Annual Conference: “Journeys” nui galway, 4-6 May 2017 Conference Abstracts

Panel 5: Encounters with the Ottoman Empire, the Caucasus and the Russian Steppe (G011)

Chair: Caitriona Clear (NUI Galway)

‘Alone in the Steppes: Carla Serena in the peripheries of the Russian Empire’

Daniele Artoni (University of Verona)

The six-year-long solo journey that Carla Serena took in her fifties and the publications that followed provide interesting – and yet unexplored – insights on two peripheral regions of the Russian Empire, namely the Caucasus and the Black Sea-Caspian Steppe. Carla Serena (Antwerp 1824 – Greece 1884) was a Belgian-born woman of Jewish origin married to a Venetian merchant who was based in London. Unexpectedly, in 1874 she abandoned her family in London and started a solo journey to the Ottoman Empire (1874-75), the Russian Empire (1874, 1875-77, 1878-79, 1881) and the Persian Empire (1877-78). Once back to Western Europe, she published a variety of scientific articles in the geographical journal Le Tour du Monde, her memoirs in the volume Mon voyage. Souvenirs personnels, and several monographs on specific sections of her expedition. My paper aims at analysing the five articles she wrote on the Caucasus in Le Tour du Monde (1880-82) and the volume Seule dans les steppes. Épisodes de mon voyage aux pays del Kalmoucks et des Kirghiz (1883), which deals with the Russian Steppe and its people. In particular, I will show how Carla Serena’s writings contribute in the studies on travel writing in the Russian Empire in a twofold way. On the one hand, Carla’s accounts are precious historical documents which depict the Caucasus and the Russian Steppe in the second half of the 19^th century, as she witnessed the Russian-Ottoman war in 1877. On the other hand, her point of view is affected by her condition of being a Western European woman who travelled alone; these elements affect not only the topics she deals with but also her style, which clearly differs from earlier travellers and writers in the same regions, such as Potocki and Dumas.

‘To the Lands of a New Language: Nikolai Marr and Lazistan’

Yulva Muhurcişi (Istanbul University)

The famous Russian linguist and archaeologist, Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr, didn’t himself know that Laz was a separate language on its own, with its deep history dating to the Kingdom of Colchis when he set off on a journey to Lazistan, a sanjak of Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 20^th century. In his notes, which he wrote during his journey through Lazistan, he visited certain Laz villages and settlements like Fındıklı, Pazar, Ardeşen, Arhavi and Hopa, thus aimed at recording the Laz language. Besides his linguistic concerns, he gave clues about the lives and status of Greeks, Armenians and Georgians living in the area, drawing a totally different panorama of various ethnic groups, when compared to the modern times in Turkey. Though the information he gave belongs to the notes from a hundred years ago, the reality that stays unchanged till today is clear: the Laz people, like a hundred years ago, are still indifferent to their language and culture today. In this notes, a list of villages, where Laz language is spoken and the names of Laz people, helping him in collecting information during his journey are given. When visiting these villages, he not only paid attention to the differences in dialects of Laz language, but also gave information about how much the language is spoken purely in which villages and how the language is spoken between males, females and children. Though the aim of his journey was about linguistic concerns, he studied on the customs and traditions, Christian celebrations, words, flora, agricultural products, means of living, archeological remains, architectural details and engravings of warehouses, homes and pavilions, professions of Laz people and their relations with other communities. At the end of his study, Marr remarks that, although the language at the Turkish part is under heavy influence of Turkish, the purified Laz is spoken among women and children.

