Slavic languages and literatures

Dissident literature: U of T researcher helps build 'an honest record' of Soviet history

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 22:29:52 +0000

Dissident literature: U of T researcher helps build 'an honest record' of Soviet history

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 03/22/2023 - 18:29

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Ann Komaromi has spent more than two decades working with the Russian human rights organization Memorial, which was recently shut down by a Russian court (photo courtesy of Ann Komaromi)

Arts & Science news staff

Topic

Global Lens

Centre for Comparative Literature

Slavic languages and literatures

Faculty of Arts & Science

Humanities

Russia

Soviet

While the world continues to witness the exchange of bombs and gunfire in Ukraine, the University of Toronto’s Ann Komaromi is involved in the exchange of underground journalism and literature about the former Soviet Union.

For more than 20 years, Komaromi, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of Slavic languages and literatures and the director of the Centre for Comparative Literature, has been involved with Memorial, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organization that was founded in Russia during the fall of the Soviet Union to collect facts about repressions and civil society activity during Joseph Stalin's reign (1924-1953) and its aftermath.

The organization consisted of two entities: Memorial International, which documented Soviet-era history, including crimes against humanity; and the Memorial Human Rights Centre, which was focused on the protection of human rights – especially in conflict zones in and around modern Russia.

The Russian government ordered Memorial shut down in December 2021 and forced its closure earlier this year.

“The historians at Memorial, some of whom were activists in the dissident period, were not well paid. It was not glamorous and they were not particularly rewarded within their society for what they were doing,” says Komaromi. “That’s why it's important to support what they do and make sure it's well known.”

Komaromi first became connected to Memorial in the late 1990s while working on her PhD dissertation when she was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“I went to Moscow to do some research and went to the offices and met people there,” she says. “I became fascinated with the materials and information they had. You couldn't find it anywhere else.

“Researching topics that were not part of official history – that became the history of repression in the Stalinist era. Memorial’s efforts to commemorate and gather information about the victims of Stalin era represented the flagship work they were doing for many years. It's enormously significant.”

A woman wearing a face mask with the logo of Russia's rights group Memorial is seen outside the Moscow City Court where a hearing to dissolve the group's Human Rights Centre was taking place (photo by Vasily Maximov/AFP via Getty Images)

Komaromi assisted with Memorial’s efforts to capture the history of dissidence after Stalin which included recording and preserving the unofficial texts Russian citizens produced and circulated. By the mid-2000s, she was deeply involved in a collaboration to further study this publishing network, called "samizdat."

"We collaborated to work on a catalogue of underground publications," she says. Those publications included art and literary journals, rare copies of which are kept in an archive in Bremen, Germany, at the Institute for the Study of Eastern Europe.

Now, electronic editions of those underground journals are available with timelines of dissident movements and published interviews with activists on Komaromi’s digital humanities project site through University of Toronto Libraries.

Among the journals and publications shared and exchanged, the Chronicle of Current Events was regarded as the most widely read underground bulletin.

“They were recording facts about who had been arrested, who underwent interrogation,” says Komaromi. “It also shared what uncensored works were being passed around and what was being seized during searches. The emphasis was on facts. They wanted to keep emotion and politics out of it.

“But at the same time, there was this thriving poetry scene, there was theatre, fiction writing – all of this unofficial culture.”

Some of the fiction writing and poetry circulated included the works of some very well-known writers, such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky, who was exiled in the early 1970s for his poetry.

But most of the journalists and authors were relatively unknown.

To boost the exposure of their work, Komaromi published her book, Soviet Samzidat, last year, capturing the underground publishing scene between the 1950s and 1980s.

“It's about the publishing itself and the culture – and the rich content of that underground publishing network,” says Komaromi.

She continues to work with Memorial, despite it being shuttered by the Russian government.

“The Russian government needs to control the history of the Soviet Union for its political purposes today,” says Komaromi. “This was a very public signal that the government controlled the narrative about history and wouldn’t allow any independent work to be done.”

That won’t stop Komaromi.

“My research today has to do with dissident memoirs and looking at the ways that people who were involved with various kinds of rights activism described their lives and activities,” she says.

“There's still a form of Memorial functioning in Russia, but a lot of people needed to go abroad. In France, for example, the history of dissidence project is still going on through people working there. That's how I'm able to continue collaborating with them.”

