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A history of Slavic studies in the United States by Clarence Augustus Manning · Audiobooks & Scary Stories

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this reading, which comes from a
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Speaker 1: work in the public domain, A History of Slavic Studies
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Speaker 1: in the United States by Clarence Augustus Manning, Chapter one,
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Speaker 1: The Slavs in America. We have no records of the
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Speaker 1: arrival in what is now the United States of the
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Speaker 1: first Slavic nationals. We don't know from where they came
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Speaker 1: or where they settled, but it seems certain that at
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Speaker 1: an early date Slavs appeared in all of the various
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Speaker 1: streams of colonization, though primarily as individuals. We must remember
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Speaker 1: that it was not until the nineteenth century that the
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Speaker 1: world became seriously interested in the nationality and language of
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Speaker 1: a person. The medieval period had thought only in terms
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Speaker 1: of allegiance to a given monarch or to some supernational state,
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Speaker 1: which embraced persons of many tongues and origins united in
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Speaker 1: a common loyalty. This held true for the first two
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Speaker 1: centuries of American settlement, and we always have to take
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Speaker 1: it into account. It may be well to glance briefly, then,
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Speaker 1: at the political situation in the Slavic lands from the
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Speaker 1: discovery of America through the next century. Christopher Columbus discovered
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Speaker 1: the New World less than a half century after the
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Speaker 1: fall of Constantinople to the Turks and the liberation of
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Speaker 1: Moscow from the Tara yoke. Europe was filled then as
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Speaker 1: now with homeless people, the Christians of the Byzantine Empire
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Speaker 1: and of the Balkan Christian states, preferring the hardships of
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Speaker 1: a wandering life to existence under the Mohammedan Turks. The
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Speaker 1: armed forces of all countries were filled with adventurers who
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Speaker 1: had been driven from their homes and were glad to
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Speaker 1: fight as mercenaries. For example, there were Greek soldiers in
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Speaker 1: the armies of Francisco to Pizaro in his conquest of
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Speaker 1: Peru in fifteen thirty two. Later, these same men took
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Speaker 1: sides with Diego de all Magro in his revolt against
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Speaker 1: Bizarro and made for him the first canon caste in
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Speaker 1: the New World one. This intermixture of nationalities continued throughout
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Speaker 1: the era of the Discovery and the ensuing decades. This
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Speaker 1: was the height of the Spanish power, and it was
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Speaker 1: under the flag of Spain that men of all nationalities,
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Speaker 1: especially from the Mediterranean area, went to serve. At this
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Speaker 1: time the most powerful Slavic state was the Polish Republic
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Speaker 1: the Rexpaspoaladapolska. Yet this was far more than ethnographic Poland.
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Speaker 1: It took in almost all Ukrainian and beel Russian lands,
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Speaker 1: as well as ethnographic Lithuania and Latvia, and a considerable
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Speaker 1: part of eastern Germany. It maintained the closest connections with
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Speaker 1: the Danubian principalities and even Hungary. Thus, a person known
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Speaker 1: as a Pole could very easily have been one of
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Speaker 1: several Slavac and even non Slavic nationalities. The Czechs formed
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Speaker 1: the nucleus of the Kingdom of Bohemia, itself a subsidiary
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Speaker 1: of the Habsburg domains. The Holy Roman Empire, which, to
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Speaker 1: use the words of Voltaire, was already ceasing to be
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Speaker 1: either Holy Roman or in Empire. The Slovaks and the
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Speaker 1: Carpathian Ukrainians were under the Crown of St. Stephen of Hungary,
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Speaker 1: as were the Croats, while the Slovenes were more particularly
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Speaker 1: connected with Austria. Yet again, the lands of the Crown
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Speaker 1: of St. Stephen were also part of the Empire. Thus
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Speaker 1: the only Slavs not included either in the Ottoman and
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Speaker 1: Habsburg Empires or in Poland were the Muscovite Russians. At
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Speaker 1: this period, few of them thought of crossing the boundaries
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Speaker 1: of their western neighbors. Those who left their original homes
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Speaker 1: traveled eastward, and by the middle of the seventeenth century
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Speaker 1: had reached the Pacific Ocean and were poised to cross
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Speaker 1: the North Pacific at its narrowest point. We must keep
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Speaker 1: these facts in mind when we think of the early
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Speaker 1: Slavic immigration to the United States. This jumble of nationalities
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Speaker 1: and states was still more confused by the fact that
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Speaker 1: the overwhelming majority of the educated Slavic population used one
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Speaker 1: of the three international languages of the day. The Roman
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Speaker 1: Catholics used Latin, the Orthodox employed either Church Slavic or Greek,
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Speaker 1: and these higher tongues supplemented and in large part replaced
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Speaker 1: the vernaculars in legal and historical records. This was a
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Speaker 1: period of religious turmoil as well, beginning with the Hussite
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Speaker 1: Wars in Bohemia. These were continued by the Protestant Reformation
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Speaker 1: touched off by Martin Luther, and the Counter Reformation under
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Speaker 1: the leadership of the Jesuits. At the same time, the
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Speaker 1: new Protestantism and the older Latin Rite were spreading among
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Speaker 1: the Orthodox Slavs, and the situation was still further complicated
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Speaker 1: by the Union of Breast in fifteen ninety four, which
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Speaker 1: formed the so called unit Church or Catholic Church of
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Speaker 1: the Eastern Rite. Each of these religious disputes, with the
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Speaker 1: political consequences that they involved, added to the number of
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Speaker 1: displaced persons. The adherents of every religion found shelter with
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Speaker 1: their friends in any of the countries of Western Europe England, France, Germany, Italy,
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Speaker 1: Spain and Holland. These were added to the number willing
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Speaker 1: to risk anything to secure a new home. This was
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Speaker 1: the background of the early colonization efforts in America. The
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Speaker 1: Spanish settlements in the Southwest are less easily discussed. There
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Speaker 1: can be no doubt that the leaders of the great
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Speaker 1: religious orders that spread through California and New Mexico were
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Speaker 1: of Spanish birth, but there is considerable evidence to show
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Speaker 1: that some of their subordinates were probably of Slavic origin.
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Speaker 1: At least they seemed familiar with the peculiarities of Orthodox iconography.
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Speaker 1: The Spanish mission in Santa Barbara, California, displays the Eastern
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Speaker 1: form crucifix. Many of the wood paintings of saints in
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Speaker 1: New Mexico superficially resemble crude icons. Yet little has been
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Speaker 1: done to trace the early lives of the monks who
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Speaker 1: worked in these missions. It would certainly not be surprising
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Speaker 1: to find that some had made their way to the
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Speaker 1: Spanish centers of the Franciscans and Dominicans from the disturbed
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Speaker 1: area of Eastern Europe. Two. We are on far surer
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Speaker 1: ground when we come to the colonies established by the
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Speaker 1: English along the Atlantic coast. In sixteen ten, the Virginia
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Speaker 1: Company sent to Jamestown with Lord de Laois a group
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Speaker 1: of Polish gentlemen as workmen. These were apparently refugees in
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Speaker 1: England from one of the many upheavals in the rex Paspolada.
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Speaker 1: Their names appear in Anglicized forms, and since we have
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Speaker 1: no information about their experiences before they reached England, many
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Speaker 1: of them have been claimed by the Poles, Ukrainians and
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Speaker 1: the other peoples included in the Polish state. Three. The
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Speaker 1: same situation prevailed in New Netherlands. There can be no
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Speaker 1: doubt that some of the settlers in the New Dutch
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Speaker 1: colony were Slavs. Thus, for a long while the name
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Speaker 1: of the Zeeborasky four family, one of the early settlers,
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Speaker 1: was written in Jersey Dutch. The family is proud of
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Speaker 1: its Polish origin, but again, like so many, it also
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Speaker 1: has been claimed by the Ukrainians. Another slav of this
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Speaker 1: period it is Augustine Hermann, a skilled surveyor from Prague.
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Speaker 1: He apparently went first to Virginia, then moved northward to
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Speaker 1: New Amsterdam, and later founded Bohemia Manor in Maryland. Efforts
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Speaker 1: have been made by both the Czechs and the Germans
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Speaker 1: to prove that he was of their origin, but what
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Speaker 1: proof there is favors the Czechs five. Many other families,
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Speaker 1: such as the Roosevelts, can trace their origin to the
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Speaker 1: Baltic States, but leave us to decide from which particular
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Speaker 1: group the original ancestor came. A still more tangled situation
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Speaker 1: arose in the early colony of Delaware, while it was
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Speaker 1: still New Sweden. The Swedes eliminated the first Dutch settlement
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Speaker 1: around Fort Casimir, and then in sixteen forty one founded
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Speaker 1: their own Fort Christina and sent over a population of Swedes,
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Speaker 1: Germans and Finns. And all this at a time when
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Speaker 1: the Poles and the Swedes were conducting their own warfare
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Speaker 1: behind the shelter of the Thirty Years War. At the
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Speaker 1: same time, the Swedes were trying to make the Baltic
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Speaker 1: a Swedish lake, and their representatives were deeply involved in
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Speaker 1: negotiations with the Zaparosian Kozaks, who were in an almost
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Speaker 1: constant state of revolt against Poland. The Swedes then ruled
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Speaker 1: Old both Livonia and Estonia. In view of all this,
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Speaker 1: it would have been surprising, indeed, if there had not
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Speaker 1: been Slavs in the colony of New Sweden, the area
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Speaker 1: in which the traditionally American form of the log cabin
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Speaker 1: seems to have originated, a form reminiscent of the architecture
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Speaker 1: of the East Baltic Slavs. The evidence for New England
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Speaker 1: is less clear, though we know that the authorities of
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Speaker 1: the New Harvard College seriously thought of inviting the distinguished
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Speaker 1: Czech educator Jan Amoscamenius Komensky to serve as the first
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Speaker 1: president in sixteen thirty. However, nothing came of it. Six
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Speaker 1: in the eighteenth century, there is the same uncertainty. In
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Speaker 1: seventeen forty one, a group of the Uniteds Fretram the
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Speaker 1: Bohemian brethren from Bohemia and Moravia were led by Count
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Speaker 1: Sinzendorf to a settlement in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It is at
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Speaker 1: least possible that some of these settlers spoke Czech as
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Speaker 1: well as German. If they did, it would explain more
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Speaker 1: clearly the interest in the community that was taken during
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Speaker 1: the American Revolution by General CASIMIRS. Pulaski, who seems to
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Speaker 1: have made a point of attending religious services there whenever
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Speaker 1: he could. The architecture of the older buildings further suggests
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Speaker 1: Slavic influence. The American Revolution brought to the New World.
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Speaker 1: Another group of Slavs, of whom the best known are
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Speaker 1: the two Polish leaders, Generals Pulaski seven and to day
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Speaker 1: Aushkaskiyusko eight. Pulaski, already a well known figure in Poland,
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Speaker 1: brought with him a number of other East Europeans and Slavs,
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Speaker 1: who formed a considerable portion of the famous Pulaski Legion.
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Speaker 1: We have also the names of others such as Count
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Speaker 1: Bianovsky and Colonel Michael Kovak and Hungarian, a member of
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Speaker 1: the legion who was killed at Charleston, South Carolina in
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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy nine. Most of the legions survivors stayed in
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Speaker 1: the new country. Another possible source for inspiring Slavs and
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Speaker 1: especially Poles, to come to America was the career of
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Speaker 1: Major General Charles Lee nine of the American Army. He
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Speaker 1: had once been in command of the cadet school in Warsaw,
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Speaker 1: founded by King Stanislap and the Aetovsky. In addition to that,
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Speaker 1: most of the French troops who served in America had
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Speaker 1: previously been on duty in Western Poland, supporting the Saxon
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Speaker 1: claim to the throne and helping the Poles oppose Russian domination.
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Speaker 1: There is no way of knowing whether or not this
9:05
Speaker 1: force had received Slavik recruits during its term of duty there.
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Speaker 1: The services of both Pulaski and Koskiusko, and the later
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Speaker 1: return of Koskiusko to the United States in seventeen ninety
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Speaker 1: seven built up considerable interest for Poland in the United States.
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Speaker 1: This continued for nearly a half century, leading to a
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Speaker 1: fair amount of immigration from the former Polish state, especially
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Speaker 1: after the Polish Revolt of eighteen thirty one. Moreover, American
9:30
Speaker 1: newspapers of the time published long accounts of events in Europe. Thus,
9:34
Speaker 1: in seventeen thirty three, John Peters Zenger included in the
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Speaker 1: New York Weekly Journal and Account of the efforts of
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Speaker 1: Stanislaw Leshinsky to secure the throne of Poland. Numerous similar
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Speaker 1: examples could be cited. However, no organized interest in Slavic
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Speaker 1: lands and peoples developed. Little is heard of Russians at
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Speaker 1: this period, although American representatives had appeared in St. Petersburg
9:55
Speaker 1: during the Revolution, and the Csars in the early eighteen
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Speaker 1: hundreds began to send diplomatic representatives to Washington. Prince Dmitri
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Speaker 1: glitzen Ten, a member of a socially prominent Russian family,
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Speaker 1: was the first Roman Catholic priest to be fully trained
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Speaker 1: and ordained by Bishop Carol in the United States. He
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Speaker 1: continued until the end of his life to be one
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Speaker 1: of the leading Catholic priests in Pennsylvania and maintained contact
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Speaker 1: with the Russian ministers in Washington. We also know that
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Speaker 1: in eighteen hundred, Kutusov mantles and bonnets were very popular
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Speaker 1: in New York society. Eleven until eighteen forty eight, the
10:28
Speaker 1: Slavs who came to the United States came either as
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Speaker 1: individual travelers, or as individual immigrants, perhaps drawn in the
10:34
Speaker 1: train of some more prominent compatriot. There are several interesting
10:38
Speaker 1: accounts of this period in Polish, such as those by
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Speaker 1: julgus Ers and Nimsiwicks, who came with kaski Usko in
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Speaker 1: seventeen ninety seven and remained in the country for several years.
10:47
Speaker 1: He visited Boston around seventeen ninety nine, and his diary
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Speaker 1: mentions a Polish Unitarian library, the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum in Harvard,
10:55
Speaker 1: of which nothing is now known. Twelve. The situation was
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Speaker 1: different in the Pacific northwest thirteen. The Russians during the
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Speaker 1: seventeenth and eighteenth centuries reached the Sea of Okotsk and
11:05
Speaker 1: Kamchatka in their eastward advance and began to push into
11:08
Speaker 1: the North Pacific in quest for furs. Late in the century,
11:11
Speaker 1: they started to establish more or less temporary trading posts
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Speaker 1: on the Aleutian Islands. In seventeen eighty three, Grigory Shelikoff
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Speaker 1: established a more permanent center at Kodiak. This center of
11:22
Speaker 1: Russian influence was later transferred south to Saint Michael on
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Speaker 1: the site of the present Sitka in eighteen hundred, the
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Speaker 1: ablest Russian governor Alexander Baranov, went further. In eighteen eleven,
11:34
Speaker 1: he sent his most trusted assistant, Ivan Kuskoff to establish
11:37
Speaker 1: a Russian trading post at Fort Ross, not far from
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Speaker 1: San Francisco. Shelikov had founded the Russian American Company to
11:44
Speaker 1: exploit these new lands, and his talented successor, Nikolai Rezanov,
11:48
Speaker 1: visited the New World in eighteen o five, dreaming of
11:51
Speaker 1: controlling the entire Pacific coast, including the Spanish settlements in California,
11:55
Speaker 1: with San Francisco as their head. On his return across Siberia,
11:59
Speaker 1: he eyed at er Koutsk as the result of a
12:01
Speaker 1: fall from his horse, and his dreams largely perished with him,
12:04
Speaker 1: although later the Russians did try to seize the Hawaiian
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Speaker 1: Islands and make the North pacifica Russian lake. Fortunately for
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Speaker 1: the Americans, the Russian settlements were poorly supported from St. Petersburg,
12:15
Speaker 1: and the intricacies of Russian law left Baranoff and his
12:17
Speaker 1: successor without the necessary supplies, and they were compelled to
12:20
Speaker 1: indulge in a legal trade with the British. Boston merchants
12:24
Speaker 1: also carried to Kodiak and Sitka, the goods which the
12:26
Speaker 1: Russian American Company had neglected to send. Strangely enough, the
12:30
Speaker 1: Russians failed to cross the coastal mountains, either in Alaska
12:33
Speaker 1: or further to the south. They contented themselves with the
12:37
Speaker 1: hunting of marine animals, especially the sea otter, sending the
12:40
Speaker 1: skins back to Siberia for Asiatic distribution. They apparently did
12:44
Speaker 1: not realize that the American continent could be crossed by land,
12:48
Speaker 1: a peculiar oversight when we remember their rapid crossing of
12:50
Speaker 1: the whole of Asia. Rezanov had hoped to make Kodiak
12:54
Speaker 1: a center of Russian culture. He had come to Russian
12:57
Speaker 1: America by sea from St. Peter Usburg and brought with
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Speaker 1: him a large library of books for an academy, which
13:03
Speaker 1: he proposed to establish. Apparently, Schlikov had spread excessive stories
13:07
Speaker 1: of the Russian achievements, for Kodiak was only a wretched
13:10
Speaker 1: frontier village and not an embryonic metropolis SLAVARASIAI, as he boasted.
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Speaker 1: Rezanov's collection remained in Kodiak until its destruction by fire
13:19
Speaker 1: on July eighteenth, nineteen forty three. The Russian Orthodox Church
13:24
Speaker 1: also sent a mission to the colony. The monks, largely
13:27
Speaker 1: from Valamo, were devoted men, and at least one was
13:29
Speaker 1: a martyr. The greatest of the Russian clergy was Ivan
13:33
Speaker 1: Vena Yamanov, later Archbishop in okenty, metropolitan of Moscow and
13:37
Speaker 1: one of the great figures of the Russian Church. This
13:40
Speaker 1: mission converted the majority of the Alutes and Eskimos in
13:43
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, and the Russian language was long the common
13:45
Speaker 1: speech on most of the Aleutian Islands. Russian expansion thus
13:49
Speaker 1: had begun to take shape seriously. At about the same time,
13:51
Speaker 1: the Americans began to push westward. After buying the Louisiana
13:56
Speaker 1: Territory from France in eighteen o three, President Thomas Jefferson
13:59
Speaker 1: sent anek expedition under Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to
14:02
Speaker 1: explore the northwest. In eighteen o six, the expedition reached
14:06
Speaker 1: the mouth of the Columbia River. Then followed the settlement
14:10
Speaker 1: of Astoria by agents of the American for trader John
14:12
Speaker 1: Jacob Aster. By the time the Russians were ready to
14:16
Speaker 1: advance to the south, the Americans were established in the
14:18
Speaker 1: center of the area, and the Russian colonies never formed
14:21
Speaker 1: a solid belt on the west coast. For some reason,
14:24
Speaker 1: the Russians did not try to eliminate the Americans, and
14:27
Speaker 1: the southern settlements began to wither away from inability to expand.
14:31
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty one, Fort Ross was sold to a
14:33
Speaker 1: group of Americans and the Russians withdrew northward. The lively
14:37
Speaker 1: trade between Sitka and Boston was interrupted by the War
14:40
Speaker 1: of eighteen twelve, and when peace came, commerce was further
14:43
Speaker 1: hindered by Russian efforts to impose trade restrictions that were
14:46
Speaker 1: unacceptable to the Americans. These came at the same time
14:49
Speaker 1: as the revolutions and declarations of independence of the Spanish
14:52
Speaker 1: colonies and the adherents of Czar Alexandri I to the
14:55
Speaker 1: Holy Alliance to aid Spain in recovering them. The Russian
14:58
Speaker 1: efforts at controlling the n North Pacific and the American
15:01
Speaker 1: sympathy for the Spanish colonies led to the proclamation of
15:03
Speaker 1: the Monroe Doctrine in eighteen twenty three, which doomed European
15:06
Speaker 1: expansion in the New World. Both President Monroe and his
15:10
Speaker 1: Secretary of State John Quincy Adams had held diplomatic posts
15:14
Speaker 1: in Russia and were aware of the differences between the
15:16
Speaker 1: Russian and American points of view. The Monroe Doctrine and
15:19
Speaker 1: the settlement of the Northwest determined the fate of Russian America.