12:30-14.30 Lunch in Bialann (University Cafeteria located underneath the library)

‘From Zürich to Petrograd in 2016’: Presentation by Irish writer, John Patrick McHugh, on his recreation of Lenin’s 1917 journey (G010) followed by Annual General Meeting of IARCEES (G011)

14:30-15.50 Session C

Panel 6: Carceral Journeys in Russia and the former Soviet Union, 1900-2017

Chair: Gearóid Barry (NUI Galway)

‘Experiencing Penal Journeys in Late Imperial Russia’

Sarah Badcock (University of Nottingham)

The lived experience of penal journeys to exile in late Imperial Russia is the focus of this paper, which draws on archival research undertaken in the National Archive of the Republic of Sakha, and the State Archive of Irkutsk region, alongside published memoir materials. It argues that movement was an integral part of the exile experience, and is considered here as part of a penal arc from imprisonment, through travel, to exile. The paper explores three facets of this narrative. First, the place of stasis and incarceration in the process of movement is considered. Second, the relationships and networks that developed among prisoners are explored, as these relationships provided a complex and formative social space for many exiles. Finally, the relationship between state agents and prisoner experience is evaluated, to draw out the ways in which individual state employees defined prisoner experience, and the extent to which prisoner suffering was an incidental or an intended outcome of State policies. The representations and experiences of women prisoners and voluntary followers are interrogated within this discussion.

‘Death on the Way Home: The Experiences of GULAG Invalids after early release, 1930-1955’

Mikhail Nakonechnyi (University of Oxford)

This paper focuses on the previously unexplored phenomenon of GULAG invalids’ deadly journeys after their early release on medical grounds from the Soviet penitentiary system in 1930-1955. This approach helps to re-evaluate and enhance the whole semantic meaning of the “victim of GULAG” concept, which usually considers only prisoners who died in the camp premises as a victim of the system. My preliminary research intends to clarify and revise this widespread historiographical notion. My conclusions indicate that those who died shortly after their release on the way home due to the illnesses that they contracted while they were incarcerated should also be considered as previously uncounted victims of GULAG concentration camps.

‘“Camp followers” in Contemporary Russia’

Judith Pallot (University of Oxford)

In this paper, I will discuss a very specific type of journey made by thousands of, mainly women, in Russia at the present time. This is the journey to correctional colonies where their family members are incarcerated and, in making it, women today are following in the footsteps of generations of ‘camp followers’ who were forced to make similar journeys in Imperial Russia and the USSR. Using a variety of sources including interviews with the wives and partners, mothers and siblings of prisoners currently serving sentences in Russian penal colonies in remote parts of the Russian Federation, postings on the numerous support websites, published unpublished testimonies of camp followers, I will uncover the meanings vested in the journey-to-the-colony narrative of women drawn into the penal nexus and what they tell us about the women’s self-identification.

Panel 7: Travels in Central and Western Europe (Room G011)

Chair: Ira Ruppo Malone (NUI Galway)

‘English Cities and Englishmen in the Views of Russian travellers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’

Tamara Gella (Orel State University)

Russian travellers, both the well-known representatives of the Russian literature and culture and the leading Russian magazines and newspaper helped to create the image of “the Foggy Albion” and its people in Russian people’s mind in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There were many colorful descriptions of English cities, and especially London in the memoirs of Russian writers and artists. London always produced a strong impression on Russians. The impressions were sometimes negative like those P.I. Chaikovsky, who confessed in his letters that he disliked London. Still he pointed out that Paris was quite a village in comparison with London, because of London’s crazy traffic. More often London produced a positive and indelible impression on Russian visitors. For example, the attitude towards London of the famous Russian singer F.I. Shalyapin and the Russian writer M. Gorky, who visited London in the beginning of the XХ century, was positive. Lots of things in London appealed to Russian travelers. They were delighted with its grandeur, its might, numerous masterpieces off art and architecture, which, to their mind, indicated that there was a great number of educated cultured people in London. English cities impressed Russian visitors not only with their beauty, but also with their comfort and coziness. There were a lot of interesting statements of the Russian contemporaries about the English climate, the Londoners and their characteristic features.