For Komaromi, her work with Memorial has been the defining experience of her distinguished academic career and a reflection of her belief in democratic values.

“I find the commitment of the historians of Memorial inspiring, the way people have devoted so many years to the values they uphold,” she says. “I see what they do as deeply patriotic.

“They want to curate an honest record of the history of their own country for the good of their own people. I feel it's something that's crucially important for Russia and it’s also relevant globally – for all of us who care about fact-based discourse, individual rights and freedom of expression.

“We should all be concerned about the distortion of facts and violent suppression of rights to free speech because historical propaganda is being used to justify Russia's war in Ukraine.”

In honour of Fyodor Dostoevsky's 200th birthday, U of T faculty celebrate his work

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 15:28:53 +0000

In honour of Fyodor Dostoevsky's 200th birthday, U of T faculty celebrate his work

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 11/03/2021 - 11:28

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Kate Holland, of the department of Slavic languages and literatures, is the co-editor of the new book, Dostoevsky at 200: The Novel in Modernity (photo courtesy of Kate Holland)

Sean McNeely

Topic

City & Culture

Slavic languages and literatures

Faculty of Arts & Science

Humanities

When Kate Holland was an undergraduate student, she had a “boring summer job” in a fishing museum café that had an unexpected upside.

Because there were few visitors to the small seaside museum in the United Kingdom that summer, Holland had the chance to delve into the novels of Russian literary icon Fyodor Dostoevsky.

“That was an intellectually galvanizing experience that has defined my career,” says Holland, an associate professor in the Faculty of Arts & Science’s department of Slavic languages and literatures, and president of the North American Dostoevsky Society.

This year is important for Dostoevsky lovers, including Holland, as Nov. 11 marks the 200^th anniversary of his birth.

To mark the occasion, she co-edited a new book, Dostoevsky at 200: The Novel in Modernity, with Katherine Bowers, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia.

It’s a collection of 10 scholarly essays written by international academics, including one by Holland. They examine how Dostoevsky’s novels explore the clashes between science, capitalism, materialism and technology with traditional cultural, religious and family values.

“I was particularly interested doing an edited volume, because that way, you can choose the scholars whose work most appeals,” Holland says. “It's mostly quite young, emerging scholars. We didn't want to go straight to the reigning monarchs of the field because there are a lot of exciting young scholars in Dostoevsky studies right now.”

Holland’s essay is about the dying art of slapping people in the face as a response to being insulted or offended – a common Dostoevskian literary gesture – and its subsequent invitation to a duel. She examines how old forms and codes of behaviour in Dostoevsky's universe, such as slapping and bowing, were breaking down amid an evolving culture.

Holland wanted the essay collection to focus on Dostoevsky as a writer of modernity because she’s intrigued with how he tackled big questions about the future. He is regarded as one of the first European writers to raise concerns about science, technology and how the world was rapidly changing amid shifting political, social and spiritual atmospheres.

“Dostoevsky is one of the first 19th century Russian writers to struggle with what technology means,” Holland says. “For example, his novel The Idiot opens on a train. What does it mean to go from traveling in a horse and carriage to traveling by train? The train is a metaphor for what happens to Russian cultural and social life in this period.”

He also questioned the validity of new and emerging areas of science such as statistics.

“There was a view about statistics that if you had enough data, you'd be able to explain everything,” says Holland. “Dostoevsky was very dubious about different types of claims that science was making.”

Holland found it ironic that much of the book was created over the COVID-19 pandemic, a recent example of the world suddenly changing, paired with an acceleration of technology.

“There's an appropriateness to it,” Holland says. “In Dostoevsky’s novels, there's always a lot of fear about the future. Who could have guessed we would all be communicating via technology and that it would be the only way we’re able to conduct a conversation with friends and family?”

In addition to the book’s launch this summer, Holland and Bowers have organized several online events such as a roundtable discussion of Dostoevsky at 200 earlier this fall that attracted 80 students and scholars. It was part of a series of events to mark Dostoevsky’s bicentenary, co-hosted by the department of Slavic languages and literatures and the North American Dostoevsky Society and supported by a SSHRC Connection Grant.