15:23
Speaker 1: It was blocked to the south by the United States
15:25
Speaker 1: and the British settlements in the Canadian West. In eighteen
15:29
Speaker 1: sixty seven, Russia realized the hopelessness of its position and
15:32
Speaker 1: sold the territory now known as Alaska to the United States.
15:36
Speaker 1: The Russians then established their bishopric in San Francisco, but
15:39
Speaker 1: during the next years the Russian colony in the Far
15:41
Speaker 1: West remained an isolated group, and it was only toward
15:44
Speaker 1: the end of the century that it merged with the
15:45
Speaker 1: general Slavic immigration. This then, is the first phase of
15:49
Speaker 1: Slavic contact with the New World. Relatively little imprint was
15:53
Speaker 1: left on American life, although we must not undervalue certain
15:57
Speaker 1: ideas that did pass into the Young Republic. They were
16:00
Speaker 1: the result of individual effort rather than organized or mass movements,
16:03
Speaker 1: which came later Chapter two mass immigration. As the middle
16:07
Speaker 1: of the century approached, the situation began to change radically.
16:11
Speaker 1: There came a marked improvement in the accommodations and regularity
16:14
Speaker 1: of the transatlantic ships and contacts between North America and
16:17
Speaker 1: Europe began to multiply. Then came the Spring of the
16:20
Speaker 1: Nations the year eighteen forty eight, with the efforts of
16:23
Speaker 1: the Germans and the peoples of Austria Hungary to put
16:25
Speaker 1: an end to the prevailing absolutism. This movement failed, but
16:29
Speaker 1: it led a large number of Germans who had supported
16:31
Speaker 1: the Frankfort General Assembly to leave their native land and
16:33
Speaker 1: to seek refuge in the United States. Most of them
16:37
Speaker 1: drifted west, settling in many of the Central States and
16:39
Speaker 1: the Middle West. They took up free land and settled
16:43
Speaker 1: down to become prosperous farmers. The rumors of their success
16:47
Speaker 1: in adapting themselves to their new environments spread beyond Germany
16:50
Speaker 1: and fired the resolution of other discontented peoples. The first
16:54
Speaker 1: to respond on any large scale were the Czechs. They
16:57
Speaker 1: began to come in thousands, also tending toward the man
17:00
Speaker 1: Middle West and settling on the new frontiers which had
17:02
Speaker 1: been pushed westward by the coming of the Germans. They
17:05
Speaker 1: soon began to form extensive colonies in the still sparsely
17:08
Speaker 1: settled areas of Nebraska, Iowa, and other states, until the
17:11
Speaker 1: coming of the American Civil War, which briefly checked the movement.
17:15
Speaker 1: In their new homes and in small communities, they formed
17:18
Speaker 1: a large segment of the population. They endeavored to transplant
17:22
Speaker 1: their old traditions and mode of life to America and
17:25
Speaker 1: to establish their own institutions, making changes only as American
17:28
Speaker 1: law and environment dictated fourteen. The Polls were the next
17:31
Speaker 1: Slavic people to follow. The earliest immigrants were, as we
17:35
Speaker 1: might expect, from Austrian Poland, but after the failure of
17:38
Speaker 1: the Uprising of eighteen sixty three, refugees from Russian Poland
17:42
Speaker 1: in the area under German control began to flow in.
17:45
Speaker 1: The earliest immigrants, like the first Czechs, moved west. But
17:48
Speaker 1: after the Civil War, the Great American Industrial Expansion began,
17:51
Speaker 1: and the majority of later immigrants were attracted by the
17:53
Speaker 1: possibilities for work in the mines and factories which were
17:56
Speaker 1: being built, especially in Pennsylvania. The movement for immigration was
18:00
Speaker 1: sponsored not only by the employers who desired a constant
18:04
Speaker 1: supply of unskilled and cheap labor, but also by the
18:06
Speaker 1: steamship companies, which sent their agents through the European villages
18:09
Speaker 1: and painted in glowing terms the possibilities of advancement and
18:12
Speaker 1: of wealth in the United States. Their blandishments did not
18:16
Speaker 1: fall upon empty ears. In the more backward and underprivileged areas.
18:20
Speaker 1: In a steadily increasing stream, there began to come to
18:22
Speaker 1: the United States Slovaks, Ukrainians from Galicia and the Carpathian area, Croats,
18:28
Speaker 1: and to a lesser degree, Serbs. There was even a
18:31
Speaker 1: small settlement of Luciity on Serbs in Texas. This process
18:36
Speaker 1: continued until the beginning of World War IIE. The immigrant
18:38
Speaker 1: ranks included a certain number of educated people, but these
18:41
Speaker 1: were to a large degree interested in some form of art,
18:43
Speaker 1: attracted by the opportunities for practicing their talents in the
18:46
Speaker 1: United States. The political immigrants were relatively few, for since
18:50
Speaker 1: they had hopes of affecting conditions in their home lands,
18:53
Speaker 1: they preferred to find temporary refuge in some European country.
18:56
Speaker 1: The majority of immigrants came from those strata which had
18:59
Speaker 1: become accustomed to leaving their homes as migratory and seasonal workers.
19:03
Speaker 1: Most were scarcely literate and were little aware of the
19:05
Speaker 1: cultural progress that was going on in their homelands. At first,
19:09
Speaker 1: they came merely in the hope of saving up enough
19:11
Speaker 1: money to return and live with more comfort in their
19:13
Speaker 1: native villages, but it was not long before they either
19:17
Speaker 1: despaired of this or were attracted to the American mode
19:19
Speaker 1: of living and sent for their wives and families. Many
19:22
Speaker 1: of these early arrivals had little national consciousness, and the
19:25
Speaker 1: Slovaks and Ukrainians in particular reflected the conditions prevailing in
19:29
Speaker 1: the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The change from
19:32
Speaker 1: the hard but traditional life of the Slavic village to
19:34
Speaker 1: the confusion and grimness of the American mining or factory
19:37
Speaker 1: town was a disagreeable shock to many of these immigrants,
19:40
Speaker 1: for it was primarily the agricultural population of Eastern Europe
19:43
Speaker 1: that poured into the American factories and mines. The newcomers
19:47
Speaker 1: were exploited everywhere, and with their ignorance of English, were
19:49
Speaker 1: at a disadvantage in competing with their neighbors. However, they
19:53
Speaker 1: rapidly adapted themselves to their changed environment. They began to
19:57
Speaker 1: form various kinds of associations for their own advantage, and
20:00
Speaker 1: leaders of their own groups began to appear. Some of
20:04
Speaker 1: these were in scrupulous men who learned some English and
20:06
Speaker 1: didn't blush to drain money from their less fortunate comrades,
20:09
Speaker 1: but the number of those who seriously worked for the
20:12
Speaker 1: good of the immigration steadily grew and finally eliminated to
20:15
Speaker 1: a large extent, the more greedy and grasping pseudo leaders. Fifteen.
20:19
Speaker 1: The Slavic communities in the United States owe much to
20:22
Speaker 1: the priests who came to serve in the churches which
20:24
Speaker 1: they established in all the Slavic centers. Some of them
20:27
Speaker 1: had come with the authorization of their superiors in the
20:29
Speaker 1: Old World. Others simply followed the outflow from their villages
20:33
Speaker 1: and arrived in America with little more knowledge of conditions
20:36
Speaker 1: than their flocks. Their lack of familiarity with the legal
20:39
Speaker 1: conditions governing church property in the United States involved them
20:42
Speaker 1: in many difficulties. Even the immigrant Roman Catholic priests serving
20:47
Speaker 1: the Polls and Slovaks could not at first easily fit
20:50
Speaker 1: themselves into the framework of their church in the United States,
20:53
Speaker 1: and through misunderstandings they often got into controversies with the
20:55
Speaker 1: Roman Catholic hierarchy here consisting mainly of Irish and Germans,
21:00
Speaker 1: and all too often they were tempted to declare their
21:02
Speaker 1: complete independence and make needless issues over extra ritual customs
21:06
Speaker 1: and parish organization. The situation was even worse for the
21:09
Speaker 1: Catholic priests of the Eastern Rite Beuniats, who ministered to
21:13
Speaker 1: the Ukrainians from Galicia and the Carpathians. These people insisted
21:17
Speaker 1: at first upon a married clergy, and since they often
21:20
Speaker 1: came without proper credentials, they were looked at askance by
21:22
Speaker 1: the hierarchy, who had no experience or personal knowledge of
21:25
Speaker 1: this right. In addition, many of the priests from the
21:28
Speaker 1: Carpathians had been under strong Hungarian influence at home and
21:31
Speaker 1: found it difficult to serve their flocks adequately in the
21:34
Speaker 1: new World. The Russian Orthodox were somewhat better off, especially
21:38
Speaker 1: after the seat of the archbishopric was moved to New York,
21:41
Speaker 1: but there again many parishes indulged in almost continuous appeals
21:45
Speaker 1: to the civil authority against the administration of the church. However,
21:49
Speaker 1: by the end of World War EYE, most misunderstandings had
21:52
Speaker 1: been eliminated on all sides, and the way was open
21:55
Speaker 1: for smooth and steady development. Yet it was the priests
21:58
Speaker 1: who became the first community leader to guide the immigrants
22:01
Speaker 1: to a new and better life in which they retained
22:02
Speaker 1: as much as possible of their old traditions. They and
22:06
Speaker 1: the more experienced lay leaders played a great role in
22:08
Speaker 1: the organization of the Slavs into fraternal societies, which had
22:11
Speaker 1: risen in the United States even before the Revolution and
22:14
Speaker 1: since then had grown steadily and found a place both
22:16
Speaker 1: in American life and American law. On the payment of
22:20
Speaker 1: small sums, they provided protection to their members, payments in
22:23
Speaker 1: case of death or inability to work, end in some
22:25
Speaker 1: cases other assistance. The value of the system was early
22:29
Speaker 1: recognized by the Slavic leaders. At first, the societies were
22:33
Speaker 1: small and purely local, but in time the individual groups
22:36
Speaker 1: tended to unite into central organizations which acquired larger and
22:39
Speaker 1: larger capital resources. These societies, whether directly connected with churches
22:44
Speaker 1: or not, gradually came to form a distinctive feature of
22:47
Speaker 1: Slavak American life. Today, there is no Slavic group which
22:51
Speaker 1: does not have one or more such organization of national significance.
22:55
Speaker 1: Among the leaders are the Czechoslovak National Alliance, the Polish
22:58
Speaker 1: National Alliance, the Ukrainian National Association, the Serb National Federation,
23:02
Speaker 1: the Polish Roman Catholic Union, the Ukrainian Workingmen's Association, the
23:07
Speaker 1: Ukrainian Providence Association the Croatian National Alliance. They possess large
23:12
Speaker 1: reserve funds and are leaders in financial, social, political, and
23:16
Speaker 1: cultural work. Furthermore, as we shall see, it is out
23:20
Speaker 1: of these large, freely organized fraternal organizations, with or without
23:24
Speaker 1: church support, that certain forms of Slavic scholarship have developed
23:27
Speaker 1: in the United States. This was inconsiderable in the beginning,
23:31
Speaker 1: but it has grown and improved steadily and is destined
23:34
Speaker 1: to play a very important role in the future, especially
23:36
Speaker 1: in the case of those countries from which there has
23:38
Speaker 1: been an extensive immigration. Russian immigration has followed a quite
23:42
Speaker 1: different course. During the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire tried
23:46
Speaker 1: to channel all movement from home areas to Siberia instead
23:49
Speaker 1: of across the ocean. For this purpose, the government appropriated
23:53
Speaker 1: large sums of money and furnished transportation, first from the
23:56
Speaker 1: Black seaports to the Pacific coast and then later along
23:59
Speaker 1: the trans Siberian raigad. As a result, prior to nineteen
24:03
Speaker 1: o eight, almost the entire Russian immigration into the United
24:06
Speaker 1: States was from the non Russian areas in the northwest.
24:09
Speaker 1: This includes the Finns, the Lithuanians, the Poles, and the Jews,
24:13
Speaker 1: who began to leave Russia in large numbers in the
24:15
Speaker 1: nineties because of the anti Semitic outbreaks. The actual Russian
24:19
Speaker 1: population of Russian Alaska had been small, but during the
24:23
Speaker 1: second half of the nineteenth century, after its sail, a
24:26
Speaker 1: number of Russians drifted across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco.
24:30
Speaker 1: The seat of the Archbishopric of the Aleutian Islands and
24:33
Speaker 1: North America was moved from Sitka to San Francisco in
24:37
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred. There were enough Russians on the Atlantic coast
24:40
Speaker 1: to warrant Ticken, later Patriarch of Moscow, moving his episcopal
24:43
Speaker 1: seat to New York sixteen. This was done not only
24:46
Speaker 1: to serve the needs of the Russian Orthodox population, but
24:48
Speaker 1: to enable him to exert an influence on the Greeks
24:51
Speaker 1: and other Orthodox who had emigrated to the East Coast
24:54
Speaker 1: about one thousand, nine hundred and five. The difficulties between
24:58
Speaker 1: the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the cathol flicks of the
25:00
Speaker 1: Eastern Rite made opportune a Russian attempt to bring the
25:02
Speaker 1: Eastern Right adherents back to Orthodoxy. At the outbreak of
25:06
Speaker 1: World War I, the bulk of the Russian Orthodox Church
25:09
Speaker 1: in America consisted of converts from Galicia and the Carpathians.
25:13
Speaker 1: There also had been Russian immigration after the Revolutionary disturbances
25:16
Speaker 1: of nineteen o five, but in nineteen o four the
25:19
Speaker 1: actual Russian immigration in America was small, far less in
25:22
Speaker 1: numbers than any other Slavic group except the Bulgarians. By
25:26
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen, the Slavic communities in the United States, especially
25:29
Speaker 1: the Czechs, the Slovaks, and the Poles, were already well organized. These,
25:34
Speaker 1: with their national committees, played a considerable role in securing
25:38
Speaker 1: the independence of their homeland. They supported directly and through
25:41
Speaker 1: their American non Slavic friends, the work of Thomas G.
25:45
Speaker 1: Masaric and Ignace Paderewski. Similarly, Professor MICHAELAI Pupin stood out
25:50
Speaker 1: as the leader of the Serbs, and indeed of all
25:52
Speaker 1: the Yugoslavs. The Ukrainians were less fortunate, for at the
25:56
Speaker 1: moment they had no leader well known to the American public,
25:59
Speaker 1: and they encountered the opposition of both Russian and Polish groups,
26:02
Speaker 1: whose nations had dominated Ukraine for centuries. After World War One,
26:07
Speaker 1: the interrupted stream of immigration again broke through, and during
26:09
Speaker 1: the early years it assumed even larger proportions than it
26:12
Speaker 1: had previously. In addition, many white Russians who had fled
26:16
Speaker 1: from the Bolsheviks came to the United States. The cultural
26:20
Speaker 1: level of the Slavic communities rose rapidly, assisted by better
26:23
Speaker 1: educational opportunities for them both at home and in the immigration.
26:27
Speaker 1: A large number of highly educated Russians had come over
26:30
Speaker 1: in the opening of Washington legations for Poland, Czechoslovakia, and
26:33
Speaker 1: Yugoslavia gave the immigrants pride in their own origin and
26:36
Speaker 1: intensified their contact with cultural work being done in their
26:39
Speaker 1: liberated homelands. The same effect was achieved by the Ukrainian
26:43
Speaker 1: diplomatic mission to Washington under doctor Batchinsky and later doctor
26:47
Speaker 1: Luke Mishaw, although unfortunately this did not receive final recognition
26:50
Speaker 1: by the United States. In nineteen twenty four, this influx
26:55
Speaker 1: of immigrants was brought to a halt by the passing
26:57
Speaker 1: of American immigration laws, which introduced the principle of new
27:00
Speaker 1: national quotas and regulated the number of immigrants admitted each
27:02
Speaker 1: year by a ratio based upon previous arrivals. This penalized
27:07
Speaker 1: the Slavs severely, for their immigration had been relatively recent
27:10
Speaker 1: and their quotas were reduced almost to the vanishing point. Contrariwise,
27:14
Speaker 1: the peoples of Northern Europe who had arrived earlier were
27:17
Speaker 1: assigned quotas which they never filled. So from then until
27:21
Speaker 1: World War II, the American Slavic communities remained relatively static
27:25
Speaker 1: in numbers, growing only by natural increases. However, this was
27:29
Speaker 1: also a period when earlier efforts began to bear fruit,
27:32
Speaker 1: and Slavic cultural and financial importance increased rapidly. The second generation,
27:37
Speaker 1: educated in American schools was beginning to produce a new
27:40
Speaker 1: type of leadership. It took its place in the general
27:43
Speaker 1: American cultural, economic, and political life, with consequent results upon
27:47
Speaker 1: both the country as a whole and upon the Slavs.
27:51
Speaker 1: There was increased cooperation between the Slavs and the rest
27:53
Speaker 1: of the American population, a period of growth and development
27:56
Speaker 1: from within. After World War II, the displaced person from
28:00
Speaker 1: Europe began to enter the United States in large numbers.
28:04
Speaker 1: From nineteen thirty nine on, there came a surprisingly large
28:07
Speaker 1: number of highly educated persons, largely Poles, who were fleeing
28:10
Speaker 1: from both the Nazis and the Communists. These new arrivals
28:14
Speaker 1: revivified the intellectual and cultural interests of the older immigrants
28:17
Speaker 1: and their descendants, and furthermore, they brought the best traditions
28:21
Speaker 1: of education and scholarship from their homelands. We can thus
28:24
Speaker 1: divide the growth of Slavic influence into four periods. I
28:28
Speaker 1: from the beginning to eighteen forty eight. During this period,
28:32
Speaker 1: the immigrants arrived as individuals and with few exceptions, were
28:35
Speaker 1: absorbed rapidly and almost completely into the main streams of
28:38
Speaker 1: American life. Two from eighteen forty eight to nineteen twenty four.
28:44
Speaker 1: This was the period of the mass immigration, largely of
28:46
Speaker 1: unskilled laborers who came to secure the material benefits of
28:49
Speaker 1: life in the United States. Yet it was also the
28:53
Speaker 1: period when the general outlines of Slavic life in America
28:55
Speaker 1: were being sketched, organizational and church affiliations were made, and
28:59
Speaker 1: the immigrant groups were taking root as large units in
29:01
Speaker 1: the United States. Three. From nineteen twenty four to nineteen
29:06
Speaker 1: thirty nine, despite the almost complete lack of immigration, Slavic
29:10
Speaker 1: communities were beginning to attract the attention of the American public. Internally,
29:14
Speaker 1: they were completing their adaptation to the American mode of
29:17
Speaker 1: life with far greater success than had seen possible. A
29:20
Speaker 1: few decades before. Four Since World War II, most of
29:25
Speaker 1: the leaders who refused to accept communism have come to
29:27
Speaker 1: the United States. The outstanding scholars and artists have also
29:31
Speaker 1: come to find refuge. In some instances, it is no
29:35
Speaker 1: exaggeration to say that centers of the higher culture have
29:38
Speaker 1: been transferred to the United States. Simultaneously, the emergence of
29:42
Speaker 1: this country as the spokesman and champion of the free
29:45
Speaker 1: world has awakened far broader classes of the American public
29:47
Speaker 1: to the importance of the Slavs in the modern world,
29:49
Speaker 1: and has led to a greater demand for scholarship in
29:52
Speaker 1: those fields which concern the Slavic nations. There are thus
29:55
Speaker 1: two separate streams of Slavic scholarship in the United States.
30:00
Speaker 1: Is the normal inclusion of Slavic subjects, history, culture, and
30:03
Speaker 1: languages into the American universities and colleges. This has been
30:07
Speaker 1: a normal process of development, just as in other areas
30:10
Speaker 1: of study. Side by side with this, however, have been
30:14
Speaker 1: the efforts of the national Slavic groups in the United States.
