Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Prf Russell Lecture at NAASR on Slavic/Armenian Folklore Connections

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Prf Russell Lecture at NAASR on Slavic/Armenian Folklore Connections

    PRESS RELEASE
    National Association for Armenian Studies and Research
    395 Concord Ave.
    Belmont, MA 02478
    Tel.: 617-489-1610
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Web: www.naasr.org


    LECTURE BY PROF. RUSSELL AT NAASR ON ARMENIAN-SLAVIC FOLKLORE CONNECTIONS


    Prof. James R. Russell, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at
    Harvard University, will give the first lecture of NAASR's fall 2008
    series on Thursday, September 11, at the National Association for
    Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont,
    MA. Prof. Russell's lecture will be entitled "The Rime of the Book of
    the Dove: Zoroastrian Cosmology, Armenian Heresiology, and the Russian
    Novel." The lecture will be a "Roman Jakobson Memorial Lecture" in
    honor of the pioneering linguist, Slavicist, folklorist, and one of the
    intellectual giants of the 20th century, NAASR Founding Member Prof.
    Roman Jakobson (1896-1982).

    The spiritual ballad or poem, or Coleridgean "rime," the Book of the
    Dove (Rus. Golubinaia kniga, Stikh o golubinoi knige) exists in a number
    of transcribed oral variants, most of which were collected in northern
    and northwestern Russia-emanating most likely from the region of Great
    Novgorod. The poem relates the deep secrets, that is, the ones that
    concern cosmology. It has been called the "pearl of the Russian
    mythological epic."

    Russian Text with Armenian and Iranian Sources

    Many aspects of the Book of the Dove suggest an Iranian source, and in
    the Byzantine period the route of transmission would have been Armenia,
    most likely via oral teachings transmitted by itinerant preachers and
    minstrels, of the adherents of heterodox sects that flourished in
    Armenia at that time.

    In this lecture, Prof. Russell will take a subterranean (and, at times,
    submarine) journey through the dark world of medieval Russian folklore
    and Armenian and Iranian religion and spirituality, with detours through
    the visionary poetry of Grigor Narekatsi and the groundbreaking novels
    of Vladimir Nabokov.


    Prof. James R. Russell has been the Mashtots Professor of Armenian
    Studies at Harvard University since 1992. His books include Bosphorus
    Nights: The Complete Lyric Poems of Bedros Tourian, Armenian and Iranian
    Studies, The Book of Flowers, An Armenian Epic: The Heroes of Kasht,
    Zoroastrianism in Armenia, and Hovhannes Tlkurantsi and the Medieval
    Armenian Lyric Tradition.

    Tribute to Roman Jakobson, a NAASR Founding Member

    With Prof. Russell's lecture-one of numerous examples of his
    explorations of Armenian and Slavic linguistic, cultural, and literary
    connections-comes an opportunity to pay tribute to a predecessor at
    Harvard who looked at similar issues. Roman Jakobson is considered the
    father of modern structural linguistics, the founder of phonology, and
    one of the leading Slavi-cists of his time. A founder of the
    pre-revolution Moscow Linguistic Circle and later the famed Prague
    School of Linguistics, his work has been a profound influence on all who
    have followed him, including Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Paul
    Ricoeur, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Lacan.

    Among Jakobson's interests, albeit not one for which he is well known,
    was medieval Armenian literature and Armenian folklore. Jakobson
    received his bachelor's degree at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental
    Languages in Moscow (established in the early 19th century by the
    Armenian Lazarev/Lazarian family), where he learned Armenian and became
    interested in Armenian affairs.

    Jakobson was the Samuel Hazzard Cross Professor of Slavic Languages and
    Literatures at Harvard when NAASR was developing in the 1950s and NAASR
    Chairman Emeritus Manoog S. Young recalls meeting Jakobson through Prof.
    Richard N. Frye, also a NAASR founding member. He took a keen interest
    in NAASR's early development and the growth of Armenian Studies and
    participated in the first ever NAASR symposium in June 1955 on "Armenian
    Studies and Research-Problems and Needs." He also spoke at NAASR's
    second anniversary symposium in 1957, giving a talk on "The Importance
    of Ancient and Medieval Armenian Literature." In 1964, Prof. Jakobson
    gave a NAASR-sponsored lecture at Harvard on "Slavic and Armenian
    Questions in the Middle Ages."

    Admission to the event is free. The NAASR Center is located opposite
    the First Armenian Church and next to the U.S. Post Office. Ample
    parking is available around the building and in adjacent areas. The
    lecture will begin promptly at 8:00 p.m. More information about the
    lecture is available by calling 617-489-1610, faxing 617-484-1759,
    e-mailing [email protected], or writing to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont,
    MA 02478.
Working...
X