For Dostoevsky’s 200^th birthday, a special online party is planned. “We’ve put out a call for creative projects – performances, videos, stories, poems inspired by Dostoevsky’s works. Other talks, panels and roundtables will take place later this year and in early 2022.

“In a way Dostoevsky would be horrified,” says Holland of these digital celebrations. “One of his criticisms of modernity was that it was atomizing – everybody would be divided into individuals and that one of the problems of modernity is the breakdown of old senses of community.

“But at the same time, his ideas about modernity are double-edged. He also dreams that out of that brokenness, out of that atomization, something better might be able to be achieved.”

In other words, Holland believes he might applaud the creation of online communities meeting on Zoom from around the world to celebrate his work.

With physical distancing easing, Holland is overjoyed to be teaching her students in person again, as there’s no substitute for witnessing Dostoevsky’s profound impact in the classroom.

“Dostoevsky was able to portray some of the questions teenagers have about themselves in the world,” Holland says.

“Students get into him so much. Some of his characters, like the protagonist from Notes from the Underground, is an extremely unappealing character. But he also gets under your skin in a way, especially if you're 19 or 20. Students will tell me they're so into his text.

“That’s why I feel it's an extraordinary privilege to study and to teach Dostoevsky, and to be able to have this connection with students.”

‘As though we’re all in the same room’: How two U of T professors built a better remote learning experience

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 21:36:04 +0000

‘As though we’re all in the same room’: How two U of T professors built a better remote learning experience

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 08/27/2020 - 17:36

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Donna Orwin, a professor of Russian literature, says the small number of students sitting in her physically distanced classroom this fall will be able to see and talk with students who participate online (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Topic

Slavic languages and literatures

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

Joseph Wong

Munk One

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

When class starts at the University of Toronto the week of Sept. 7, Joseph Wong and Donna Orwin will be ready.

The two professors have several decades of combined experience teaching at the post-secondary level, but they nevertheless spent much of the summer in full-on learning mode.

The subject: How to enhance the learning experience for their students in the fall semester – the first in the COVID-19 era. Specifically, the goal was how to create an engaging “dual delivery” format to teach students who will participate online alongside those who be sitting – physically distanced, wearing masks – in a mostly empty classroom.

“We learned a lot in the spring when we all had to use online technology and just try to get to the end of the term,” says Wong, a professor in the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and Ralph and Roz Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

“We all tried hard and U of T was remarkable in moving 6,000 courses to remote delivery over the course of a weekend. But this fall students should be expecting a much better learning experience.”

Wong and Orwin are just two of the hundreds of U of T professors who are retooling their courses for this fall as part of U of T’s gradual and safe return to campus. More than 90 per cent of undergraduate courses give students the option of studying online and most of these courses will be offered online only.

To become more adept at leading an online seminar, Wong offered several “bonus” seminars this summer so he could practice.

“I asked the Munk School to send out a note to students saying that I would be doing a bonus seminar online on a certain day,” he says. “I gave them a pre-read on the topic and said the first nine students to sign up can be in the seminar.”

Wong says he limited the seminar’s size to nine in order to form a three-by-three grid on his computer screen. “I wanted to be able to see everyone,” he says. “From there I went to 16 for a four-by-four grid and I just practised. I wanted to learn how to use the chat function, how to maintain eye contact.

“Now, I feel like I have quite a bit of practice under my belt.”

Wong also practised with the 25 people on his research team – all while still attending to his new role as U of T’s interim vice-president, international.

Orwin, on the other hand, had never taught online before. The professor of Russian literature and chair of the department of Slavic languages and literatures in the Faculty of Arts & Science says she emerged from her experience in the spring semester ready to prepare thoroughly for the fall term – especially given the fact many students were interested in attending her “Russia at War” first-year seminar in-person.

She will have 14 students in that seminar, eight of them in room 101 in Teefy Hall at St. Michael’s College and six participating online.

Professor Donna Orwin’s physically distanced classroom will have an external webcam and microphone. Students sitting in the physically distanced classroom will be able to see and talk with the students online via their laptops (photo by Johnny Guatto)

“I want everyone in this seminar to be able to participate fully and for it to be as if we are all sitting together,” says Orwin, a noted expert on Leo Tolstoy who is affiliated with the Munk School’s Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies. “So, I’ve planned the in-person and online group experience together.”