30:18
Speaker 1: These two streams developed for many years in almost complete separation,
30:21
Speaker 1: but between the two World Wars they began to affect
30:24
Speaker 1: each other. Since World War II, the two streams are
30:27
Speaker 1: slowly but surely merging, and it is probable that in
30:29
Speaker 1: the future they will be completely consolidated, to the advantage
30:32
Speaker 1: of Slavak scholarship, the American people, and the entire free world,
30:36
Speaker 1: which still maintains those universal ideals that have come to
30:39
Speaker 1: dominate civilization. Chapter three, Slavic studies. In the nineteenth century,
30:43
Speaker 1: Slavic studies were slow in making a formal appearance in
30:46
Speaker 1: American colleges and universities. There were many reasons for this,
30:50
Speaker 1: not the least being the general submergence of the Slavic
30:53
Speaker 1: countries except Russia in the eighteenth century. At this period,
30:57
Speaker 1: the Slavic languages were little studied in German or France,
31:00
Speaker 1: far less in England, and thus their absence in the
31:03
Speaker 1: United States is readily understandable. In addition, the early American colleges,
31:08
Speaker 1: especially before the Civil War, had limited curricula. They were
31:12
Speaker 1: modeled on Oxford and Cambridge, but restricted in finances, libraries,
31:16
Speaker 1: and personnel. Their curricula were largely adapted to the presumed
31:19
Speaker 1: needs of the day. They were intended to prepare men
31:22
Speaker 1: for the Protestant ministry or the law enrollments were small
31:26
Speaker 1: and confined to certain groups of the population. There was
31:30
Speaker 1: relatively little broad intellectual interest in the country, although men
31:33
Speaker 1: like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or even Count Benjamin t.
31:36
Speaker 1: Rumford had won recognized places in the world of scholarship
31:39
Speaker 1: and of ideas. The modern languages, chiefly French, were taught
31:44
Speaker 1: more or less by the same methods as the accepted
31:46
Speaker 1: classical languages and Hebrew. It was only in the first
31:49
Speaker 1: quarter of the nineteenth century that George Ticknore introduced at
31:52
Speaker 1: Harvard detailed work on modern European literatures. This was followed
31:57
Speaker 1: in the twenties and the thirties by the introduction of
31:59
Speaker 1: some Spanish and Italian, largely influenced by the revolt of
32:02
Speaker 1: the Spanish colonies in South and Central America. We should
32:06
Speaker 1: not then be surprised that the earliest interest in the
32:08
Speaker 1: Slavic languages was shown by individuals who, by some means
32:11
Speaker 1: or another, had had contact with the Slavic world, and
32:14
Speaker 1: whose concern was more or less amateurish. Some of these
32:17
Speaker 1: men were college graduates. Others had had no formal connection
32:21
Speaker 1: with the colleges of the day, but had learned to
32:23
Speaker 1: know and appreciate Slavic culture, and had set themselves the
32:26
Speaker 1: task of making and publishing translations in America. These began
32:30
Speaker 1: to appear shortly after the War of eighteen twelve. The
32:33
Speaker 1: Napoleonic Wars and later the War with England had interfered
32:36
Speaker 1: with American trade and commerce, but had also stimulated American
32:39
Speaker 1: interest in Europe. This interest was also aroused by the
32:43
Speaker 1: Greek War for Independence and the formation of a group
32:45
Speaker 1: of Hellenophiles in New England. Even before this, in eighteen ten,
32:50
Speaker 1: the Congregationalists of Boston had established the American Board of
32:53
Speaker 1: Commissioners for Foreign Missions. It sent missionaries to the Near East,
32:57
Speaker 1: and these, originally working to convert the Mohammedans, soon transferred
33:01
Speaker 1: their activity to Orthodox Christians and to the foundation of
33:04
Speaker 1: such American missionary educational institutions as Robert's College and the
33:07
Speaker 1: American University in Beirut, later to play so prominent a
33:11
Speaker 1: part in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire. The visit
33:14
Speaker 1: of the Marquis d' lafayette in eighteen twenty five also
33:17
Speaker 1: recalled the American Revolution and the services of the various
33:20
Speaker 1: foreign officers who had served in the American Army, including
33:23
Speaker 1: Generals Pulaski and Koskyusco. Interest in Poland was again stirred
33:27
Speaker 1: by the Polish Uprising of eighteen thirty one seventeen. Thus,
33:30
Speaker 1: the growing American prosperity and the strengthening of the American
33:33
Speaker 1: national consciousness started a ferment which for a number of
33:36
Speaker 1: years caused a growing interest in some forms of Slavic
33:38
Speaker 1: culture in the United States, especially in New England. We
33:42
Speaker 1: must remember that this was before any mass Slavic immigration
33:45
Speaker 1: to the United States, although there were a considerable number
33:48
Speaker 1: of Slavs in the country, especially in the north and
33:50
Speaker 1: in the ocean shipping sections. The first translator of Russian
33:54
Speaker 1: poetry in the Anglo Saxon world was in all probability,
33:57
Speaker 1: William David Lewis eighteen. His career is typical of this period.
34:03
Speaker 1: Lewis was born in seventeen ninety two in Christiania, Newcastle County, Delaware.
34:09
Speaker 1: He received some education in Clarmont's Seminary and Lower Dublin Academy,
34:12
Speaker 1: and was then apprenticed to a merchant. However, his brother
34:16
Speaker 1: John D. Lewis, who was established in St. Petersburg as
34:21
Speaker 1: a merchant, asked his younger brother to join him in
34:23
Speaker 1: eighteen thirteen. This was during the War of eighteen twelve,
34:27
Speaker 1: and the young men, in order to get to Europe,
34:29
Speaker 1: secured a post as private secretary to the Peace Commissioners.
34:33
Speaker 1: He sailed for Europe in eighteen fourteen. Leaving his post
34:37
Speaker 1: at Gothenburg, he went on to s. T. Petersburg, where
34:39
Speaker 1: he spent most of his time until eighteen twenty four.
34:43
Speaker 1: Lewis had excellent connections in s. T. Petersburg. He met
34:47
Speaker 1: and became friendly with Count Nesselrode, with the Cossack leader Platov,
34:51
Speaker 1: and also with Nikita Ivanovitch Gretch, the editor of the
34:54
Speaker 1: Sinodo Kustva. He also seems to have met the elderly
34:57
Speaker 1: dean of Russian poetry, Gavrel roman Covitchdrjavan. It was perhaps
35:02
Speaker 1: under the influence of Dr Javin and Gretch that he
35:04
Speaker 1: began to translate Russian poetry. On January thirty first, eighteen
35:09
Speaker 1: twenty one, apparently while on a visit home, he published
35:12
Speaker 1: in the National Gazette and Literary Register of Philadelphia poem
35:15
Speaker 1: Stanzas by Yury Alexandrovitch Neladinsky Maletsky. Lewis was becoming especially
35:21
Speaker 1: interested in the pre Pushkin period of Russian poetry. However,
35:25
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty nine he also published in Philadelphia, where
35:28
Speaker 1: he made his home, a volume of translations entitled The
35:31
Speaker 1: Bakisarian Fountain and Other Poems, a name taken from one
35:34
Speaker 1: of Pushkin's early poems. Gretch saw to it that lewis
35:38
Speaker 1: book was appropriately reviewed and praised in the conservative Russian
35:41
Speaker 1: literary journals. However, Lewis was not primarily a man of letters,
35:45
Speaker 1: and his contribution ends here. Even before he left St. Petersburg,
35:51
Speaker 1: he had embarked upon a series of disputes with some
35:53
Speaker 1: of the American diplomatic representatives in the Russian capital, and
35:56
Speaker 1: the next decades he spent as a successful businessman and politician.
36:01
Speaker 1: For a time eighteen forty nine to eighteen fifty three,
36:04
Speaker 1: he was collector of customs in Philadelphia. He died in
36:07
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty one. Lewis was slightly ahead of the work
36:11
Speaker 1: of Sir John Boeing, who published in eighteen twenty one
36:14
Speaker 1: twenty three two volumes of specimens of the Russian poets.
36:18
Speaker 1: He followed these later with translations from Polish and Serb poetry,
36:21
Speaker 1: inspired by interest in the Serb folk songs the translations
36:25
Speaker 1: were widely read in the United States. The translations of
36:29
Speaker 1: Bowing and a special interest in the works of Mickevitch
36:32
Speaker 1: determined the career of James Gates Percival nineteen. He was
36:35
Speaker 1: born near Hartford, Connecticut, in seventeen ninety five, and was
36:39
Speaker 1: graduated from Yale in eighteen fifteen. A student of languages,
36:43
Speaker 1: a poet of stature, an excellent geologist, Percival was eccentric
36:47
Speaker 1: and somewhat of a recluse. His works attracted little more
36:50
Speaker 1: than local interest and were soon forgotten. He finally became
36:54
Speaker 1: the state geologist of Connecticut and later of Wisconsin, where
36:57
Speaker 1: he died in eighteen fifty six. More than twenty years
37:01
Speaker 1: though he had done Polish translations and contributed articles on
37:04
Speaker 1: Polish literature and history to various periodicals. Some of these
37:08
Speaker 1: were little more than a rewriting of articles published in
37:11
Speaker 1: European journals. For Percival new ten languages and was abreast
37:14
Speaker 1: of European developments. His knowledge of Polish was not too thorough,
37:18
Speaker 1: but at the period he influenced a group known as
37:20
Speaker 1: the Connecticut Wits, and is a good example of the
37:23
Speaker 1: American interests of the time. A more substantial contributor was
37:27
Speaker 1: the better known Talge twenty, the author of the Historical
37:30
Speaker 1: View of the Languages and Literatures of the Slavonic Nations.
37:33
Speaker 1: This was the first survey of the Slavic literatures after
37:36
Speaker 1: the works of Saffrik Talvech had a remarkable career. Her
37:41
Speaker 1: real name was Therese Albertin Louis Vaughan Jacob. She was
37:45
Speaker 1: born in Halle, Germany, in seventeen ninety seven, where a father,
37:48
Speaker 1: Ludwig Heinrich Vaughan Jacob, was a professor at the University
37:51
Speaker 1: of Halle. In eighteen o seven he was invited to
37:55
Speaker 1: give a series of lectures at the University of Kharkoff.
37:58
Speaker 1: Terise soon became a compon but a linguist, began to
38:01
Speaker 1: translate the novels of Sir Walter Scott into German, and
38:04
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty five published in German a collection of
38:06
Speaker 1: the Folks Leadered or Serbon, again in response to an
38:09
Speaker 1: interest in the Serb folk songs. In eighteen twenty eight
38:12
Speaker 1: she married Edward Robinson, an American congregational minister and scholar
38:16
Speaker 1: who was then a professor in the Union Theological Seminary
38:19
Speaker 1: in New York. Robinson was much interested in biblical archaeology,
38:23
Speaker 1: edited a popular religious journal, the Biblical Repository, and spent
38:27
Speaker 1: considerable time in the Biblical lands. He published his wife's
38:31
Speaker 1: work on Slavic literature in this journal in eighteen fifty.
38:35
Speaker 1: It was issued in book form. When Robinson died in
38:38
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty three, talvech her pen name was taken from
38:41
Speaker 1: the first letters of her name, returned to Germany. She
38:45
Speaker 1: died in eighteen seventy in Hamburg. Talve's book was probably
38:49
Speaker 1: the outstanding work on the Slavs done by a Nonslav
38:52
Speaker 1: in the first half of the century. Unfortunately, it attracted
38:55
Speaker 1: little attention, even though it was much sounder than were
38:58
Speaker 1: many of the studies written as much as a half
38:59
Speaker 1: set later. It received due recognition only after Slavic studies
39:04
Speaker 1: in the Anglo Saxon world had begun to find themselves
39:06
Speaker 1: and had shown a certain independence of thought. The approach
39:10
Speaker 1: of the American Civil War and American preoccupation with Western
39:13
Speaker 1: expansion turned interest away from Slavic themes. It was only
39:17
Speaker 1: near the end of the Civil War that we begin
39:19
Speaker 1: to find truly interested spokesmen for Slavic culture, and even
39:22
Speaker 1: then the leaders were men who had personal connections with
39:24
Speaker 1: the Slavic world, often through service in the American Diplomatic Corps.
39:29
Speaker 1: One of these was Jeremiah Curtain twenty one born near Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
39:34
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty. After a common school education and some
39:37
Speaker 1: study at Carroll College, Waukeshaw, Wisconsin, he went to Harvard,
39:40
Speaker 1: where he received his degree in eighteen sixty three. A
39:44
Speaker 1: few months later he met Admiral Lessovski and the other
39:47
Speaker 1: Russian naval officers in the fleet that visited New York.
39:50
Speaker 1: They induced him to go to Russia, and for a
39:52
Speaker 1: while he was secretary of the American legation there. On
39:56
Speaker 1: his return to the United States, he did some work
39:59
Speaker 1: on the folklore of the amer American Indian, but later
40:01
Speaker 1: returned to Russia and traveled extensively in the Caucasus. He
40:05
Speaker 1: wrote a great deal about his experiences, but achieved most
40:07
Speaker 1: of his fame by his translations of the novels of
40:10
Speaker 1: the Polish writer Henrik Sinkowitz. Sinkowitz's Cuovadis in Curtain's translation
40:15
Speaker 1: has kept its place as the most popular piece of
40:17
Speaker 1: Slavic literature in English. It has been produced several times
40:21
Speaker 1: in the movies and while Curtain's name is largely forgotten,
40:24
Speaker 1: his translations are still read, and Sinkowitz is still the
40:27
Speaker 1: best known figure in Polish literature among Americans. Another American
40:31
Speaker 1: born in the same year eighteen forty was Eugene Schuyler
40:36
Speaker 1: twenty two, a member of the celebrated Schuyler family. He
40:39
Speaker 1: was born in Ithaca and educated at Yale, where he
40:41
Speaker 1: graduated in eighteen fifty nine. He then went to the
40:45
Speaker 1: Columbia Law School, and, on leaving it in eighteen sixty three,
40:48
Speaker 1: entered the American diplomatic service. He was American consul in
40:52
Speaker 1: Moscow and Revel Tallin and Secretary of the American legations
40:56
Speaker 1: in St. Petersburg and Constantinople. While he held the latter post,
41:01
Speaker 1: he made a full report on the Turkish atrocities against
41:04
Speaker 1: the Bulgarians in eighteen seventy six. For a while he
41:07
Speaker 1: acted as Minister Resident in Greece, Romania and Serbia. He
41:12
Speaker 1: was regarded as somewhat too pro Russian, though, and in
41:14
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine the Senate refused to confirm him as
41:17
Speaker 1: Assistant Secretary of State. Schuyler died in eighteen ninety. His
41:22
Speaker 1: chief work was a two volume biography of Peter the Great,
41:25
Speaker 1: which appeared in eighteen eighty four and was the chief
41:27
Speaker 1: American historical work dealing with a Russian subject. While it
41:31
Speaker 1: has been outmoded by later historical research, the biography still
41:35
Speaker 1: stands as a monument to his scholarship and understanding of
41:37
Speaker 1: the Russian scene. George Kennan was slightly younger twenty three.
41:42
Speaker 1: He was born in eighteen forty five in Norwalk, Ohio.
41:46
Speaker 1: He received little formal education, but became an expert telegrapher
41:49
Speaker 1: and was used on important assignments by the Western Union
41:52
Speaker 1: Telegraph Company, including service in the telegraph office of the
41:55
Speaker 1: White House during the Civil War. As the Civil War
41:58
Speaker 1: drew to its close, the American and Russian governments became
42:01
Speaker 1: interested in a plan for linking San Francisco and St.
42:04
Speaker 1: Petersburg by telegraph. Parties of trained men were sent to
42:08
Speaker 1: various points in the northwest and too Siberia to make
42:11
Speaker 1: the preliminary surveys and to build the line. Kennon was
42:14
Speaker 1: placed in charge of the section that was working in
42:16
Speaker 1: the northern part of Siberia. He spent some years in
42:19
Speaker 1: the wilderness there and became familiar with the life of
42:22
Speaker 1: the native population, as well as the Russians. When construction
42:26
Speaker 1: was stopped. After the completion of the Atlantic Cable, Kennon
42:28
Speaker 1: traveled extensively in the Caucasus and spent some time in St. Petersburg.
42:33
Speaker 1: He recounted his experiences in a volume, Tent Life in Siberia,
42:36
Speaker 1: published in eighteen seventy. His familiarity with the natives of
42:40
Speaker 1: Siberia and the wilder tribes of the Caucasus led him
42:43
Speaker 1: to feel that Russia, with its multinational population, was in
42:46
Speaker 1: a way similar to the United States of his day,
42:48
Speaker 1: with its still unintegrated masses of immigrants and its still
42:51
Speaker 1: hostile Indian population. After working as a reporter and war correspondent,
42:56
Speaker 1: he was sent in eighteen eighty five by the Century
42:59
Speaker 1: Company to visit and rep on the Siberian prison camps.
43:02
Speaker 1: He was able to do this because of the many
43:04
Speaker 1: friends in high position that he had made during his
43:06
Speaker 1: previous visit. He was profoundly shocked by the conditions, and
43:10
Speaker 1: his attitude, previously friendly to the imperial regime, turned into
43:14
Speaker 1: utter disgust. He secured priceless material from the Russian revolutionists
43:18
Speaker 1: whom he met on his travels, and when he published
43:20
Speaker 1: it in The Century magazine and later in book form
43:23
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety one, Siberia and the Exile System. It
43:26
Speaker 1: speedily became one of the outstanding denunciations of the Imperial regime.
43:30
Speaker 1: It had much to do with opening the eyes of
43:32
Speaker 1: the Western world to the cruelty and barbarity of the
43:35
Speaker 1: Imperial Administration of Justice. George Kennon continued his work as
43:39
Speaker 1: a reporter and war correspondent in both the Spanish, American
43:42
Speaker 1: and Russo Japanese wars. He died in nineteen twenty four.
43:47
Speaker 1: The last of this group of nineteenth century amateurs was
43:50
Speaker 1: Isabel Florence Hapgood twenty four. She was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts,
43:54
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty. In past most of her early life
43:56
Speaker 1: in Worcester, she early became interested in transit, and after
44:00
Speaker 1: working in the chief European languages, began to teach herself Russian.
44:05
Speaker 1: She started work on translating Tolstoy and also published a
44:08
Speaker 1: book on the Biliny Epic songs of Russia. In eighteen
44:12
Speaker 1: eighty seven, she made her first visit to Russia and
44:14
Speaker 1: met many important officials and writers. For the next twenty years,
44:18
Speaker 1: she dominated the Russian translation field in the United States,
44:21
Speaker 1: with many translations from Tolstoy, Turgeniev, and other authors. In
44:26
Speaker 1: nineteen o six, she brought out her greatest piece of work,
44:28
Speaker 1: a translation and adaptation of the service books of the
44:31
Speaker 1: Russian Orthodox Church, for which she received a gold watch
44:34
Speaker 1: from Sar Nicholas two. The work was reprinted several times
44:38
Speaker 1: then and again after World War One by the Young
44:41
Speaker 1: Men's Christian Association in Paris. For years she was a
44:44
Speaker 1: well known figure at the services of the Russian Orthodox
44:47
Speaker 1: Cathedral in New York. She rarely missed a service, and
44:50
Speaker 1: she carefully explained the ritual and its significance to the
44:53
Speaker 1: Americans who attended. Miss Hapcold paid another visit to Russia
44:57
Speaker 1: during the winter of nineteen sixteen to nineteen seventeen, and
45:00
Speaker 1: on that occasion she was received by the Tsarina. She
45:04
Speaker 1: was in St. Petersburg when the Russian Revolution broke out.
45:07
Speaker 1: Her friends succeeded in getting her out of the capitol
45:10
Speaker 1: and in enabling her to return to the United States
45:12
Speaker 1: through Vladivostok. Before her death in nineteen twenty eight, she
45:16
Speaker 1: saw her work replaced in large part by newer translations,
45:19
Speaker 1: and she keenly felt the destruction of the old regime,
45:21
Speaker 1: with which she had been connected for almost half a century.
45:25
Speaker 1: Yet her importance as one of the first serious translators
45:27
Speaker 1: from Russian into English must not be forgotten. She still
45:31
Speaker 1: remains an interesting figure in American Russian relations. This brief
45:35
Speaker 1: review of the leading figures makes it clear that they
45:37
Speaker 1: worked outside the educational system of the United States. They
45:41
Speaker 1: were persons who had developed, for one reason or another,
45:44
Speaker 1: a personal interest in Slavak affairs. Many of them had
45:48
Speaker 1: lived in one capacity or another, largely as members of
45:51
Speaker 1: the American diplomatic service in some Slavic country. They were
45:55
Speaker 1: strict individualists and did not try to develop students or assistants.