‘Travels of Herzen and Dostoyevsky in western Europe’

Giuliana Almeida (University of São Paulo)

To speak of Dostoevsky’s relevance to the Russian quarrel between Occidentalism and Orientalism in the nineteenth-century has become a cliché. Dostoevsky’s works are filled with portentous apprehensions and prophesies about the future of Russian and European society. Alexander Herzen is also an important thinker, although much more unknown despite his enduring reputation, who thought seriously about this issue. The first socialist in Russian history, Herzen played a crucial role in the assimilation of Western ideas into Russian thought. Both Russians writers travelled to Western Europe, Herzen in 1847 for an indefinite period that has become the rest of his life and Dostoevsky in 1862, the first of many Wanderjahren. These journeys changed the way they used to see Russia under the mythical light of Western Europe, and Europe under the underdeveloped light of Russia. This paper aims to analyze Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, which can be considered Dostoevsky account of his first trip to Western Europe and From the Other Shore, the essay written by Herzen about the failure of the1848 Revolutions in Paris that he eye-witnessed. Both texts assimilate the journeys impressions to the main debates of the period, and are interesting sources for Herzen’s and Dostoevsky’s ideas about Occidentalism against Orientalism, Russian Nationalism, the path of the Socialist Revolution and the fate of Russian Empire.

‘Rudolf Pokorný and his travels across Slovakia’

Jana Bujnáková (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic)

This paper deals with Czech-Slovak literary relations in the second half of the nineteenth century. The number of Slovak students at Czech universities was increasing, while Czechs increasing took ‘holidays’ in Slovakia to report ‘about the real Slovakia’. My aim is to reflect on the functionality of these relationships through the works of Rudolf Pokorný, a prominent Czech poet with a genuine interest in Slovakia, especially Z potulek po Slovensku (I) (1883) and II (1885) [Wanderings in Slovakia I and II]. As well as nature and geography, he talks extensively about literature, daily life, religion, language, customs, crafts, history and ethnography. The work is largely descriptive and he remains objective even when describing his own experiences. The uses the travelogue genre as he sought to introduce the Slovak nation to the Czechs. Pokorný remains, from the point of view of literary scholars, in the shadow of the better known Adolf Heyduk, not only during his life but later. They were, however, close friends and made trips to Slovakia together. He was already knowledgeable and well prepared because of his contacts with Slovak students in Prague and personalities in Slovakia.

Panel 8: America and the Road as Literary Themes (The Bridge)

Chair: Lili Zách (Independent Scholar)

‘America in the Long Narrative Poem Jamerika—trip by Masa Kolanovic

Sanja Frankovic (Trinity College Dublin)

The topic of the long narrative poem Jamerika – trip by Masa Kolanovic is a family trip to America, which was previously known to the main female character only through the Western popular culture. The first word of the title is the Dalmatian dialectal name for America, where the character's ancestors went in their search for a better life. The second word is the English word for travel, which also stands for a hallucination that is confirmed by the atmosphere of the long poem. The travel in this book primarily takes place in the sphere of language, which is actualised on several levels: in the interaction of Croatian and English language (and the Western and Eastern European culture at the same time); in the citation of Croatian literary heritage and the texts of Croatian and American popular music; in Marx's citation mystification, which reminds of Croatia's socialist past and in the ironized relocation of socialist slogans in the context of the travel around America. Along with the linguistic medium, the art medium is also explicitly expressed on every page of the book. Citation procedures and art collages confirm that the other culture is not only what is discovered on travels, but one's own culture is also viewed in a new context. The end brings the judgment on America. In the apocalyptic tone, which ironizes biblical commonplaces, it is presented as a country burdened by consumerism and fear of terorism, which is why the main character equates the delusion of American dream with that of socialism. The initial position of infantile narrator outgrows into a critical deconstruction of the myth of America as the promised land.