Using their laptops, students sitting in the physically distanced classroom will be able to see and talk with the students online. Orwin will also have a webcam to capture the entire room and an external microphone will make sure voices are amplified.

“The camera will be on a tripod so I can move it around if I want to show a PowerPoint presentation,” she says. “While I’m talking, I’ll have the camera facing me and while the students are talking, the camera will be on them. In that way, our online people will be working together with the people in the room.”

Orwin’s students will have a lot to discuss – the seminar covers centuries of Russian war and how it is expressed in literature and other artistic forms.

“We’ll be talking about the different genres, watching film and reading poetry, short stories, novels, discussing war itself in Russia and beyond,” she says. “It’s an important topic – Russia is a country that loves peace, but is almost continuously at war, so we’ll explore why that is.”

She adds that it’s important to make sure students, particularly those in their first year, feel like they’re part of the broader U of T community.

“These students are coming from high school to university for the first time,” she says. “Most of their other courses will be online and I want to give them an in-class experience. I want them to get to know each other and to get to know me. These first-year seminars are an opportunity for first-year students to be part of an academic community.”

For Wong’s Munk One first year “Global Innovation” class, he will have 15 students physically distanced in a room in the Canadiana Gallery building, which normally seats 64. Another 10 students will participate remotely. Drop-down microphones will be placed throughout the room to compensate for voices muffled through masks.

Professor Joseph Wong’s Munk One class on global innovation will be held in a room equipped with drop-down microphones, which are intended to compensate for voices muffled through masks (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

“The students will be on three screens around the room,” says Wong. “The configuration will ensure that, no matter if they’re on screen or in the classroom, they will be able to see each other clearly. I want to make it as though we are all in the same room.

“The aim is to run the seminar as we have in the past. There will be a fair amount of flexibility, and we’ll be learning as we go. All the students I’ve spoken with are very excited about it. And they recognize that things might not be perfect from day one.”

Wong is also the founder of the REACH Alliance, where about 25 students travel the world annually to understand poverty and social services in underserved communities. While REACH will not be able to send students abroad this year, Wong has nevertheless found a way to inject an international flavour into the global innovation seminar.

“I’ve added a new component to this course called a global classroom module,” he says. “Our seminar will be connected with a class with Tec de Monterrey in Mexico City. We’re going to do a three-class module on COVID-19 and inequality. So, the U of T students, in the room and online, will be working with Mexican students on a variety of creative projects around the topic.”

For two hours each week, the Toronto and Mexico City classes will be connected through technology.

“That’s an exciting component where our students have an opportunity to learn by talking to the Mexican students using the remote platforms,” he says. “The pandemic has been awful but technology and a willingness to connect with each other around the world is enabling us to do things I have certainly never done before.”

Joseph Wong says students in his global innovation seminar will be connected with a class at Tec de Monterrey in Mexico City as part of a three-class module on COVID-19 and inequality (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Preparing for the “synchronous” method of teaching – in-person and online together – has taken time and financial support, Wong says. He points out that from the moment students shifted to learning remotely in March, faculty and staff across the university were analyzing what worked and planning for fall.

“It’s not just about turning on Zoom; we did that in the spring. The experience students will have in the fall will be much different,” Wong says. “The infrastructure and reconfigurations are quite extensive. People are working very hard.

“We’ve put a huge amount of work into this and I think the students will find it very exciting.”

For Orwin, redesigning the way she delivers the class was critical to ensure “as much as possible, they can all take part in the discussion, those in the physical room and those online, as one group.”

In a normal year, she says, a first-year seminar can be an important part of “learning how to be independent thinkers and learning how to discuss their ideas with one another.” In a pandemic year, it’s all the more important.

“That’s what university is about.”

U of T hosts Trudeau, Ukrainian president for international conference on Ukraine’s future

geoff.vendeville — Thu, 04 Jul 2019 20:09:57 +0000

U of T hosts Trudeau, Ukrainian president for international conference on Ukraine’s future

geoff.vendeville Thu, 07/04/2019 - 16:09

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signs U of T's guest book while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U of T President Meric Gertler look on (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Global Lens

Slavic languages and literatures

World leaders, diplomats and other officials gathered at the University of Toronto this week as the university hosted the ministerial meeting at an international summit on the future of Ukraine.