45:59
Speaker 1: They were as they pleased and on what they pleased,
46:01
Speaker 1: and if their work was later recognized, they often paid
46:04
Speaker 1: no attention to it, except for the pride any person
46:06
Speaker 1: feels in recognition and honor. During this entire period, the
46:10
Speaker 1: colleges and universities had taken no part in the development
46:14
Speaker 1: the educational system, ignored both the Slavic culture and the
46:17
Speaker 1: steadily increasing number of Slavak immigrants. They continued the usual
46:21
Speaker 1: curricula and developed their courses and work in the traditional
46:24
Speaker 1: languages of Western Europe. Yet the results which these individuals
46:28
Speaker 1: had achieved cannot be overestimated. By the end of the century,
46:32
Speaker 1: the leading works of Russian literature, especially the novel, were
46:35
Speaker 1: generally known to American readers, though all too often from
46:38
Speaker 1: English versions of French and German translations. The appreciation of
46:43
Speaker 1: Polish culture had decreased during the century as the memory
46:45
Speaker 1: of Pulaski and Cosciusko faded, not without the active co
46:49
Speaker 1: operation of the representatives of Germany, Austria, Hungary and Russia,
46:53
Speaker 1: which had succeeded in removing Poland from the European map
46:56
Speaker 1: and in presenting Polish artists and writers as members of
46:58
Speaker 1: their own states. The culture of the other Slavic peoples
47:02
Speaker 1: was even less known and studied. Yet when we say this,
47:05
Speaker 1: we must never forget that the situation was little better
47:08
Speaker 1: in England. Even in France and Germany, Slavic studies had
47:12
Speaker 1: not really found themselves. It is true that professors like Jagic,
47:16
Speaker 1: August Leskian he Bernicer and A. Bruckner had already started
47:20
Speaker 1: on their brilliant careers. Morphil and later Nevill Forbes in
47:24
Speaker 1: England were trying to hold up a standard even there,
47:27
Speaker 1: though a study of the Slavic languages and culture, as
47:30
Speaker 1: well as the presentation of the great Russian novelists, was
47:33
Speaker 1: done in a highly out of context manner. So it
47:36
Speaker 1: also was in the United States, where interests had been
47:38
Speaker 1: concentrated in the hands of a few select individuals who
47:41
Speaker 1: had worked on their own and for their own pleasure.
47:44
Speaker 1: Chapter four. The beginning of formal study. The second half
47:46
Speaker 1: and particularly the last quarter of the nineteenth century was
47:49
Speaker 1: a period of rapid development in the American educational system.
47:53
Speaker 1: Even before the Civil War, ambitious young men dissatisfied with
47:57
Speaker 1: the rigid curricula of the American colleges, had begun to
48:00
Speaker 1: go to Europe, chiefly to Germany, to study and secure
48:03
Speaker 1: the degree of doctor of philosophy. To a large extent,
48:07
Speaker 1: the German universities came to take the place of even
48:09
Speaker 1: Oxford and Cambridge, the chief goals of the few pre
48:12
Speaker 1: Civil War students who had gone to Europe. In the
48:14
Speaker 1: same way, foreign scholars began to come to America again.
48:19
Speaker 1: These were largely German, or at least German trained. Some
48:22
Speaker 1: of these men received through some chance contact direct invitations,
48:27
Speaker 1: others forced by the shifts of German politics and the
48:30
Speaker 1: Revolution of eighteen forty eight, left their homes and joined
48:33
Speaker 1: the mass emigration to America that was already beginning. In
48:36
Speaker 1: either case, their influence was to the good. In eighteen
48:40
Speaker 1: sixty seven, JOHNS Hopkins University was established as a definite
48:44
Speaker 1: post graduate school, granting the doctorate. It was the first
48:48
Speaker 1: such establishment in the United States, and President Gilman secured
48:51
Speaker 1: a distinguished faculty, including such foreign scholars as Paul Hopt
48:54
Speaker 1: in Semitic languages and Maurice Bloomfield in Indo Iranian. Other
48:58
Speaker 1: outstanding men were soon appointed, and the ideals of German
49:01
Speaker 1: scholarship were solidly established. Undergraduate work at Hopkins was regarded
49:06
Speaker 1: as merely an incidental in the first years of the
49:08
Speaker 1: institution's life. The example of Johns Hopkins was not directly followed,
49:13
Speaker 1: but it exerted a marked influence upon some of the
49:15
Speaker 1: more important of the older institutions. Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Princeton,
49:20
Speaker 1: and a few others began to offer more advanced instruction,
49:23
Speaker 1: and step by step, the modern American graduate school, with
49:26
Speaker 1: its special course of study, was evolved. This process required
49:30
Speaker 1: some decades, and each institution approached the problem in its
49:33
Speaker 1: own way, integrating the new work in accordance with its
49:36
Speaker 1: own traditions. As these developing universities broadened their interests in
49:40
Speaker 1: the range of their activities, it was only natural that
49:43
Speaker 1: sooner or later they would come to take into consideration
49:45
Speaker 1: the study of the Slavic peoples and their culture, especially
49:48
Speaker 1: of Russia twenty five. The first step was taken at
49:50
Speaker 1: Harvard under the influence of Archibald Kerrey Coolidge twenty six.
49:55
Speaker 1: In a very real sense, Coolidge was typical of the
49:57
Speaker 1: men whom we have considered in the preceding chapter. He
50:01
Speaker 1: was born in Massachusetts in eighteen sixty six and graduated
50:04
Speaker 1: from Harvard in eighteen eighty seven. He then went to
50:07
Speaker 1: the University of Freiburg for his doctorate, receiving it in
50:10
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety two. During these five years, however, he took
50:14
Speaker 1: time out from his actual attendance at courses to serve
50:17
Speaker 1: as acting secretary of the United States legation in s. T.
50:20
Speaker 1: Petersburg in eighteen ninety to eighteen ninety one, and to
50:22
Speaker 1: act in eighteen ninety two as private secretary to his uncle,
50:26
Speaker 1: then United States Minister to France. He returned to the
50:30
Speaker 1: United States in eighteen ninety three and took a position
50:32
Speaker 1: in the Department of History at Harvard. The next year
50:35
Speaker 1: he introduced a course on the history of Northeastern Europe.
50:39
Speaker 1: This was, in other words, a course in Russian and
50:42
Speaker 1: Polish history. It was the first time anyone had offered
50:45
Speaker 1: a course covering Russia which did not view her history
50:47
Speaker 1: solely in terms of contacts with the West. The Eastern Question,
50:50
Speaker 1: the fate of the Ottoman Empire, and the relations of
50:53
Speaker 1: Russia with the countries of Western Europe. Professor Coolidge was
50:56
Speaker 1: an enthusiast and was deeply convinced of an American need
50:59
Speaker 1: to study this lilat world. He expounded these views in
51:02
Speaker 1: a paper delivered before the American Historical Association in eighteen
51:06
Speaker 1: ninety five. By the next year he had added a
51:09
Speaker 1: course at Harvard on the Eastern Question. At about the
51:12
Speaker 1: same time he secured the appointment of Leo Wiener as
51:15
Speaker 1: professor of Russian Literature. This marked the actual beginning of
51:19
Speaker 1: Slavic studies in an American university. Professor Coolidge never gave
51:23
Speaker 1: up his interest in the work. In addition to the
51:26
Speaker 1: courses that he gave, he superintended the building of the
51:28
Speaker 1: Slavic collection in the Harvard Library and served constantly as
51:31
Speaker 1: an adviser to the United States government on Slavic matters.
51:35
Speaker 1: He brought out in nineteen fifteen a volume on the
51:38
Speaker 1: origin of the Triple Alliance, and during World War I,
51:41
Speaker 1: was one of the committee of scholars formed under the
51:43
Speaker 1: leadership of Colonel House to prepare materials for the American
51:45
Speaker 1: delegation at the Peace Conference. In nineteen eighteen, he served
51:50
Speaker 1: as a special representative of the American government in Sweden
51:52
Speaker 1: and North Russia, and in nineteen twenty one he was
51:55
Speaker 1: sent by the American Red Cross to negotiate with the
51:57
Speaker 1: Bolshevik government on famine relief. In nineteen twenty two, he
52:01
Speaker 1: founded Foreign Affairs, the organ of the American Council on
52:04
Speaker 1: Foreign Relations and the leading journal in this field. He
52:08
Speaker 1: personally acted as editor until nineteen twenty seven, when he
52:11
Speaker 1: relinquished the task to Hamilton Fish Armstrong, who had been
52:13
Speaker 1: in the American service in Serbia during World War I.
52:17
Speaker 1: When Professor Coolidge died in nineteen twenty eight, he was
52:20
Speaker 1: the undisputed dean of American Slavic historians and the inspiration
52:23
Speaker 1: for a large part of the work that was then
52:25
Speaker 1: being done in the United states. His influence on the
52:28
Speaker 1: development of studies in history was greater than that of
52:31
Speaker 1: Leo Weener on languages and literature. Leo Weener eighteen sixty
52:36
Speaker 1: two to nineteen thirty nine published in nineteen o two
52:39
Speaker 1: and nineteen o three in Anthology of Russian Literature. This
52:43
Speaker 1: incorporated almost all the translations previously made, including excerpts from
52:47
Speaker 1: the greater Russian writers. The first volume, which included Russian
52:51
Speaker 1: literature up to Kremsen, still remains the best collection in
52:54
Speaker 1: English of the older literature. Where translations were unavailable, Professor
52:58
Speaker 1: Weener made his own in He also published in nineteen
53:02
Speaker 1: o four and nineteen o five a translation of the
53:05
Speaker 1: chief works of Tolstoy. Unfortunately, in his later years he
53:09
Speaker 1: lost interest in Russian and devoted his energies to studies
53:12
Speaker 1: of Alphylas and the Gothic texts, and many other questions
53:15
Speaker 1: far removed from his original field. A great many of
53:18
Speaker 1: the scholars who became prominent in Slavic history before and
53:21
Speaker 1: during World War I were students of Professor Coolidge, who
53:24
Speaker 1: thus became the dominant force in the development of historical
53:26
Speaker 1: studies for many years. Among these was Frank A. Golder
53:30
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy seven nineteen twenty nine, who developed Russian history
53:34
Speaker 1: at Stanford University. He stressed, as we might expect the
53:38
Speaker 1: American contact with Russia in the North Pacific and the
53:41
Speaker 1: Russian explorations in that area. In nineteen fourteen, he published
53:45
Speaker 1: Russian Expansion in the Pacific sixteen forty one to eighteen
53:48
Speaker 1: fifty and later edited the accounts of Barings Voyages. Another
53:53
Speaker 1: of Coolidge's students was Robert J. Kerner eighteen eighty seven
53:56
Speaker 1: to nineteen fifty six. Born in Chicago, Uner took his
54:00
Speaker 1: a b. At the University of Chicago and then, after
54:03
Speaker 1: study in Europe, received his pH d from Harvard in
54:06
Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen. He was at first connected with the University
54:10
Speaker 1: of Missouri, but in nineteen twenty eight went to the
54:12
Speaker 1: University of California at Berkeley, where he spent the rest
54:15
Speaker 1: of his life. He was made Sava Professor of European
54:19
Speaker 1: History in nineteen forty one. When he retired in nineteen
54:23
Speaker 1: fifty four, he was also director of the Slavic Institute
54:26
Speaker 1: of the University of California. Professor Kerner, who was of
54:30
Speaker 1: Czech origin, did most of his work in Czech history,
54:33
Speaker 1: especially the period following the Battle of the White Mountain.
54:36
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty two, he published Bohemia in the eighteenth Century,
54:40
Speaker 1: a study in political, social, and economic history, with special
54:44
Speaker 1: reference to the reign of Leopold Io seventeen ninety to
54:47
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety two. He published other works on the Western
54:51
Speaker 1: Slavs and the Balkans. He was recognized by the scientific
54:55
Speaker 1: societies of both Czechoslovakia and Romania before World War II,
54:58
Speaker 1: and was decorated Commander the White Lion of Czechoslovakia and
55:02
Speaker 1: Officer of the Crown of Romania. Belgium also honored him
55:05
Speaker 1: for his work at the Peace Conference of nineteen nineteen,
55:08
Speaker 1: as well as for later services. Another pupil of Professor Coolidge,
55:12
Speaker 1: Robert Howard Lord eighteen eighty five to nineteen fifty four,
55:16
Speaker 1: took his degree in Harvard in nineteen ten and remained
55:19
Speaker 1: there on the faculty. In nineteen fifteen, he published The
55:22
Speaker 1: Second Division of Poland. During and shortly after World War II,
55:26
Speaker 1: he was very active in Polished studies and served on
55:29
Speaker 1: the House Commission of Scholars to prepare materials for the
55:31
Speaker 1: Peace Conference in nineteen nineteen. However, he suddenly gave up
55:36
Speaker 1: this field of scholarship, resigned his post completely, withdrew from
55:39
Speaker 1: previous scholarly contacts, and began to study for the Roman
55:42
Speaker 1: Catholic priesthood. Perhaps the most important of all of the
55:46
Speaker 1: Harvard students of this period was George for Paulnois eighteen
55:49
Speaker 1: seventy three to nineteen fifty two. A native of Massachusetts,
55:53
Speaker 1: he studied with Professor Weener from eighteen ninety eight to
55:57
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred. He held a Harvard University fell ship for
56:00
Speaker 1: study at St. Petersburg. Upon his return, he spent a
56:04
Speaker 1: year as assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin,
56:07
Speaker 1: and then went to the University of California as assistant
56:10
Speaker 1: professor of English and Russian. In the first year of
56:13
Speaker 1: his work at California, he had only five students in
56:15
Speaker 1: Russian and one in Czech, but as the numbers grew,
56:18
Speaker 1: he gradually dropped his work in English, and by World
56:20
Speaker 1: War II was able to devote himself entirely to Slavic studies.
56:24
Speaker 1: During the war, he secured Alexander Kohn as his assistant.
56:28
Speaker 1: Kown was born in Russia in eighteen eighty nine and
56:31
Speaker 1: studied from nineteen o five to nineteen o seven in
56:33
Speaker 1: the Free University of St. Petersburg. He then came to
56:37
Speaker 1: the United States and from nineteen o nine to nineteen
56:39
Speaker 1: sixteen taught Hebrew in Chicago. He went to California and
56:43
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen became assistant in Russian. He took his
56:47
Speaker 1: MA and pH d therein remained on the faculty, rising
56:52
Speaker 1: to the rank of professor in nineteen forty three. Kown
56:55
Speaker 1: was decidedly leftist in his sympathies and was a typical
56:58
Speaker 1: member of the Russian intelligentsia in it fame it's narrowest sense,
57:01
Speaker 1: he was one of that group far more interested in
57:03
Speaker 1: theoretical than practical reforms. This brought him very close to
57:08
Speaker 1: those members of the intelligentsia who were most inclined to
57:10
Speaker 1: sympathize with Communism. It determined his views on Maxim Gorky
57:14
Speaker 1: and Andrea, the subject of two of his works. He
57:17
Speaker 1: also contributed many articles on Soviet literature. Professor Kaun died
57:22
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty four. In nineteen twenty, George Z. Patrick
57:28
Speaker 1: was added to the University of California's staff. Born in
57:31
Speaker 1: Nisney in eighteen eighty three, Patrick traced his name and
57:34
Speaker 1: ancestry to an Irishman who went to Russia after the
57:37
Speaker 1: Battle of the Boyn in sixteen ninety educated in the
57:40
Speaker 1: facult To Droit in Paris and the Moscow Law School,
57:43
Speaker 1: from which he was graduated. In nineteen twelve, he came
57:46
Speaker 1: to America with one of the Russian commissions sent by
57:48
Speaker 1: the provisional government after its fall. He went to California
57:52
Speaker 1: and in nineteen twenty was appointed lecturer in French and Russian.
57:56
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty three he dropped his French work and
57:58
Speaker 1: devoted himself entirely to Russian. In nineteen forty he was
58:02
Speaker 1: appointed to a full professorship. However, his health was poor,
58:06
Speaker 1: and after years of suffering in long periods of inability
58:09
Speaker 1: to work, he died of tuberculosis in nineteen forty four.
58:13
Speaker 1: Patrick was undoubtedly the best teacher of Russian that the
58:16
Speaker 1: American universities have had. He was a charming and sincere man,
58:20
Speaker 1: and was the best beloved professor in the field. The
58:23
Speaker 1: addition of Count and Patrick to the staff at the
58:25
Speaker 1: University of California allowed Noise to give up most of
58:28
Speaker 1: his Russian work and devote himself primarily to Polish. He
58:32
Speaker 1: visited Poland in nineteen twenty one and was welcomed at
58:34
Speaker 1: the University of Krakow, where he stayed for some months.
58:38
Speaker 1: The Polish government decorated him as Commander of Polonia Arrestituta,
58:41
Speaker 1: and several Polish scholarly societies elected him to membership. Even
58:45
Speaker 1: in his early days at California, Noise commenced his work
58:48
Speaker 1: of translation. Among the earliest was a collaboration the heroic
58:52
Speaker 1: poems of Servia with Leonard Bacon of the English Department. Later, Noise,
58:57
Speaker 1: with the aid of numerous assistants, translated most of the
59:00
Speaker 1: important works of Mikovich, Slowaki and Krasinsky, and also many
59:04
Speaker 1: Russian dramas, including a volume Masterpieces of Russian drama, ranging
59:09
Speaker 1: from Fonvezen to Mayakovsky. It was his practice to write
59:12
Speaker 1: out a very careful prose translation and then have some
59:15
Speaker 1: of his students and associates set them when necessary into verse.
59:19
Speaker 1: Nois really founded a special school of translation. He was
59:23
Speaker 1: an earnest and sincere student, mild but demanding, especially of himself.
59:28
Speaker 1: He carefully laid out his projected work for years in advance,
59:31
Speaker 1: and maintained a rigid schedule. Any pressure of university duties
59:35
Speaker 1: or unforeseen calls upon his time. He met by including
59:38
Speaker 1: in his work schedule all those periods which he had
59:40
Speaker 1: left himself for vacations. When he died in nineteen fifty two,
59:44
Speaker 1: he was the last of the old generation. He left
59:47
Speaker 1: a gap in Slavic scholarship that has not yet been filled.
59:51
Speaker 1: The interest in Russian on the Pacific coast was reflected
59:54
Speaker 1: not only in the appointment of Golder to Stanford's History department.
59:58
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighteen, Henry Lamb was appointed professor of Russian
1:00:01
Speaker 1: literature and philosophy there. Lands had been born in Moscow
1:00:05
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty six. He was not a very prolific writer,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: but one of his works on rhythm of language received
1:00:11
Speaker 1: a prize from Sweden. Just before the outbreak of World
1:00:15
Speaker 1: War II, he made another trip to Europe and state
1:00:17
Speaker 1: for some time in one of the monasteries on Mount Athos.
1:00:21
Speaker 1: He died in nineteen forty five. Another outstanding figure of
1:00:25
Speaker 1: the period was Samuel Ann Harper eighteen eighty two to
1:00:29
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three of the University of Chicago. Harper was
1:00:33
Speaker 1: the son of the first president of the University of Chicago.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: He studied in the Eculda long Zorentals in Paris, and
1:00:40
Speaker 1: was closely associated with the group of English Slavists who,
1:00:43
Speaker 1: under the leadership of Sir Bernard Pears kbe gathered at
1:00:47
Speaker 1: the University of Liverpool and after the war formed the
1:00:50
Speaker 1: School of Slavonic Studies at the University of London. Harper
1:00:53
Speaker 1: was in Russia with Pears during the Revolution of nineteen
1:00:56
Speaker 1: o five and was very friendly with such liberal Russian
1:00:59
Speaker 1: leaders as Paume Yuka. In nineteen o six he published
1:01:02
Speaker 1: an English translation of Boyer and Speransky's Russian Reader, and
1:01:06
Speaker 1: in nineteen o eight a volume on the new electoral
1:01:08
Speaker 1: Law for the Duma. Through his connections at the University
1:01:11
Speaker 1: in Charles R. Krane, both Milyukov and Maxim Kovalevsky were
1:01:15
Speaker 1: brought to Chicago for lectures. Harper was a constant adviser
1:01:19
Speaker 1: to the United States government on Russian affairs. He was
1:01:22
Speaker 1: convinced that the Russian people, if they had the power,
1:01:25
Speaker 1: would definitely accept the Anglo Saxon theories of democracy, a
1:01:29
Speaker 1: position which he maintained in his dealing with the Russian
1:01:31
Speaker 1: emigres after the revolution. He was solidly anti Bolshevik, but
1:01:35
Speaker 1: in the thirties he accepted an invitation to visit Moscow
1:01:38
Speaker 1: about the same time as Pears did. Harper had a
1:01:41
Speaker 1: wide knowledge of Russian history, and when he was not traveling,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: lectured in Chicago and conducted courses in Russian. Yet he
1:01:48
Speaker 1: did not build the Department of Russian and despite the
1:01:51
Speaker 1: large Slavic population of the city, showed little interest in
1:01:54
Speaker 1: introducing other Slavic languages or cultures. Another important center started
1:01:59
Speaker 1: just as World War I was beginning, was at Columbia University.