‘From the illusion of progress to going in circles: the non-existent Hungarian road movie’

Zsófia Réti (University of Debrecen)

The originally American genre of road movie, exploiting the potential of large, open spaces and of a journey long enough to develop dramatic tensions, is always already ironic when adapted to a country like Hungary – due to its geographical features. Still, along with a strong tendency to use travel related, symbolic transitory spaces in Hungarian films (Üvegtigris, Retúr, Indul a bakterház, etc.), there are also examples attempting to create the Hungarian road movie. In my paper I would like to compare the two most prominent such films, the 1976 TV-series The Dashing Steamroller (Robog az úthenger) and the 1993 feature film East from West, or the Discrete Charm of Media (Nyugattól keletre, avagy a média diszkrét bája). Capitalizing upon the already existing literature on (post-)socialist humour (e.g. Yurchak, Lamland & Nadkarni) and on irony in general (e.g. Hutcheon), I argue that both films use humour and the road movie genre to give a spatial form to the current image of the society about itself. The first example, The Dashing Steamroller integrates the tradition of Hungarian folk tales (e.g. the farm boy who goes to see the world, outsmarting his rivals) into the genre in order to present a very subtle, yet still perceivable critique of socialist progress and teleology. As a contrast, East from West spatializes the shifting social landscape of early post-socialism by creating an absurd network of what Marc Auge calls non-places, ironically reflecting on the grim purposelessness and general confusion emerging right after the cultural trauma (Sztompka) of the transition. The paper does not only examine the two films, but it also seeks to offer a more general conclusion on the spatial representations of socialist and post-socialist visions of the society.

‘The influence of Bulgakov’s “Flight” on contemporary Russian “road drama”

Natalia Osis (University of Genoa)

M. A. Bulgakov’s drama “Beg” (Flight, 1926) was not only an important reflection on theme of revolution and its immediate consequences, but also an innovative step in the development of Russian drama. Bulgakov fully rejected traditional theatre’s static “unity of action”: the events in “Beg” unfold “on the road”, a setting whose significance is underlined in the work’s title. Here the initially rapid and chaotic movement of the most disparate persons, who are caught up in the Revolution and torn from their customary ways of life, gradually slows as these heroes begin to realize that their flight from the revolution is imperceptibly transforming into escape from the Homeland. Bulgakov underlines the complex nature of this flight also in the very structure of the play, whose action is constituted by “dreams” – constituting another escape, or flight, from the wholly realistic context of the road. As I argue elsewhere, the structure of what we might call “drama on the road” or “road drama” has appeared on numerous occasions in Russian dramaturgy during the last two decades. In this paper I will examine some examples, such as Maksim Kurochkin’s play “Tsurikov” (2003), Vladimir Zabaluiev e Aleksei Zenzinov’s drama “Po-dorozhnoe” (On the road, 2007), and Aleksandr Molchanov’s “Ubiitsa” (The Murderer, 2009) in light of their connection with Bulgakov’s “Beg”. Diverse aspects of these contemporary dramas will be examined in order to show Bulgakov’s fundamental influence on the contemporary genre of the “road drama”. 

15:50-16:20 Tea/Coffee in Foyer

16:20-17:40 Session D

Panel 9: Russian Journeys in the Age of Tsar Alexander II (Room G010)

Chair: Enrico Dal Lago (NUI Galway)

‘“Honor and Glory to All Students Who Fear Not the Prison”—Russia’s Peter and Paul Fortress and the Student Unrest of 1861’

Nicholas Bujalski (Cornell University)