A succession of delegations arrived at Simcoe Hall on the downtown Toronto campus on Tuesday morning, representing over 30 countries at the U of T-hosted portion of the three-day Ukraine Reform Conference. It was the third annual meeting to set the agenda for reform in Ukraine after conferences in London and Copenhagen.

U of T President Meric Gertler greeted the dignitaries, which included recently elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is of Ukrainian descent and delivered part of her opening remarks in Convocation Hall in Ukrainian.

President Gertler said it was an honour for U of T to host the high-profile meeting.

“It is a great privilege to welcome world leaders and to facilitate their discussion of the challenges and opportunities facing not only Ukraine, but the whole world,” he said.

“The University of Toronto strives to foster an international outlook among all members of our community, and to serve as a convenor of global conversations on the most important issues of our time. U of T, therefore, is an ideal setting for this event, which is devoted to democratic ideals and universal concerns.”

The conference included panel discussions that took place inside U of T’s Convocation Hall (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Freeland, for her part, lauded U of T for hosting global summits like the G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting last year and this year’s Ukraine Reform Conference.

“Universities occupy an essential space in our society by promoting research, innovation and debate,” she said. “The University of Toronto is a premier international institution of higher learning that connects Canada to the world – and vice versa.

“I am continuously struck by the energy and ambition of students at U of T. They rightly see themselves as global citizens and have bold ideas for how Canada can play a constructive role in the world today.”

In her remarks to the conference, Freeland said, “Ukrainians were prepared to pay the ultimate price for their freedom, and many did,” referring to protesters who died in Kiev’s Maidan square in 2014.

She went on to denounce Russian aggression in Ukraine and the 2014 invasion of the Crimean Peninsula. Many countries, including Canada, also accuse Russia of fomenting an insurgency in the eastern part of the country in which 13,000 people have died. And in November, the Russian navy captured 24 Ukrainian sailors. Moscow accuses them of illegally entering Russia waters, although Kiev denies the allegation.

“Let me say to the people of Ukraine who are here today and those who are listening to us that Canada continues to stand with you,” Freeland said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy peppered his speech with sports references, including to Wayne Gretzky, who has Ukrainian ancestry, and the Toronto Raptors (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

The first day of the conference featured panel discussions on sovereignty, security and prosperity and transforming Ukraine into a high-income country. Much of the talk focused on making progress in Ukraine “irreversible,” with a long-term possibility of the country entering the European Union.

The conference comes at a pivotal moment for Ukraine. Zelenskyy, an actor-comedian, beat the odds to win the presidency in April and parliamentary elections are to be held later this month.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Speaking in Convocation Hall, bedecked with flags and lit up in the blue and yellow of Ukraine, Trudeau also pledged Canada’s support for the country in Eastern Europe.

“It is absolutely vital that, in the face of foreign interference, we reinforce democracy in Ukraine to ensure a vibrant, prosperous and free society,” he said.

To that end, Ottawa announced more than $45 million in development aid and policing assistance for Ukraine and said it won’t recognize Russian passports issued to Ukrainians in the Donbas, a region in eastern Ukraine and southwestern Russia.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and U of T President Meric Gertler (photo by Lisa Sakulensky)

In his own speech, Zelenskyy compared his country to the championship-winning Toronto Raptors.

“Basketball isn’t exactly my game,” Zelenskyy joked. The Raptors “reflect the task facing Ukraine – to win when you’re the underdog and achieve the impossible,” he said in Ukrainian, which was translated live.

The conference’s delegates pose for a group photo (photo by Lisa Sakulensky)

Aurel Braun, a professor of international relations and political science at U of T Mississauga, who specializes in the challenges of transformation of socialist systems in the former Soviet bloc, says one of Ukraine’s top priorities going forward will be to address corruption.

“Ukraine is a potentially wealthy country,” he said. “It has tremendous human talent, including scientific talent. It has vast natural resources – and yet it is desperately poor, and corruption has been one of the key elements.”

He added that the location of the conference is fitting both because Canada is home to 1.3 million Ukrainians and because U of T has a “glorious tradition” in Slavic studies.

“We were among the first universities to develop a major centre for Russian and east European studies,” he said.