1:02:03
Speaker 1: Although doctor Judah A. Joff had been appointed a lecturer
1:02:07
Speaker 1: in Russian for one year in nineteen o nine to
1:02:09
Speaker 1: prepare some articles and lectures on Russian literature for a
1:02:12
Speaker 1: volume on European literatures which the university was publishing, the
1:02:15
Speaker 1: serious work was begun only when John Dineley Prince, then
1:02:18
Speaker 1: professor of Semitic languages and an authority on Assyrian and Sumerian,
1:02:23
Speaker 1: offered courses in Russian and Slavonic philology. Prince was born
1:02:27
Speaker 1: in Paterson, New Jersey, in eighteen sixty eight, and was
1:02:30
Speaker 1: an eighteen eighty eight graduate of Columbia. He took his
1:02:34
Speaker 1: doctorate at JOHNS Hopkins in Semitic and conducted excavations in Mesopotamia.
1:02:38
Speaker 1: He was later dean of the Graduate School of New
1:02:41
Speaker 1: York University, and then was brought to Columbia. In addition
1:02:44
Speaker 1: to his academic work, Prince was greatly interested in conservative
1:02:48
Speaker 1: New Jersey Republican politics. He served as both Speaker of
1:02:52
Speaker 1: the House and President of the New Jersey Senate when
1:02:54
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson was governor. In nineteen twenty one, President Harding
1:02:58
Speaker 1: appointed him United States Minister to Denmark, and President Coolidge
1:03:01
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty six transferred him to Yugoslavia. He was
1:03:05
Speaker 1: absent from the university therefore from nineteen twenty one to
1:03:08
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three, when, as an ardent Republican, he retired
1:03:11
Speaker 1: from the diplomatic service after the election of President Franklin
1:03:14
Speaker 1: Delano Roosevelt. Prince was an unusually talented linguist who fluently
1:03:18
Speaker 1: spoke nearly all European languages, including Hungarian and Turkish. He
1:03:23
Speaker 1: was also a master of several Algonquin Indian dialects and
1:03:26
Speaker 1: a masterly singer of folk songs. He had previously turned
1:03:30
Speaker 1: this unusual ability to good use in his political campaigns
1:03:33
Speaker 1: among the New Jersey voters of various foreign nationalities. When
1:03:37
Speaker 1: he turned to Slavic, he easily mastered nearly all the
1:03:40
Speaker 1: languages and soon was able to speak them readily. In addition,
1:03:44
Speaker 1: he was an excellent philologist, and it was in this
1:03:46
Speaker 1: field that he most enjoyed himself. He published a Russian
1:03:49
Speaker 1: grammar in nineteen nineteen, under great difficulties because of the
1:03:52
Speaker 1: general lack of proper type. Later he published grammars of
1:03:56
Speaker 1: both Latvian and Serbo Croatian. He was also a great
1:04:00
Speaker 1: friend of Professor Michael ay Pupin, the distinguished Serb professor
1:04:04
Speaker 1: of electricity. All these abilities made him determined not to
1:04:08
Speaker 1: allow the department at Columbia to be limited only to Russian.
1:04:12
Speaker 1: He offered courses in nineteen fourteen on a graduate level
1:04:15
Speaker 1: with Ivans Andreyevski as assistant. At the same time, through
1:04:20
Speaker 1: university extension, he started credit courses in Polish with Dr
1:04:24
Speaker 1: Albert moroskyn Wench as instructor. Doctor moroskyn Wench was a
1:04:28
Speaker 1: Polish journalist and editor who had received his doctorate at
1:04:31
Speaker 1: the University of Vienna. Czech was offered by Alloys Koukol,
1:04:35
Speaker 1: a Presbyterian minister born in kutnah Ora and educated in Prague.
1:04:40
Speaker 1: In addition to these courses, Prince opened in Columbia University
1:04:43
Speaker 1: Extension a special school of spoken languages. These were non
1:04:47
Speaker 1: credit courses, and Prince hoped to develop them in time
1:04:50
Speaker 1: into something like the call the long Zorine toals. Courses
1:04:53
Speaker 1: were offered in some twenty languages. This undertaking was nipped
1:04:57
Speaker 1: in its infancy by Prince's appointment to Denmark, for after
1:05:00
Speaker 1: his departure the original program was abandoned. It had considerable
1:05:04
Speaker 1: effect for some years, however, both upon the Department of
1:05:07
Speaker 1: Slavonic Languages and several others. In nineteen seventeen, Prince invited
1:05:12
Speaker 1: Clarence A. Manning to be lecturer in Slavonic Languages. Manning
1:05:16
Speaker 1: had received his doctorate in Greek and Latin at Columbia
1:05:19
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifteen and had become interested in Russian while
1:05:22
Speaker 1: on a cutting fellowship traveling in Europe at the outbreak
1:05:24
Speaker 1: of World War EYE. He was on leave of absence
1:05:28
Speaker 1: from the university in nineteen eighteen to nineteen nineteen while
1:05:31
Speaker 1: serving in the Corps of Intelligence Police and the Translation
1:05:33
Speaker 1: Section m I six of the United States Army War College.
1:05:38
Speaker 1: During Prince's absence, he served as acting executive officer of
1:05:41
Speaker 1: the department. On his return to Columbia in nineteen thirty three,
1:05:45
Speaker 1: Prince resumed his professorship, but because of failing health and eyesight,
1:05:49
Speaker 1: he retired in nineteen thirty seven. He died in nineteen
1:05:52
Speaker 1: forty five. In this early period, two doctorates were conferred.
1:05:57
Speaker 1: One was conferred on mister Avram Yarmolinsky, director of the
1:06:02
Speaker 1: Slavic Department of the New York Public Library, for a
1:06:05
Speaker 1: study of Dostoyevsky's ideology, the other on Millivoy s Stanievitch
1:06:09
Speaker 1: for a work on early Yugoslav literature. In addition to
1:06:13
Speaker 1: these main centers, there were several other developments worthy of mention.
1:06:17
Speaker 1: Professor William Lyon Phelps, the Distinguished Professor of English at
1:06:20
Speaker 1: Yale University, published in nineteen eleven a popular work, Essays
1:06:24
Speaker 1: on the Russian Novelists. He was assisted in preparing this
1:06:28
Speaker 1: by Max S. Mandel, who for a decade continued to
1:06:30
Speaker 1: give courses in the Russian language. Mandel also published a
1:06:34
Speaker 1: translation of the plays of Turgenev and several other works.
1:06:38
Speaker 1: Professor Clarence L. Meder, of the Department of Classics at
1:06:40
Speaker 1: the University of Michigan also introduced courses in Russian and
1:06:43
Speaker 1: published a translation of the plays of Andreev. Professor Harald H.
1:06:49
Speaker 1: Bender of Princeton, starting from a study of linguistics, came
1:06:52
Speaker 1: to stress the influence of the Baltic and Slavic languages,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: especially Lithuanian. In neither case was there a department definitely
1:06:59
Speaker 1: establish at this time. There were also a great many
1:07:02
Speaker 1: professors in various other fields who did valuable work on
1:07:05
Speaker 1: Slavic subjects. It would be impossible to list all of
1:07:09
Speaker 1: these works, though some should be mentioned. Professor Vladimir Simkovitch
1:07:13
Speaker 1: was appointed a professor of economic history at Columbia in
1:07:16
Speaker 1: nineteen o four. There he continued work which he had
1:07:19
Speaker 1: started at the University of Jena in eighteen ninety nine
1:07:22
Speaker 1: On Day Felgemeinschaft in Russland and in nineteen o eight
1:07:25
Speaker 1: Die Bouern Befraying in Russland. Several dissertations on Slavic subjects
1:07:30
Speaker 1: were accepted by the Faculty of Political Science at Columbia,
1:07:33
Speaker 1: such as the Eastern Question by Professor Stephen Duggan in
1:07:36
Speaker 1: nineteen o two, in the Making of the Balkan States
1:07:38
Speaker 1: by W. S. Murray in nineteen ten. Professor Alish Herdliska,
1:07:43
Speaker 1: the distinguished Czech anthropologist and authority on the population of
1:07:46
Speaker 1: the Aleutian Islands, published several works on the Czechs and
1:07:49
Speaker 1: on the races of Russia for the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection
1:07:52
Speaker 1: for nineteen nineteen. Professor E. A. Ross, A, sociologist of
1:07:57
Speaker 1: the University of Wisconsin, was in Russia during the revolution
1:08:00
Speaker 1: and published Russia in Upheaval in nineteen eighteen, Russian Bolshevik
1:08:04
Speaker 1: Revolution in nineteen twenty one, and Russian Soviet Republics in
1:08:07
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four. Paul R. Raidosavotevitch, professor of experimental psychology
1:08:13
Speaker 1: at New York University, published in nineteen nineteen the two
1:08:16
Speaker 1: volume work Who Are the Slavs. This was a serious
1:08:20
Speaker 1: attempt to study Slavic psychology and to identify, if possible,
1:08:23
Speaker 1: features common to all Slavic nations. A psychology professor Will S.
1:08:29
Speaker 1: Monroe of the New Jersey State Normal School in Montclair,
1:08:32
Speaker 1: traveled extensively in both Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria and published Bohemians
1:08:37
Speaker 1: and Czechs in nineteen ten and Bulgaria and its People
1:08:39
Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen. Other men who were active some of
1:08:43
Speaker 1: them students of Professor Coolidge were Professor Arthur I. Andrews.
1:08:47
Speaker 1: Tuft's College, Professor A. J. Shipman Princeton, Professor Sidney Bradshaw
1:08:52
Speaker 1: fey Smith College, and Professor Bernadot Schmidt University of Chicago.
1:08:58
Speaker 1: Most of these new Russian or one of the slot
1:09:00
Speaker 1: Lavic languages, but at this period there was no generally
1:09:02
Speaker 1: accepted rule that the students of Slavic themes had to
1:09:04
Speaker 1: be familiar with the original sources, and many of the
1:09:07
Speaker 1: dissertations and books published were by men who used materials
1:09:09
Speaker 1: available in French, German, or rarely Latin. There were also
1:09:14
Speaker 1: many scholarly books by persons who had little or no
1:09:16
Speaker 1: university connections. Included in these are the translations of Russian
1:09:21
Speaker 1: poetry by Bobbet Deutsch, the wife of doctor Yarmolinsky, and
1:09:24
Speaker 1: the volumes by Julius F. Hecker. America's entrance into World
1:09:28
Speaker 1: War I revealed the American people's need for more accurate
1:09:31
Speaker 1: knowledge of Slavic affairs. This was especially shown by the
1:09:35
Speaker 1: confusion which prevailed even in official circles concerning the Russian
1:09:39
Speaker 1: Revolution and the rise of Bolshevism twenty seven. It became
1:09:43
Speaker 1: still more apparent when the Committee brought together, through the
1:09:45
Speaker 1: efforts of Colonel Edward M. House, to consider the effect
1:09:48
Speaker 1: of the peace found themselves hampered by lack of material
1:09:51
Speaker 1: on the non Russian peoples of the Russian Empire. The
1:09:54
Speaker 1: German materials on these people were suspect, and the Russian
1:09:57
Speaker 1: assealed book to all except a very few of the
1:09:59
Speaker 1: committee members, and there was almost no one to deal
1:10:01
Speaker 1: with materials in the native languages, especially when the material
1:10:05
Speaker 1: was not Slaviac. Before the war, German had been the
1:10:08
Speaker 1: chief foreign language taught in the American schools and universities. However,
1:10:13
Speaker 1: hostilities brought general anger against the Germans, and also against
1:10:16
Speaker 1: certain German professors who placed themselves all too readily at
1:10:19
Speaker 1: the service of the German government. This resulted in widespread
1:10:23
Speaker 1: opposition to the use of German, and in fact, to
1:10:26
Speaker 1: any foreign language. Some states, such as Nebraska, where there
1:10:30
Speaker 1: was a large population of German origin, went so far
1:10:33
Speaker 1: as to forbid the teaching of any foreign language within
1:10:35
Speaker 1: the limits of the state, a band which was later
1:10:37
Speaker 1: overruled by the United States Supreme Court. Even where this
1:10:41
Speaker 1: extreme was not reached, the number of students of German
1:10:44
Speaker 1: declined almost to nothing. In Many members of the university
1:10:47
Speaker 1: faculties either were dropped from their posts or were faced
1:10:49
Speaker 1: with that possibility. In this crisis, and in the hope
1:10:53
Speaker 1: that the Russian Revolution would promote democratic contacts and trade
1:10:56
Speaker 1: with the United States, some of these former German professors
1:10:58
Speaker 1: announced courses in Russia. There was often something humorous and
1:11:02
Speaker 1: grotesque about this, for there were few, if any text books,
1:11:05
Speaker 1: and the professors themselves had little knowledge of the language.
1:11:08
Speaker 1: The situation in some cases was scandalous. There is little
1:11:12
Speaker 1: reason to do more than mention the existence of the situation.
1:11:16
Speaker 1: Even well known scholars lent themselves to it, only to
1:11:19
Speaker 1: report a few years later that there was no call
1:11:21
Speaker 1: for Russian. As a result, the sudden flurry of Russian
1:11:25
Speaker 1: courses was without result, and in the years after the
1:11:27
Speaker 1: war they were more or less quietly abandoned. It accentuated
1:11:31
Speaker 1: the common notion that Russian could not be learned, an
1:11:34
Speaker 1: idea energetically fostered for various reasons. No one took the
1:11:38
Speaker 1: trouble to realize that the necessary preliminaries, such as the
1:11:41
Speaker 1: publication of grammars, were yet to be done. There were
1:11:44
Speaker 1: no books available save a few published in England, and
1:11:47
Speaker 1: no real teachers, save some chance immigrants, who owed their
1:11:50
Speaker 1: opportunities more to good fortune than to ability or training.
1:11:54
Speaker 1: Yet the war period did serve to strengthen those departments
1:11:56
Speaker 1: which had been previously established. It brought a few new
1:12:00
Speaker 1: individuals into the picture, and above all, it aroused a
1:12:02
Speaker 1: sense of need that was slowly to be satisfied. Chapter five,
1:12:06
Speaker 1: Slavic efforts before World War One. In the preceding chapters
1:12:10
Speaker 1: dealing with the gradual development of an intellectual interest in
1:12:12
Speaker 1: Slavic questions, we have largely ignored the activity of Slavic
1:12:16
Speaker 1: groups in the United States. This was deliberate, for the
1:12:19
Speaker 1: early stages of Slavic study were almost completely apart from
1:12:22
Speaker 1: the work of the Slavs themselves and involved only those
1:12:25
Speaker 1: persons who had come to the United States and achieved
1:12:27
Speaker 1: prominence or success outside of their own communities and background.
1:12:31
Speaker 1: These early Slavic efforts could make little imprint upon the
1:12:34
Speaker 1: American public, for the first steps were taken under most
1:12:36
Speaker 1: adverse conditions. The Slavic masses were composed, for the most
1:12:40
Speaker 1: part of the underprivileged groups who had come to America
1:12:43
Speaker 1: in the hope of working for a few years, and
1:12:44
Speaker 1: then returning later they became American citizens, But until nineteen fourteen,
1:12:49
Speaker 1: a surprising percentage of the Slavs had not taken out
1:12:52
Speaker 1: citizenship papers. For their self protection and mutual advantage, these
1:12:56
Speaker 1: masses had formed their own churches and fraternal organizations. There
1:13:00
Speaker 1: were in the nineteenth century many difficulties to be encountered
1:13:03
Speaker 1: by each and the communities lived apart with relatively little
1:13:06
Speaker 1: social or political contact with the rest of the population.
1:13:09
Speaker 1: As entire families began to settle, their children were compelled
1:13:12
Speaker 1: to attend the American public schools, where instruction was given
1:13:15
Speaker 1: only in English. It was not long before the preservation
1:13:19
Speaker 1: of their native languages became a burning question, to be
1:13:22
Speaker 1: acted on by the establishment of language schools held outside
1:13:25
Speaker 1: of regular school hours in the late afternoons, evenings and
1:13:28
Speaker 1: on Saturdays. For example, the first Czech school was founded
1:13:32
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty two by the Slovaanskalipa Society of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
1:13:37
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty four, the first Czech schools were established
1:13:41
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and in eighteen sixty six in New York.
1:13:45
Speaker 1: The example of the Czechs was followed later by the Polls.
1:13:48
Speaker 1: The Slovaks, the Croatians, the Serbs, and the Ukrainians. These
1:13:52
Speaker 1: schools were conducted by the best educated men or women
1:13:55
Speaker 1: in the community, though this did not of necessity mean much.
1:13:59
Speaker 1: Classes were usually held in the building of a church
1:14:01
Speaker 1: or other organization, but sometimes in private homes or in
1:14:04
Speaker 1: public school buildings, the use of which was given free
1:14:07
Speaker 1: by the American school authorities. The text books were inadequate,
1:14:11
Speaker 1: often being those which the teacher had studied years before
1:14:13
Speaker 1: in the home country. Sometimes they were heavily laden with
1:14:17
Speaker 1: political propaganda, as were the books prepared for the Carpathian
1:14:20
Speaker 1: population by the Hungarian government, which exercised a considerable influence
1:14:24
Speaker 1: through the Greek Catholic priests, who were maggiar in in
1:14:26
Speaker 1: tendency as a result of their early upbringing. The situation
1:14:30
Speaker 1: was made worse by the fact that the schools in
1:14:31
Speaker 1: the homelands were themselves unsatisfactory, either in the hands of
1:14:35
Speaker 1: the alien rulers or the products of the vague stirrings
1:14:37
Speaker 1: of the population to secure their own more or less
1:14:39
Speaker 1: illegal schools twenty eight. Despite all this, these schools did
1:14:44
Speaker 1: achieve some success, but not enough to be regarded as
1:14:46
Speaker 1: a satisfactory solution. Of the problem. Life in America, even
1:14:50
Speaker 1: with its lack of legal barriers or restraints, was unfavorable
1:14:53
Speaker 1: to active continuation of a foreign tongue. The contrast between
1:14:57
Speaker 1: these imprompted courses and the developing American school school system
1:15:00
Speaker 1: was too striking to escape the attention of the pupils
1:15:02
Speaker 1: and the two types of schools, as well as the
1:15:04
Speaker 1: more intelligent leaders of the community. In addition to this,
1:15:08
Speaker 1: these schools failed to give the students an adequate picture
1:15:11
Speaker 1: of the progress that their relatives at home were making.
1:15:14
Speaker 1: The Roman Catholic schools were gradually remodeled on the normal
1:15:17
Speaker 1: parochial school system. The teachers were, for the most part
1:15:21
Speaker 1: nuns and brothers from orders working among a particular national group.
1:15:25
Speaker 1: Their quality of teaching was often quite low, but the
1:15:28
Speaker 1: church schools did enjoy the possibility of incorporating the innovations
1:15:31
Speaker 1: which were coming into the parochial schools. Thus, as the
1:15:34
Speaker 1: parochial schools were improved, so were the foreign schools under
1:15:38
Speaker 1: church auspices. In the Orthodox and Catholic unit churches, such
1:15:42
Speaker 1: instruction was usually given by the diac or canter, a
1:15:45
Speaker 1: layman who superintended the choirs and took a part in
1:15:47
Speaker 1: the services. These men had some education, but little training
1:15:51
Speaker 1: and teaching, and their efforts were largely directed along the
1:15:53
Speaker 1: same lines as in their homelands. The Protestant and anti
1:15:57
Speaker 1: clerical groups endeavored to find competent laymen. These stressed the
1:16:01
Speaker 1: holding of classes in some lay building or on the
1:16:03
Speaker 1: property of some secular organization. As early as eighteen eighty one,
1:16:08
Speaker 1: a journal in Johnson County, Iowa, the Slovan Ameriki, started
1:16:12
Speaker 1: a campaign to raise money for a Czech college in America.