On September 25, 1861, in response to a series of harsh restrictions placed on academic life at St. Petersburg University, approximately fifteen hundred students marched in protest down Nevskii prospect. These dissatisfied students had chosen a path that, over the following month, would lead over three hundred of their number to arrest and imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress – tsarist Russia’s most notorious political prison. My paper is a cultural, intellectual, and spatial history of political incarceration during the turbulent final months of 1861. I argue that the dramas that unfolded that autumn in St. Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Fortress had a large (and hitherto underappreciated) effect on the development of nineteenth-century Russian cultures of dissent. As the students of the imperial capital crossed personal Rubicons from civil society to political activism – from the lecture hall to the fortress cell – they were accompanied by the attention and imagination of a fledgling public sphere. Furthermore, the carcereal space of the Peter and Paul Fortress became a subject of discussion not only in salons and illicit publications. Remarkably, the imprisoned students themselves subverted the fortress regime from within, defying its regulations and transforming its cells into sites of politics and pedagogy. This activity culminated in the amateur opera Iz zhizni studentov – a narrative glorifying the journey from the university to political radicalism, written and performed by student-prisoners within this very bastion of the Romanov autocracy. My presentation focuses on what the creative dissidence of this period – where new notions of political activity and genres of self-narration flourished in the most foreboding spaces of tsarist repression – can tell us about the development of modern Russian radicalism. Basing itself on extensive archival research, my paper promises new insights into the political cultures, contested spaces, and radical Bildungsromane of nineteenth-century Russian revolutionary movements.

‘“The Gateway to Siberia”: Tracing migrants’ journeys in Perm’ province during the long nineteenth century’

Jonathan Rowson (University of Nottingham)

Straddling both sides of the Ural Mountains, Perm’ province had long occupied a position within the Russian psyche of being the ‘Gateway to Siberia’. Contemporaneous writers often associated Perm’ with the endless colonies of prisoners on their way to Siberian exile, indicating that Perm’ was often a place of transit, not of settlement. However, as the centre of nineteenth-century Russia’s metallurgical industry and including the two burgeoning urban centres of Perm’ and Ekaterinburg, Perm’ province possessed long-established migration networks, both intra- and inter-provincial, linking the rural and urban societies. The number of migrants on Perm’’s roads and waterways increased in line with increased Russian peasant migration following the Emancipation Edict of 1861, and utilising sources such as passport data, we are able to identify patterns in this population movement. Whilst these sources provide the researcher with a quantitative statement of origin and destination, they are unable to provide detail of the journeys of these migrants, which were often incredibly arduous and fraught with danger. In this paper I will outline the different migration networks identifiable in Perm’ province in the nineteenth century, followed by a critical discussion of the sources available to historians in ascertaining the lived experience of a large number of migrants, the majority of whom were illiterate, and whom left little record of their journeys. In this case, I will provide examples from my own research where I have used key literary sources, such as the travel writing of both Russian and English travellers, which uncover a more nuanced assessment of migration in Perm’ province at the turn of the twentieth century.

Panel 10: Journeys in the Contemporary Arts and Healthcare (Room G011)

Chair: Ludmila Snigireva (Marino Institute of Education, Dublin)

‘Translation as a metaphor for travelling’

Maria Selezneva (University of Exeter)

The concept of translation in the field of travel and tourism has been neglected for a long time. However, encounters with foreign cultures would not be possible without intercultural mediation of translators. This paper explores how translators shape the world of travellers and tourists. We are specifically interested in researching the identity of Russian translators in two cases. The first case concerns decisions which Russian translators make when they create travel guides about the Russian Federation for foreign travellers and tourists. We will also study translations of travel guides made by English-speaking translators. The second case refers to the new travel writings for Russian readers, and decisions which Russian translators have to make in conditions of the modern world. Thus, the aim of this paper is to trace the differences in translations of Russian- and English-speaking translators. This comparison of translations is important for understanding how different cultures learn each other and what are the effects that influence their decisions. Another part of the paper is devoted to the modern sources of information for travellers and tourists. Among these sources a special attention should be paid to stylish magazines for travellers. These magazines declare a new way of life where every culture has its own smell and taste. For us translations of these magazines are significant because they show an absolutely revolutionized way of presenting foreign cultures to Russian readers. This phenomenon, which we are calling as a new “fashion in translation”, includes mix of foreign elements (also used to describe Russian culture) and domestication of absolutely exotic features of another culture. The main aim of this paper is to show that translators are the one to present cultural-specific concepts without any loss of meaning by combining cultural differences and similarities in order to attract tourists and travellers to come to a particular country.

‘Crossings:  The Centrality of Movement in Natalia Gorbanevskaia's Poetry and Life’