1:16:15
Speaker 1: The newspaper believed that it could accomplish its purpose if
1:16:18
Speaker 1: it succeeded in raising twenty thousand dollars. The proposal, being
1:16:22
Speaker 1: launched by a single newspaper, did not secure the support
1:16:25
Speaker 1: of rival papers, and the entire enterprise was dropped as
1:16:28
Speaker 1: a failure twenty nine. Out of this chaotic and thoroughly
1:16:31
Speaker 1: unsatisfactory situation, two tendencies became evident. Just before World wari
1:16:36
Speaker 1: those Catholic schools which had acquired some stability an organization
1:16:39
Speaker 1: began to take the shape of the other parochial schools,
1:16:41
Speaker 1: and where there was sufficient demand and a sufficient concentration
1:16:44
Speaker 1: of worshippers, they began to approximate the parochial high schools
1:16:48
Speaker 1: and then to pass over to be two or three
1:16:50
Speaker 1: year colleges. The work of these was still not of
1:16:53
Speaker 1: high caliber, but the leaders were constantly striving to make
1:16:55
Speaker 1: them so. Thus the Czech Benedictines founded a school in Chicago,
1:17:00
Speaker 1: UGO in eighteen eighty seven. This passed through the usual changes,
1:17:04
Speaker 1: and after its removal to Lyle, Illinois in nineteen o one,
1:17:07
Speaker 1: it was reorganized as S. T. Procopius College, now a
1:17:10
Speaker 1: duly accredited Catholic institution. St. Vincent College, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, with
1:17:16
Speaker 1: a marked emphasis on Slovak, is another of these institutions.
1:17:20
Speaker 1: We find the same activity among the Poles. S. T.
1:17:25
Speaker 1: Mary Seminary, Orchard Lake, Michigan, early included Polish in its curriculum,
1:17:29
Speaker 1: as did St. Francis Seminary, Milwaukee. Various religious orders have
1:17:34
Speaker 1: long conducted courses in the Polish language on the high
1:17:36
Speaker 1: school level in various centers of population. The Polish Roman
1:17:40
Speaker 1: Catholic Union, with its library, was highly developed by Michislovheyman,
1:17:45
Speaker 1: especially in publishing studies of the career of such Polish
1:17:47
Speaker 1: soldiers in the United States as today Aushkoski Usko and
1:17:50
Speaker 1: the other Poles who fought in the American Revolution. The
1:17:53
Speaker 1: Polish Historical Society also has done outstanding work. All these
1:17:58
Speaker 1: represent the natural development of the po and their descendants
1:18:00
Speaker 1: in America and deserve more than passing mention. At the
1:18:04
Speaker 1: turn of the century, the fraternal organizations also began to
1:18:07
Speaker 1: give the question of schools to consideration. Almost all appointed
1:18:11
Speaker 1: committees on education, and they too decided that the primary
1:18:14
Speaker 1: need was the foundation of special colleges where instruction could
1:18:17
Speaker 1: be given in the language of the homeland. Thus, in
1:18:20
Speaker 1: nineteen o two there was formed in Cedar Rapids, Iowa,
1:18:24
Speaker 1: an Institution Matis vishofs Delauni, a center of higher studies
1:18:28
Speaker 1: by Bohemil Simic and g. F. Severa, to work for
1:18:32
Speaker 1: the establishment of a Czech college, but it also met
1:18:34
Speaker 1: with no success. In nineteen o three, the Polish National
1:18:38
Speaker 1: Alliance also created a committee on Education and Schools, which
1:18:41
Speaker 1: worked for ten years, and then in nineteen twelve at
1:18:44
Speaker 1: Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania, opened the Polish National Alliance College, which
1:18:48
Speaker 1: was incorporated in nineteen fourteen. Although it was rather on
1:18:52
Speaker 1: the level of a high school, it profited by the
1:18:54
Speaker 1: opportunity to establish a branch of the student Army Training
1:18:57
Speaker 1: Corps during World War II. Its first rector was Professor
1:19:00
Speaker 1: Romald Piatkowski. In nineteen fifteen, the work of the high
1:19:04
Speaker 1: school or academy was augmented by the foundation of a
1:19:06
Speaker 1: technical institute. It was in this status that the institution
1:19:10
Speaker 1: passed into the next general period thirty Other forces were
1:19:14
Speaker 1: at work, however, to preserve the native languages by introducing
1:19:18
Speaker 1: the Slavic languages into the already established American institutions. While
1:19:22
Speaker 1: the motives were varied, the efforts were made first by
1:19:25
Speaker 1: the less clerical and the more Protestant parts of the population. Thus,
1:19:29
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty seven, the Congregational Church in Ohio persuaded
1:19:32
Speaker 1: the authorities of Oberlin College at Oberlin, Ohio thirty one
1:19:36
Speaker 1: to introduce a course in check for candidates to the
1:19:38
Speaker 1: Congregational Ministry who administer to the Czech communities. Professor Lewis F.
1:19:44
Speaker 1: Miskovsky was appointed instructor and became the first chair of
1:19:47
Speaker 1: Slavic studies in an American institution. Oberlin's programme differed from
1:19:52
Speaker 1: the later attempts at Harvard and elsewhere in that it
1:19:54
Speaker 1: was frankly intended only to teach the language any Slavic
1:19:58
Speaker 1: cultural work in a broader sense was insignificant. It is
1:20:02
Speaker 1: small wonder then, that on Professor Meskowski's death in the
1:20:04
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, the chair was quickly abandoned and the money
1:20:07
Speaker 1: used for a course of lectures on Central European affairs
1:20:10
Speaker 1: given by Professor Oscar Jassey, a liberal Hungarian who opposed
1:20:13
Speaker 1: both Communism and the regime of Admiral Hordy. In somewhat
1:20:17
Speaker 1: the same way and for the same purpose, instruction in
1:20:20
Speaker 1: the Polish language was introduced into Notre Dame University in
1:20:23
Speaker 1: nineteen o nine. Efforts to include a Slavic language, usually Czech,
1:20:28
Speaker 1: in the curricula of state and private colleges were particularly
1:20:31
Speaker 1: intense in Nebraska and Iowa thirty two. In these states,
1:20:35
Speaker 1: the Czech population had been among the earliest settlers. Many
1:20:38
Speaker 1: had prospered and secured a point of and elective posts
1:20:40
Speaker 1: in the state governments, which gave them the opportunity to
1:20:43
Speaker 1: work for the introduction of their native language into various institutions.
1:20:47
Speaker 1: In nineteen o three, Professor Bohumo Simic of the University
1:20:50
Speaker 1: of Iowa and f J People, a student of the
1:20:54
Speaker 1: University of Nebraska, established at Lincoln, the first of the
1:20:57
Speaker 1: Komensky Educational clubs. These clubs were intended to unite the
1:21:01
Speaker 1: Czech Americans who had some education. The movement, which included
1:21:06
Speaker 1: plans for building a monument to the Czech educator Jan
1:21:08
Speaker 1: Amos Komensky Comenius, spread extensively and finally included twenty nine societies,
1:21:13
Speaker 1: chiefly in the states of Nebraska and Iowa, although there
1:21:16
Speaker 1: were some in Texas, Chicago, and New York. For a while,
1:21:20
Speaker 1: this loosely knit organization was even able to publish a
1:21:23
Speaker 1: periodical Bulletin thirty three, these clubs petitioned at once for
1:21:26
Speaker 1: the establishment of Czech language courses at the University of Nebraska.
1:21:30
Speaker 1: Although the request was turned down on the ground that
1:21:32
Speaker 1: there was a lack of interest in such a project
1:21:34
Speaker 1: among the Czechs. A new attempt was made during the
1:21:37
Speaker 1: winter of nineteen o six zero seven. John Rosicky, an
1:21:41
Speaker 1: outstanding publisher of Czech newspapers in Nebraska, and Voslav Bears,
1:21:45
Speaker 1: both of Omaha, met the regents of the state University,
1:21:48
Speaker 1: along with Frank Rechka, a member of the Nebraska Legislature.
1:21:52
Speaker 1: The chancellor of the university in refusing the request proposed
1:21:56
Speaker 1: a political deal whereby attacks of one mill would be
1:21:58
Speaker 1: laid on certain railroad properties and earmarked for the university.
1:22:02
Speaker 1: By clever lobbying, the Czech secured passage for the bill.
1:22:06
Speaker 1: Then the governor of the state cut the grants to
1:22:08
Speaker 1: the university and the chancellor again declined to set up
1:22:10
Speaker 1: a Slavonic department. Later the same summer, however, another request
1:22:15
Speaker 1: was more successful, and courses were started in the fall
1:22:17
Speaker 1: of nineteen o seven. The first instructor was Jeffrey dolijeol Hurbek,
1:22:22
Speaker 1: a graduate of Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania and at the
1:22:26
Speaker 1: time a student in the University of Iowa. He was
1:22:29
Speaker 1: appointed head of the new Department of Slavonic, an instructor
1:22:32
Speaker 1: in the Germanic languages and literatures. Unfortunately, her Beck, a
1:22:37
Speaker 1: young man of great promise, became ill and died on
1:22:39
Speaker 1: December fourth, nineteen o seven. He was succeeded by his sister,
1:22:43
Speaker 1: Sarcabi Herpova, who graduated from the University of Iowa in
1:22:47
Speaker 1: nineteen o nine and received an MA from Nebraska in
1:22:50
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen. Under her period of teaching, the department flourished.
1:22:55
Speaker 1: In nineteen ten, she was named adjunct professor in nineteen
1:22:59
Speaker 1: fourteen and assistant professor, and in nineteen eighteen she became
1:23:03
Speaker 1: a full professor. She was also very active during the
1:23:06
Speaker 1: war in various aspects of Czech American relations. During World
1:23:10
Speaker 1: War I, the outburst against the use of German spread
1:23:13
Speaker 1: in Nebraska to all foreign languages. The courses in the
1:23:16
Speaker 1: university were dropped in the department was abolished, while Professor
1:23:20
Speaker 1: Rupova moved to New York and became the manager of
1:23:22
Speaker 1: the Czechoslovak Section of the Foreign Language Information Service ancestor
1:23:26
Speaker 1: of the Common Council for American Unity. The outburst was
1:23:29
Speaker 1: even worse against Czech courses in the lower schools, and
1:23:32
Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen, the so called Simon Bill provided that
1:23:35
Speaker 1: no person, individually or as a teacher Shao in any private, denominational, parochial,
1:23:40
Speaker 1: or public school teach any subject to any person in
1:23:43
Speaker 1: any language other than the English language. This was made
1:23:47
Speaker 1: more stringent in nineteen twenty one, but in nineteen twenty
1:23:49
Speaker 1: three the measures were declared unconstitutional by the United States
1:23:53
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. In the meantime, the break in the university
1:23:56
Speaker 1: courses was less prolonged. In nineteen nineteen teen, to twenty.
1:24:00
Speaker 1: During the meeting of the State Constitutional Convention, two members
1:24:04
Speaker 1: of Czech origin raised the question of a renewal of
1:24:06
Speaker 1: the courses. After negotiations, the teaching of Czech was renewed
1:24:10
Speaker 1: in the autumn of nineteen twenty under Professor or In Staponik. Stepanic,
1:24:14
Speaker 1: a native of Nebraska, received his a b from the
1:24:18
Speaker 1: University of Nebraska in nineteen thirteen and an a m
1:24:21
Speaker 1: from Harvard in nineteen fourteen. After service in the U. S.
1:24:25
Speaker 1: Marine Corps, he returned to Harvard and then went to
1:24:27
Speaker 1: serve under General Snedgdrek on the Magyar Frontier. After this
1:24:32
Speaker 1: he returned to Nebraska and there became assistant professor of English.
1:24:36
Speaker 1: While there he was also giving courses in Czech and
1:24:38
Speaker 1: Russian under the auspices of the Department of Modern Language
1:24:41
Speaker 1: and later of Romance Languages. We have stressed the history
1:24:45
Speaker 1: of the establishment of Slavic work at the University of
1:24:48
Speaker 1: Nebraska because the Czechs were sufficiently numerous and influential to
1:24:51
Speaker 1: be able to reach the university authorities and the state legislature.
1:24:55
Speaker 1: More than that, they were persistent and finally succeeded in
1:24:58
Speaker 1: securing recognition. Yet in its way. The same type of politics,
1:25:02
Speaker 1: in addition to formal applications, was going on with various
1:25:05
Speaker 1: degrees of success in many different places. At about the
1:25:09
Speaker 1: same time, Czech was included in the University of Iowa,
1:25:12
Speaker 1: where miss Anna Hayberger conducted the work. Still later she
1:25:16
Speaker 1: changed to co College at Cedar Rapids, where she became
1:25:18
Speaker 1: professor of French and took a doctorate with a dissertation
1:25:21
Speaker 1: on the Czech educator jan Amos Comenius at the University
1:25:24
Speaker 1: of Paris. Alloys Bart was then giving instructions at Debut
1:25:28
Speaker 1: College and seminary. For a while before World War One.
1:25:32
Speaker 1: B Procosh gave courses in check at the University of
1:25:36
Speaker 1: Wisconsin and Leon Zelenka Lorando at Ohio State University. But
1:25:39
Speaker 1: more lasting results were obtained by mister Charles Nyasac at
1:25:42
Speaker 1: the University of Texas, where Czech has continued almost without
1:25:45
Speaker 1: a break since its introduction thirty four. At this time,
1:25:49
Speaker 1: still other developments largely connected with the various churches were ensuing.
1:25:54
Speaker 1: For example, Reverend Andrew Slavey was appointed to the International
1:25:58
Speaker 1: Baptist Seminary in Montclair, New Jersey, an institution greatly concerned
1:26:03
Speaker 1: with training clergymen for missionary work among various non English groups,
1:26:06
Speaker 1: and extensively staffed for such foreign languages as Slovak, Ukrainian
1:26:10
Speaker 1: and Hungarian. On the other hand, the Russian Orthodox Archbishop
1:26:14
Speaker 1: of the Aleutian Islands and North America established a small
1:26:17
Speaker 1: Russian seminary at Minneapolis, Minnesota. This was later moved to Tenafly,
1:26:22
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and its head was Reverend Leonid Turkovich, the
1:26:25
Speaker 1: present Archbishop Leandya of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America.
1:26:29
Speaker 1: We could extend this list even further, but the institutions
1:26:32
Speaker 1: at this period cared for little more than the giving
1:26:34
Speaker 1: of elementary instruction in a Slavic language, usually either Czech
1:26:38
Speaker 1: or Polish. The period witnessed the publication of a considerable
1:26:41
Speaker 1: number of elementary grammars, dictionaries, and readers. Many of these
1:26:46
Speaker 1: were not of high quality, but they did reflect the
1:26:48
Speaker 1: growing maturity of the various Slavic communities and their efforts
1:26:51
Speaker 1: to secure the introduction of their languages into the curricula
1:26:53
Speaker 1: of American institutions. Furthermore, at this period it was rare
1:26:58
Speaker 1: that any person in one of these smalls or state
1:27:00
Speaker 1: institutions could secure a post exclusively in Slavic studies. The
1:27:04
Speaker 1: best and most scholarly were compelled to carry almost a
1:27:07
Speaker 1: full load in some other subject. But the mere fact
1:27:10
Speaker 1: that this was possible accents the increasing number of young
1:27:13
Speaker 1: Slavs who were securing college and university educations. The situation
1:27:17
Speaker 1: was still not healthy, but at the beginning of World
1:27:19
Speaker 1: War I was by no means as hopeless as it
1:27:21
Speaker 1: had seemed earlier Chapter six. From nineteen fourteen to nineteen
1:27:26
Speaker 1: thirty nine, as we have seen, Slavic studies were in
1:27:28
Speaker 1: their infancy when World War I broke out. The American
1:27:32
Speaker 1: reaction to the war was, as we might have expected,
1:27:34
Speaker 1: a plain paradox. American public opinion concentrated on the Western
1:27:39
Speaker 1: Front and the campaign in France, and only slowly did
1:27:41
Speaker 1: it begin to react to the enormous forces that were
1:27:43
Speaker 1: working in the central and eastern parts of Europe. As
1:27:47
Speaker 1: in most countries of Europe, the only persons who took
1:27:49
Speaker 1: a deep interest in these areas were the immigrants and
1:27:51
Speaker 1: the few persons who had already been awakened to the
1:27:53
Speaker 1: great problems which the Slavic world of the time presented.
1:27:57
Speaker 1: The clash of Great Britain, France and Russia against Germany, Austria,
1:28:01
Speaker 1: Hungary and Italy. The Triple Entente versus the Triple Alliance
1:28:04
Speaker 1: seemed real only in its relations to the Western Front.
1:28:08
Speaker 1: The Eastern Front, and the Titanic passions released in the
1:28:10
Speaker 1: Slavic lands under both Russia and Austria Hungary seemed fantastic
1:28:14
Speaker 1: to public opinion and even to the opinion of the
1:28:16
Speaker 1: educated and intelligent classes. At the same time, it did
1:28:20
Speaker 1: have a message for the Slavic communities in the United States,
1:28:23
Speaker 1: which sought every opportunity to raise their voice in hope
1:28:25
Speaker 1: of national liberation. The average American was more moved by
1:28:29
Speaker 1: the Armenian massacres than he was by the astounding Russian
1:28:32
Speaker 1: advances and retreats in the East. The causes which led
1:28:35
Speaker 1: the United States into the war were almost wholly connected
1:28:38
Speaker 1: with the respective influences of Great Britain, France, and Germany,
1:28:41
Speaker 1: and it was the armistice with Germany on November eleventh,
1:28:44
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, that convinced the American people that the war
1:28:46
Speaker 1: was over and that the whole of Europe would very
1:28:48
Speaker 1: soon return to normalcy. Consistent with American preoccupation with the
1:28:52
Speaker 1: developments in Germany, the agitation for the disintegration of Austria Hungary,
1:28:56
Speaker 1: vigorously sponsored by the Slavic colonies in the United States
1:28:59
Speaker 1: and the various national committees in Europe, found a hearing,
1:29:01
Speaker 1: chiefly as a means of curtailing German influence. Furthermore, as
1:29:06
Speaker 1: a result of propaganda diligently spread during the war, the
1:29:09
Speaker 1: Russian Revolution seemed to the majority of the American people
1:29:11
Speaker 1: another step in the development of democracy and the break
1:29:14
Speaker 1: up of the control of Russia by a Germanized royal
1:29:16
Speaker 1: family and a Germanized bureaucracy. It might even be said
1:29:20
Speaker 1: that the initial distrust of Lenin came because the German
1:29:22
Speaker 1: general staff allowed him to cross to Russia from Switzerland.
1:29:26
Speaker 1: The disintegration of the Russian Front was laid entirely to
1:29:29
Speaker 1: German propaganda, and the most ridiculous stories were advanced in
1:29:32
Speaker 1: order to justify this point of view. This attitude prompted
1:29:36
Speaker 1: the American reaction to the efforts of liberation of the
1:29:38
Speaker 1: various peoples of the old Russian Empire, and nearly all
1:29:41
Speaker 1: the nationalist movements were laid to German influences. We may
1:29:45
Speaker 1: see this in the phrasing of the sixth of Wilson's
1:29:47
Speaker 1: fourteen points touching Russia, the evacuation of all Russian territory,
1:29:51
Speaker 1: and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as
1:29:54
Speaker 1: will secure the best and freest co operation of the
1:29:56
Speaker 1: other nations of the world in obtaining for an unhampered
1:29:59
Speaker 1: and unembarss opportunity for the independent determination of her own
1:30:02
Speaker 1: political development and national policy, and assure her of a
1:30:06
Speaker 1: sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions
1:30:09
Speaker 1: of her own choosing, and more than a welcome assistance
1:30:12
Speaker 1: of every kind that she may need and may herself desire.
1:30:15
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the non Russian peoples of the
1:30:17
Speaker 1: Old Empire paid no attention to these remarks by President Wilson.
1:30:22
Speaker 1: They saw rather the general principles enunciated in the fifth point,
1:30:25
Speaker 1: a free, open minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all
1:30:28
Speaker 1: colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle
1:30:31
Speaker 1: that in determining all such questions of sovereignty, the interests
1:30:34
Speaker 1: of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the
1:30:36
Speaker 1: equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
1:30:40
Speaker 1: In fact, he went further in on July fourth, nineteen eighteen,
1:30:43
Speaker 1: he declared in the Four Ends Speech, the settlement of
1:30:46
Speaker 1: every question, whether of territory or sovereignty, of economic arrangement,
1:30:50
Speaker 1: or of political relationship, upon the basis of the free
1:30:53
Speaker 1: acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and
1:30:57
Speaker 1: not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage
1:30:59
Speaker 1: of any other nation or people, which may desire a
1:31:01
Speaker 1: different settlement for the sake of its exterior influence or mastery. Thus,
1:31:06
Speaker 1: the doctrine of self determination definitely pronounced by President Wilson,
1:31:09
Speaker 1: was carried still further by the people of the Old
1:31:11
Speaker 1: Russian Empire than he had himself intended. He only provided
1:31:15
Speaker 1: for independence for Finland, Poland, and Armenia, three peoples who
1:31:18
Speaker 1: had won the special sympathy of the American people. In
1:31:22
Speaker 1: the case of all others, he was prepared to rest
1:31:24
Speaker 1: upon his sixth point and neglect careful and accurate study
1:31:27
Speaker 1: of the conditions prevailing in Eastern Europe. If space permitted,
1:31:31
Speaker 1: we could trace this idea in the American attitude to
1:31:33
Speaker 1: the Peace of Brest Litovsk, the actions of the American
1:31:35
Speaker 1: expeditionary forces in Archangel and Vladivostok, the attitude toward the
1:31:39
Speaker 1: Russian White Armies, the refusal to grant an eastern border
1:31:42
Speaker 1: to Poland under the Treaties of Versailles and Saint Germain,
1:31:46
Speaker 1: the refusal to recognize the session of Bessarabia by Russia
1:31:49
Speaker 1: to Romania, and many other questions. It insured high favor
1:31:53
Speaker 1: from those entirely removed from Austria, Hungary and Germany, in
1:31:56
Speaker 1: relative disfavor from all peoples trying to separate themselves from Russia.
1:32:00
Speaker 1: It is true that from the very beginning of the conflict,
1:32:02
Speaker 1: the leading intelligence officers, like Colonels Ralph van de Mann
1:32:05
Speaker 1: and Marlborough Churchill, the real moving spirits of the military
1:32:08
Speaker 1: intelligence branch of the General Staff, recognized the importance of
1:32:11
Speaker 1: the Slavic languages, and Colonel Graham D. Fitch included the
1:32:15
Speaker 1: Slavic languages among those handled in the translation section of
1:32:18
Speaker 1: which he was the chief. Yet on the whole the
1:32:21
Speaker 1: Corps of Interpreters and other concerned branches and units paid
1:32:24
Speaker 1: little attention to them, and nearly all the American agents
1:32:27
Speaker 1: in the Slavic territories were persons who had already known
1:32:29
Speaker 1: the languages. Even in the case of the Siberian and
1:32:33
Speaker 1: archangel expeditions. The problem of interpreters was not placed on
1:32:36
Speaker 1: a firm basis. For some years after the war, almost
1:32:40
Speaker 1: all the officers and men in the State Department were
1:32:42
Speaker 1: persons who had served in these forces and had attained
1:32:44
Speaker 1: a certain amount of Russian or some other language without
1:32:47
Speaker 1: any formal training. The situation was the same in the
1:32:50
Speaker 1: committee formed by Colonel Edward House to study the peace settlement.
1:32:54
Speaker 1: It is true that most of the professors of Slaviac
1:32:56
Speaker 1: were connected with this, but it was very soon discovered
1:32:58
Speaker 1: that much of the available material could not be used
1:33:00
Speaker 1: unless it was in one of the Western languages, or
1:33:03
Speaker 1: in some cases in Russian, and of course with a
1:33:07
Speaker 1: Russian bias. Thus, the World War an American participation in
1:33:11
Speaker 1: it did not result in any marked increase in interest,
1:33:14
Speaker 1: and there was for some years a strong feeling that
1:33:16
Speaker 1: a knowledge of the languages was secondary. The old divisions
1:33:20
Speaker 1: between language and the historical sciences were still perpetuated, gradually
1:33:24
Speaker 1: breaking down between the wars. It is true that after
1:33:27
Speaker 1: the war the War Department made a half hearted attempt
1:33:29
Speaker 1: to train certain regular officers in various subjects, with a
1:33:32
Speaker 1: possible eye for making them instructors in West Point. These
1:33:36
Speaker 1: included two men who had been on the Siberian Expedition. Lt.
1:33:40
Speaker 1: Colonel Benjamin B. McCroskey and Captain William Gent were sent
1:33:43
Speaker 1: to study in the Department of Slavonic Languages at Columbia University.
1:33:47
Speaker 1: With the growth of isolationism, the experiment was not pressed,
1:33:50
Speaker 1: and step by step all of the government services lost interest,
1:33:53
Speaker 1: except for a few young men in the State Department,
1:33:55
Speaker 1: who were often sent in some indefinite capacity to the
1:33:58
Speaker 1: Baltic republics with the intent of learning Russia. Thus, at
1:34:01
Speaker 1: the end of the war there had come no important
1:34:04
Speaker 1: change in the general picture. The departments of Language in Harvard,
1:34:08
Speaker 1: California and Columbia continued, perhaps with increased staffs, and Professor
1:34:12
Speaker 1: Harper in Chicago went on with his work. Also. On
1:34:16
Speaker 1: the other hand, there were a number of universities and colleges,
1:34:19
Speaker 1: chiefly in the Middle West, where one or more Slavic
1:34:21
Speaker 1: languages were taught, often under the pressure of local Slavic groups.
1:34:26
Speaker 1: These included Nebraska, where Orens Toponk was teaching. Czech was
1:34:30
Speaker 1: also added to the curriculum of Creighton University in Omaha
1:34:33
Speaker 1: and the University of Texas in Austin. There were energetic
1:34:36
Speaker 1: stirrings among the Poles to introduce their language at the
1:34:39
Speaker 1: University of Wisconsin. There were men in various other institutions,
1:34:43
Speaker 1: such as Professor Leon Zelenka Orando in Lafayette College, who
1:34:47
Speaker 1: in at least part of their work, handled one or
1:34:49
Speaker 1: another language. Yet in the course of the years, many
1:34:52
Speaker 1: of those institutions which had included Russian during the war
1:34:55
Speaker 1: abandoned it. Thirty five, a rather unique case occurred at
1:34:58
Speaker 1: Dartmouth College. Professor R. W. Jones, who was in the
1:35:02
Speaker 1: German department, knew some Russian, but one of the professors
1:35:06
Speaker 1: of the English department was Eric P. Kelly, who had
1:35:09
Speaker 1: been in Poland with the y MCA during the war
1:35:11
Speaker 1: and had become vitally interested in the country and its culture.
1:35:15
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty eight he published a very successful boys
1:35:17
Speaker 1: story on medieval Poland, The Trumpeter of Krakow, which won
1:35:21
Speaker 1: the Newberry Prize for Juvenile Books. Later he wrote two
1:35:24
Speaker 1: more unpolished themes, The Blacksmith of Wilno and The Golden
1:35:27
Speaker 1: Star of Halleck. Through their influence William J. Rose, a
1:35:33
Speaker 1: Canadian and later the director of the School of Slavonic
1:35:35
Speaker 1: and East European studies in the University of London was
1:35:38
Speaker 1: brought to Dartmouth for a few years. At one time
1:35:41
Speaker 1: it looked as if Dartmouth would establish a full department,
1:35:44
Speaker 1: with Kelly attracting large classes to courses in Polish and translation.
1:35:48
Speaker 1: Kelly became important in Polish intellectual work, but for some reason,
1:35:51
Speaker 1: despite his popularity, reverted to work in journalism, although he
1:35:55
Speaker 1: continued his interest in things Polish outside the institution thirty
1:35:58
Speaker 1: six all this was at a time when the bulk
1:36:01
Speaker 1: of the work on East European history was still being
1:36:03
Speaker 1: carried on in the small institutions by men who had
1:36:06
Speaker 1: no language training. In far too many places we still
1:36:09
Speaker 1: confine traces of this habit. Another important event of the
1:36:13
Speaker 1: period following the Bolshevik Revolution was the arrival in the
1:36:16
Speaker 1: United States of a number of Russian emigres on all
1:36:19
Speaker 1: intellectual levels. Some of them, like professors M. Rostovzef and A. A. Vasilif,
1:36:25
Speaker 1: were among the most distinguished Russian scholars. They easily found
1:36:29
Speaker 1: outstanding positions for themselves in the leading universities and were
1:36:32
Speaker 1: able to exert a considerable influence. They brought with them
1:36:36
Speaker 1: in various capacities. Men like Professor George Vernadsky, who were
1:36:40
Speaker 1: to become the heads of their subjects during the next decades.
1:36:43
Speaker 1: It would take too long to list all of these men,
1:36:45
Speaker 1: but among them was Professor Lee and At Stratkowski, Rostovzev's nephew,
1:36:49
Speaker 1: who taught history at Georgetown University and later moved to
1:36:52
Speaker 1: the University of Maryland, then to Harvard, and is now
1:36:54
Speaker 1: at the University of Toronto. Professor Sir Jealisief of Harvard
1:36:59
Speaker 1: was also in the field of Far Eastern languages. For
1:37:02
Speaker 1: a while, Nicholas Martinovitch, formerly of the University of Petersburg,
1:37:06
Speaker 1: was at Columbia in the field of Turkic studies. Many
1:37:10
Speaker 1: more of the younger group have gradually secured good positions
1:37:13
Speaker 1: and worked themselves up in the American university system, sometimes
1:37:16
Speaker 1: with a change of their names. The same period saw
1:37:19
Speaker 1: the arrival in the United States of such outstanding Ukrainian
1:37:22
Speaker 1: scholars as the architect and engineer Professor Stephen Timoshenko of
1:37:26
Speaker 1: Stanford University and his brother, the economist Volodimir Timoshenko of
1:37:29
Speaker 1: the same institution, and Professor Alexander Gronowski, an entomologist of
1:37:34
Speaker 1: the University of Minnesota. Professor Demitro Doroshenko of the Ukrainian
1:37:38
Speaker 1: Free University in Prague, paid several visits to Canada. All
1:37:42
Speaker 1: of these men were very active in arousing interests in
1:37:45
Speaker 1: Ukrainian culture, as were the choral leader Alexander Koshitz and
1:37:48
Speaker 1: the sculptor Alexander Arkapenko. There were also a few young
1:37:52
Speaker 1: men of Slavic origin born and educated in the United
1:37:55
Speaker 1: States who devoted themselves to Russian fields. Among them was
1:38:00
Speaker 1: Leo Pasvalski, who worked for many years at the Brookings
1:38:02
Speaker 1: Institute in Washington and was the son of one of
1:38:04
Speaker 1: the foremost Russian editors in the pre war United States.
1:38:08
Speaker 1: Yet the situation was so discouraging that relatively few of
1:38:11
Speaker 1: the really young emigres who came to the United States
1:38:14
Speaker 1: after nineteen eighteen and secured an education went into Slavic studies.
1:38:18
Speaker 1: They usually chose some other field and gradually lost all
1:38:21
Speaker 1: practical influence in the extension of Slavic culture, though in
1:38:24
Speaker 1: a few cases they did some unofficial work in their
1:38:27
Speaker 1: own languages. The situation in the languages and cultures of
1:38:30
Speaker 1: the liberated Slavic countries was very different. The restoration of
1:38:34
Speaker 1: the independence of Czechoslovakia and Poland and the formation of
1:38:37
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Later Yugoslavia
1:38:42
Speaker 1: involved that Slavinization of many institutions that formerly had been
1:38:45
Speaker 1: under German and Austrian control. As a result, there was
1:38:49
Speaker 1: a strong call for professors in those lands, and very
1:38:52
Speaker 1: few of the outstanding men came to America during the
1:38:54
Speaker 1: early years. When they did, it was usually for a
1:38:58
Speaker 1: limited time a semester or perhaps taps a full year,
1:39:01
Speaker 1: and the funds for this purpose were often supplied by
1:39:03
Speaker 1: the Slavic community in the neighborhood. Thus, the polls of
1:39:06
Speaker 1: Detroit brought Professor Thaddius Mattana to the University of Michigan.
1:39:10
Speaker 1: This had been intended as the beginning of a polished chair,
1:39:13
Speaker 1: but the attempt broke down and Professor Mattana remained at
1:39:15
Speaker 1: Alliance College, the institution of the Polish National Association. Professor
1:39:20
Speaker 1: Roman Daibaski of the University of Krakau was likewise brought
1:39:24
Speaker 1: to the University of Chicago for a period, but his
1:39:26
Speaker 1: lectures were not connected in any sense with the work
1:39:28
Speaker 1: of Professor Harper. In nineteen twenty eight, Professor Odokar Vocatlo
1:39:33
Speaker 1: of the University of Brodislava spent almost a full year
1:39:36
Speaker 1: lecturing throughout the United States. All this did much to
1:39:39
Speaker 1: promote an appreciation of Slavak scholarship, but since most of
1:39:43
Speaker 1: the visitors were in technical and scientific fields, they did
1:39:45
Speaker 1: not increase interest in distinctively Slavic subjects. Many of these
1:39:49
Speaker 1: visits were arranged through the Institute of International Education, which,
1:39:53
Speaker 1: as part of an international policy, brought to the United
1:39:56
Speaker 1: States not only professors on lecture tours, but many students
1:39:58
Speaker 1: from the Slavic lands. The same institute also administered a
1:40:02
Speaker 1: series of fellowships, usually for advanced study, which were chiefly
1:40:06
Speaker 1: offered to Americans of Czech and Slovak parentage by the
1:40:09
Speaker 1: Czechoslovak Ministry of Education. A similar program among the polls
1:40:13
Speaker 1: was carried on by the distinctively Polish American Cosciusko Foundation.
1:40:17
Speaker 1: Begun in nineteen twenty six. It was able to take
1:40:20
Speaker 1: many American Polish students to Poland by offering them not
1:40:23
Speaker 1: only free tuition, but also greatly reduced rates on the
1:40:26
Speaker 1: Polish American line steamships. During the nineteen twenties, those American
1:40:30
Speaker 1: universities most interested in Slavic subjects developed rather independently in
1:40:35
Speaker 1: the field of history, there were few real innovations. During
1:40:39
Speaker 1: the twenties, and especially during the period of the new
1:40:41
Speaker 1: economic policy in the USSR. A few young men were able,
1:40:45
Speaker 1: on fellowships from various institutions to study in the Soviet
1:40:48
Speaker 1: universities and familiarize themselves with conditions there. Among these men
1:40:53
Speaker 1: we may mention two important scholars of the present time,
1:40:56
Speaker 1: Professor Philip Moseley of the American Council of Foreign Relations,
1:40:59
Speaker 1: formerly of Columbia University, and Professor Jerroy T. Robinson of Columbia.
1:41:04
Speaker 1: Other men similarly visited other Slavic lands for varying periods.
1:41:09
Speaker 1: Their studies have been an application of the accepted method
1:41:11
Speaker 1: of historical research to the history of the Slavic countries
1:41:14
Speaker 1: by men who were as well trained in Slavak as
1:41:16
Speaker 1: earlier generations had been in French and German. The situation
1:41:20
Speaker 1: was different in the field of language, literature, and culture
1:41:23
Speaker 1: in the general sense of the word, for these subjects
1:41:25
Speaker 1: had been very largely ignored in the earlier periods, except
1:41:28
Speaker 1: in those institutions where Slavic departments had been established. Even
1:41:32
Speaker 1: the masterpieces of Russian literature had been handled purely on
1:41:35
Speaker 1: the basis of translations, with few efforts to equate them
1:41:38
Speaker 1: with the general life of Russia. This had produced the
1:41:41
Speaker 1: jaundice view of Russian literature satirized by Stephen Lecock of
1:41:44
Speaker 1: McGill University. In fact, during a large part of the
1:41:48
Speaker 1: period between the Wars, one of the largest groups of
1:41:50
Speaker 1: students of Slavic literature were persons who had no desire
1:41:53
Speaker 1: to learn the language or to read Slavic literature in
1:41:56
Speaker 1: the original They were merely interested in including Russian in
1:41:59
Speaker 1: courses of comparative literature, where they were instructors obliged to
1:42:02
Speaker 1: treat some of the Russian masterpieces and translation. This broad
1:42:06
Speaker 1: cultural need was met in different ways by the various
1:42:09
Speaker 1: Slavic departments. Thus, during these years, the department at the
1:42:13
Speaker 1: University of California, under Professor George Rapaul Nois decidedly stressed
1:42:17
Speaker 1: the development of translation and courses in which a knowledge
1:42:20
Speaker 1: of Russian was not primarily required. The department grew steadily
1:42:24
Speaker 1: but largely maintained its original staff, supplemented by visiting lecturers.
1:42:29
Speaker 1: This policy continued until the eve of World War II.
1:42:32
Speaker 1: During most of this time, Professor Noys did not make
1:42:35
Speaker 1: any special effort to establish contacts with the Slavic groups
1:42:38
Speaker 1: on the Pacific coast. The situation at Columbia University was different.
1:42:43
Speaker 1: Professor Clarence A. Manning, who was acting department head during
1:42:47
Speaker 1: the twelve years which Professor Prince spent in the American
1:42:50
Speaker 1: Diplomatic Service, tried to continue the policy of Professor Prince
1:42:53
Speaker 1: in fostering a study of all the Slavic languages and
1:42:55
Speaker 1: in establishing contacts with the Slavic communities in the New
1:42:58
Speaker 1: York area. In terms of administration, the chief development was
1:43:02
Speaker 1: the transfer of most instruction in the Slavic languages from
1:43:05
Speaker 1: the Faculty of Philosophy, where it had originated, to the
1:43:08
Speaker 1: Columbia Extension Teaching, later revamped as the School of General Studies.
1:43:12
Speaker 1: This school had been planned originally for adult education, but
1:43:15
Speaker 1: as it acquired a special form, it furnished a convenient
1:43:18
Speaker 1: vehicle for many years for giving language instruction. For some
1:43:22
Speaker 1: years it conducted a series of extramural courses, especially in Polish,
1:43:26
Speaker 1: as far away as Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. The first addition
1:43:29
Speaker 1: to what eventually became a full time staff was missus
1:43:32
Speaker 1: Elena T. Modulat, who from nineteen twenty two until the
1:43:35
Speaker 1: eve of World War II, conducted practically all the courses
1:43:38
Speaker 1: in the Russian language. In nineteen twenty seven, Arthur P. Coleman,
1:43:44
Speaker 1: the first American of non Slavic origin to receive a
1:43:46
Speaker 1: doctorate in Slavac languages in the United States, was appointed
1:43:50
Speaker 1: lecturer and devoted himself chiefly to courses in Polish. The
1:43:53
Speaker 1: rest of the staff, some of whom served for many years,
1:43:56
Speaker 1: was composed chiefly of educated journalists employed on the Slavac
1:44:00
Speaker 1: papers in New York, or persons occupying responsible positions in
1:44:03
Speaker 1: various institutions of learning and business. Almost without interruption, yearly
1:44:08
Speaker 1: courses were given in Polish, Czechoslovak, and Serbo Croatian or Slovene.
1:44:12
Speaker 1: We must specifically mention the courses in Albanian given by
1:44:15
Speaker 1: Nello Drassari, who published at this period an Albanian English
1:44:19
Speaker 1: grammar and a small Albanian English dictionary. Most of the
1:44:23
Speaker 1: students in these non Russian courses were second generation Slavs.
1:44:27
Speaker 1: Few of these ever worked toward higher degrees. During the twenties,
1:44:31
Speaker 1: most students for the doctorate were Russians or persons of
1:44:33
Speaker 1: Russian descent who had come to the United States after
1:44:36
Speaker 1: the Revolution. Seeking positions in the American educational world. Those
1:44:40
Speaker 1: who took the master's degree were largely of the second
1:44:42
Speaker 1: generation or of non Slavic origin. The department made its
1:44:46
Speaker 1: most extensive efforts in nineteen twenty nine in providing a
1:44:49
Speaker 1: summer course on the history of all Slavic literatures. The
1:44:52
Speaker 1: lectures on Russian were given by Prince D. S. Mursky
1:44:55
Speaker 1: of the University of London, on Czech by Professor Odokarvo Cadlo,
1:44:59
Speaker 1: on Po by Professor Kelly of Dartmouth, and on Yugoslav
1:45:03
Speaker 1: by Doctor D. Sabotic of the University of London. One
1:45:08
Speaker 1: lecture on Bulgarian was prepared by Dimitar Shishmanov, the son
1:45:12
Speaker 1: of the distinguished Professor of Slavic Philology at the University
1:45:15
Speaker 1: of Sofia and a well known Bulgarian author who was
1:45:17
Speaker 1: executed by the Communists after World War II. The response
1:45:21
Speaker 1: of students was not sufficient to justify the repetition of
1:45:24
Speaker 1: the experiment in the next years, although the numbers exceeded
1:45:27
Speaker 1: anything achieved in England at that time for similar programs.
1:45:30
Speaker 1: At the time, it was the idea of Professor Manning
1:45:33
Speaker 1: that the future of Slavic studies, especially in those languages
1:45:36
Speaker 1: spoken by considerable communities in the United States, lay in
1:45:39
Speaker 1: the development of interest and support from those communities. This
1:45:43
Speaker 1: notion was at the time warmly supported by Columbia's President
1:45:46
Speaker 1: Nicholas Murray Butler, and led to the formation of an
1:45:49
Speaker 1: Institute of Polish Culture and an Institute of Czechoslovak Studies.
1:45:53
Speaker 1: Both met with initial success, but the Depression, with its
1:45:55
Speaker 1: pressure upon the Slavic population of the United States, led
1:45:58
Speaker 1: to a practical suspension of the institutes. After the publication
1:46:01
Speaker 1: of a polished number of the American archaeological journal Art
1:46:04
Speaker 1: and Archaeology and a translated anthology of Czechoslovak poetry compiled
1:46:09
Speaker 1: in the United States and Canada. On the return of
1:46:12
Speaker 1: Professor Prince in nineteen thirty three, the name of the
1:46:15
Speaker 1: department was changed to East European Languages, and Professor Prince
1:46:18
Speaker 1: made a new effort to realize his dream of founding
1:46:20
Speaker 1: something that would include all of the peoples of Eastern Europe.
1:46:24
Speaker 1: It proved premature once again, The department underwent further change
1:46:28
Speaker 1: after the retirement of Professor Prince. Then, in the fall
1:46:32
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty eight, Professor Max Vasmer of the University
1:46:35
Speaker 1: of Berlin lectured for one semester. He was followed by
1:46:38
Speaker 1: Professor Boris Unbegone of the University of Strasbourg. Still later,
1:46:42
Speaker 1: Professor Karl Mengis was added to the faculty to give
1:46:44
Speaker 1: courses in Slavic and Altaic philology, in still a different field.
1:46:49
Speaker 1: Professor Manning and Dean Hawks of Columbia College were both
1:46:52
Speaker 1: active in the establishment of St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Seminary
1:46:57
Speaker 1: in New York to train candidates for the priesthood of
1:46:59
Speaker 1: the rule Russian Orthodox Church of North America. This developed
1:47:03
Speaker 1: later into St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary and Theological Academy. To
1:47:08
Speaker 1: this were invited many of the leading emigrant Russian theologians
1:47:11
Speaker 1: from Paris and elsewhere. The development at Harvard was somewhat different.
1:47:16
Speaker 1: Few changes were made in the situation which existed prior
1:47:19
Speaker 1: to World War EYE until the retirement of Professor Wiener
1:47:23
Speaker 1: then in nineteen twenty seven. Professor Samuel Hazzard Cross born
1:47:26
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety one, a b and pH d at
1:47:29
Speaker 1: Harvard before nineteen seventeen, rejoined his alma mater, and, after
1:47:32
Speaker 1: some years of service in the German department, was made
1:47:35
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty Professor of Slavic Languages. With the appointment
1:47:39
Speaker 1: of Professor Cross, Slavic work at Harvard went through a
1:47:42
Speaker 1: new period of development and expansion. Into the revised department,
1:47:46
Speaker 1: Cross brought Professor Ernest J. Simmons, who had taken his
1:47:49
Speaker 1: doctorate in nineteen twenty eight, with a study of English
1:47:51
Speaker 1: influence on Russian literature of the eighteenth century. A larger
1:47:55
Speaker 1: staff of Russian assistance was also engaged. Professor kross Us,
1:48:00
Speaker 1: who had translated the Russian Primary Chronicle, stressed the older
1:48:03
Speaker 1: period of Russian literature, perhaps because of his Germanic interests.
1:48:07
Speaker 1: He also became the managing editor of Speculum, the organ
1:48:10
Speaker 1: of the Medieval Academy of America. In his interest in
1:48:14
Speaker 1: the medieval period, Professor Cross was not alone in Harvard,
1:48:17
Speaker 1: for from the School of Architecture came the work of
1:48:19
Speaker 1: Professor Kenneth J. Conan on St. Sophia Cathedral in Kievan.
1:48:22
Speaker 1: From the English Department the work by Francis P. Magown
1:48:25
Speaker 1: junior on the spreading in East Slavic lands of the
1:48:28
Speaker 1: medieval Jests of Alexander. During the following years, Professor Cross
1:48:32
Speaker 1: became the center of the developing Slavic activity, which was
1:48:35
Speaker 1: not limited to Harvard, but which was responsible for the
1:48:38
Speaker 1: publication of various works in connection with the Pushkin Centennial
1:48:41
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty seven. The death of Cross in nineteen
1:48:44
Speaker 1: forty six was a great loss to American Russian scholarship. Still,
1:48:48
Speaker 1: another attempt to promote Slavic studies was made at the
1:48:51
Speaker 1: University of Pittsburgh by the establishment of National Rooms in
1:48:54
Speaker 1: the Cathedral of Learning to serve as centers for the
1:48:56
Speaker 1: national interests of the students. The Slavic communities in and
1:49:00
Speaker 1: around the city were urged to provide funds to furnish
1:49:03
Speaker 1: these rooms in native style, and appeals were frequently made
1:49:05
Speaker 1: to the governments of the Slavic countries to help in
1:49:07
Speaker 1: the work. In nineteen twenty seven, also Professor Michael Karpovitch
1:49:12
Speaker 1: joined the faculty at Harvard as Professor of Russian History.
1:49:16
Speaker 1: Professor Karpovitch had been trained as a lawyer and diplomat
1:49:18
Speaker 1: in Russia before the Revolution of nineteen seventeen, and he
1:49:21
Speaker 1: soon became a leading spokesman for the Russian liberal groups
1:49:24
Speaker 1: in the United States and in America's scholarly communities. At
1:49:28
Speaker 1: the end of World War EYE, it was proposed that
1:49:30
Speaker 1: a scientific society be established to unite Slavic scholars. The
1:49:34
Speaker 1: constitution and practice of existing organizations in history seemed sufficiently
1:49:38
Speaker 1: brought to include the professors of those subjects, but a
1:49:40
Speaker 1: more complicated situation prevailed in the fields of language and literature. Consequently,
1:49:46
Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen there was organized the Society for the
1:49:49
Speaker 1: Advancement of Slavonic Study. The nucleus of this group was
1:49:53
Speaker 1: Slavs from various organizations, especially Czechs and Yugoslavs. The first
1:49:58
Speaker 1: president was Miss sarkaby her Post, who had come to
1:50:00
Speaker 1: New York from Nebraska after the dissolution of the department
1:50:03
Speaker 1: at the State University there. The secretary was Leon Zelenka
1:50:07
Speaker 1: Lrando of Lafayette College. A few meetings were held in
1:50:11
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two, with the final one at Columbia. The
1:50:14
Speaker 1: society did not prove to be a success, however, largely
1:50:17
Speaker 1: because of the inability of the founders to realize the
1:50:20
Speaker 1: aims of the society. It published a few numbers of
1:50:23
Speaker 1: a bulletin, but the addresses at the meetings were made
1:50:25
Speaker 1: largely under the mistaken impression that the findings of the
1:50:28
Speaker 1: society would pass for final pronunciamentos on many of the
1:50:31
Speaker 1: most disputed subjects of Slavic scholarship. It must be confessed
1:50:35
Speaker 1: also that many of these findings were based upon the
1:50:38
Speaker 1: political decisions made at Versailles and previously advanced by movements
1:50:41
Speaker 1: such as the Czechoslovak National Committee. As a result, the
1:50:45
Speaker 1: organization rapidly lost standing, and it very soon ceased to exist.
1:50:50
Speaker 1: Yet the seed which it had sown was not entirely wasted.
1:50:53
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty two, Professor Manning discussed with the Modern
1:50:57
Speaker 1: Language Association the possibility of organizing the scholars of Slavic
1:51:00
Speaker 1: languages and literatures under its auspices. From the very beginning,
1:51:04
Speaker 1: the attitude of Professor Manning and the other founders was
1:51:07
Speaker 1: to avoid the difficulties that had arisen earlier between the
1:51:10
Speaker 1: Association and the Society for the Advancement of Slavonic Study.
1:51:14
Speaker 1: The first meeting under the chairmanship of Professor Manning was
1:51:17
Speaker 1: poorly attended, and some of the papers read were decidedly amateurish,
1:51:20
Speaker 1: but the group continued. During the intervening years. The original
1:51:24
Speaker 1: group has been developed into two one for Slavic literatures
1:51:27
Speaker 1: and one for Slavic philology. The attendance is composed of
1:51:31
Speaker 1: members of the Association who are either actively or passively
1:51:34
Speaker 1: interested in Slavic studies. This is very different from the
1:51:37
Speaker 1: early years, when it became necessary to do everything possible
1:51:40
Speaker 1: to secure an audience for the few persons who ventured
1:51:42
Speaker 1: to submit papers. During the early years, Professor Manning remained
1:51:47
Speaker 1: as chairman and the secretary was usually chosen from one
1:51:49
Speaker 1: of the representatives of the Slavic communities who had shown
1:51:52
Speaker 1: some interest in the undertaking. Now the posts of chairmen
1:51:55
Speaker 1: and secretary are rotated more or less regularly, and most
1:51:59
Speaker 1: professors of Slow and the country have filled a position
1:52:01
Speaker 1: at least once. Even so, the group has not sufficiently
1:52:05
Speaker 1: developed to apply for recognition as a section parallel to
1:52:08
Speaker 1: those for English, Romance and Germanic. Despite this, one of
1:52:12
Speaker 1: its members, Professor Ernest J. Simmons, has been elected to
1:52:15
Speaker 1: the post of Director of the Modern Language Association for
1:52:18
Speaker 1: one term. A somewhat different development came in the foundation
1:52:22
Speaker 1: of the Slavonic Review by Professor Sir Bernard Payers and
1:52:24
Speaker 1: Professor w Seeden Watson at the University of London in
1:52:28
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two. From the beginning, this journal, the first
1:52:31
Speaker 1: purely scholarly Slavic journal in English had as American co
1:52:35
Speaker 1: editors Professor Harper, Professor Noys, and Professor Kerner, then at
1:52:39
Speaker 1: the University of Missouri. In nineteen twenty three, once the
1:52:43
Speaker 1: journal was fairly launched, Professor Seeden Watson came to the
1:52:46
Speaker 1: United States in the hope of dissuading American Slavists from
1:52:49
Speaker 1: starting a competing journal. The proposal was broached at a
1:52:52
Speaker 1: meeting of the American Historical Association in Richmond, Virginia, but
1:52:56
Speaker 1: was decidedly disapproved by some of those present, and the
1:52:58
Speaker 1: idea was tacitly dropped without prejudice to the cooperation between
1:53:02
Speaker 1: the scholars of the two countries. In a somewhat different vein,
1:53:05
Speaker 1: mention should be made of the monthly magazine Poland. This
1:53:09
Speaker 1: was started in nineteen nineteen by the Polish legation in
1:53:12
Speaker 1: Washington at the suggestion of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, which
1:53:15
Speaker 1: had taken a prominent part in the rehabilitation of the
1:53:17
Speaker 1: Polish railroads after World War One. The Baldwin Company furnished
1:53:21
Speaker 1: the permanent staff an editor Paul Luttallik, a young Frenchman,
1:53:25
Speaker 1: and Eric Lord as business manager. The journal received a
1:53:29
Speaker 1: subsidy from the Legation. It was started purely as a
1:53:32
Speaker 1: trade journal, but Lutallic had other views. Under Clarence Dawson,
1:53:37
Speaker 1: who succeeded Paul Luttallic as editor, it rapidly developed into
1:53:40
Speaker 1: a general magazine, covering all aspects of Polish life, art
1:53:43
Speaker 1: and literature, as well as economics and business. The journal
1:53:47
Speaker 1: proved successful for over ten years, but when Dawson resigned
1:53:50
Speaker 1: as editor, it began to fail. The magazine changed its
1:53:54
Speaker 1: character considerably, and finally, in the early thirties, was allowed
1:53:57
Speaker 1: to lapse. It was during the same decade that energetic
1:54:01
Speaker 1: work was done in building the libraries of various institutions.
1:54:05
Speaker 1: Even before the Russian Revolution, the Library of Congress had
1:54:08
Speaker 1: acquired a large, uncataloged collection of Russian books, and the
1:54:11
Speaker 1: New York Public Library developed a very large and extensive
1:54:14
Speaker 1: Russian department. There were large Russian collections at both Harvard
1:54:18
Speaker 1: and Yale. At Columbia, the Russian collections prior to nineteen
1:54:22
Speaker 1: fourteen were negligible, while at the University of California, Professor
1:54:26
Speaker 1: Noys had specialized largely in translations of Russian literature. Most
1:54:31
Speaker 1: of the institutions took advantage of the large number of
1:54:33
Speaker 1: Russian books that were thrown upon the market after the
1:54:35
Speaker 1: Soviet Revolution, and purchased whole libraries from emigres and other sources.
1:54:40
Speaker 1: The Columbia collections were increased by the gift of a
1:54:42
Speaker 1: large library on Russian literature, collected for many years by
1:54:46
Speaker 1: Dr Samuel Abel, a graduate of the College of Physicians
1:54:50
Speaker 1: and Surgeons. It numbered several thousand volumes. The establishment of
1:54:55
Speaker 1: the Hoover War Library at Stanford University brought to the
1:54:58
Speaker 1: institution a vast amount of material, especially concerning Slavic countries,
1:55:02
Speaker 1: that had been collected by American relief workers under the
1:55:06
Speaker 1: direction of Herbert Hoover. We must also mention the work
1:55:09
Speaker 1: that developed at Georgetown University under the direction of Father
1:55:12
Speaker 1: Edmund Walsh, who had served in Russia after the Revolution.
1:55:16
Speaker 1: Work was done in the various schools, but especially in
1:55:18
Speaker 1: the School for Foreign Service, of which Father Walsh was
1:55:20
Speaker 1: the founder. Georgetown's example was seconded by the continual improvement
1:55:25
Speaker 1: in the standards of other institutions, such as that of
1:55:27
Speaker 1: the Czech Benedictines at Lysle, Illinois, and further by the
1:55:30
Speaker 1: establishment in nineteen thirty three of such institutions as S. T.
1:55:34
Speaker 1: Basel's College in Stamford, Connecticut by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic
1:55:38
Speaker 1: Exarchate of Philadelphia. There was also a large number of
1:55:42
Speaker 1: Slavic books and translations from slavvik in the public library
1:55:45
Speaker 1: in Cleveland, Ohio, where Missus Eleanor Ledbetter had worked long
1:55:49
Speaker 1: and hard with the Slavic groups in that city. Thus,
1:55:52
Speaker 1: by the outbreak of World War II, there were in
1:55:54
Speaker 1: the United States a considerable number of libraries that were
1:55:57
Speaker 1: fairly adequate. In nearly all the centers were Slavic subject
1:56:00
Speaker 1: were treated with the importance that they deserved. In nineteen
1:56:03
Speaker 1: thirty one, work in Russian literature in English was also
1:56:06
Speaker 1: started at the University of Washington in Seattle by Evarspector.
1:56:11
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty three, a course in Russian history was added.
1:56:15
Speaker 1: In addition to these courses, Professor Spector did considerable lecturing
1:56:18
Speaker 1: before various groups interested in Russian affairs. The interest in
1:56:22
Speaker 1: Seattle is especially noticeable because of the possible contacts with
1:56:26
Speaker 1: Siberia across the Pacific Ocean. Whatever contact is had with
1:56:30
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union comes almost inevitably through the sea coast
1:56:33
Speaker 1: cities on the Pacific Ocean. The same motives have led
1:56:36
Speaker 1: to a strengthening of Russian work in the other California universities,
1:56:39
Speaker 1: the University of California at Los Angeles and the University
1:56:42
Speaker 1: of Southern California. Strange to say, the recognition of the
1:56:46
Speaker 1: Soviet Union in nineteen thirty three by the United States
1:56:49
Speaker 1: did not produce a marked increase in interest in Russian
1:56:52
Speaker 1: Slavic affairs. Student interest flagged, and it was soon evident
1:56:56
Speaker 1: that the need for Russian in the business world would
1:56:58
Speaker 1: not at all parallel the situation which a few years
1:57:00
Speaker 1: earlier had sparked the great development in Spanish studies. The
1:57:04
Speaker 1: years of the Depression in many ways produced another period
1:57:07
Speaker 1: of marking time in Slavic studies. For the most part,
1:57:10
Speaker 1: efforts of the Slavic groups to introduce their languages into
1:57:13
Speaker 1: the American educational system were retarded, while available finances were
1:57:17
Speaker 1: restricted to relief purposes. In other cases, as among the Czechs,
1:57:21
Speaker 1: the hardships were complicated by the death of such leaders
1:57:24
Speaker 1: as Reverend Vincent Piasick and Professor Michael Pupin, who had
1:57:27
Speaker 1: been active in stimulating cooperation between the immigrant communities and
1:57:30
Speaker 1: the American educational system. Their deaths at a critical period
1:57:34
Speaker 1: disrupted much of the work. Further, the nineteen thirty one
1:57:37
Speaker 1: failure of the Bank of Europe Trust Company in New
1:57:40
Speaker 1: York under conditions which almost completely reimbursed the depositors, nonetheless
1:57:44
Speaker 1: lessened the effectiveness of Thomas Kappeck, a leader in the work.
1:57:47
Speaker 1: Similar disasters in other Slavic groups had similar nationwide effects,
1:57:51
Speaker 1: and except for an effort to interest the Czech population
1:57:53
Speaker 1: in the Chicago area to establish courses at the University
1:57:56
Speaker 1: of Illinois, the period was destitute of that type of
1:57:58
Speaker 1: energetic development. Wait on the eve of the depression, promised
1:58:02
Speaker 1: to bear such rich fruits in a lighter vein came
1:58:05
Speaker 1: the establishment of courses in Russian under the NRA. It
1:58:08
Speaker 1: had been hoped by some that it might be possible
1:58:10
Speaker 1: to give relief to at least some of the unemployed
1:58:12
Speaker 1: Russians by the establishment of free courses in the language.
1:58:16
Speaker 1: The attempt was almost completely a failure. The students lacked
1:58:20
Speaker 1: any serious desire to learn the language, and the instructors
1:58:23
Speaker 1: were no more anxious to teach it. One very well
1:58:26
Speaker 1: educated Russian actually prepared a set of charts on Russian
1:58:28
Speaker 1: grammar which purported to show that there were no exceptions
1:58:31
Speaker 1: to any syntactical rule in Russian, and he blandly presented
1:58:34
Speaker 1: to his class word forms that he knew never existed,
1:58:37
Speaker 1: even in the speech of the most illiterate. When he
1:58:40
Speaker 1: was reprimanded, he calmly told the NRA supervisors that he
1:58:43
Speaker 1: knew that none of his students intended to learn Russian.
1:58:46
Speaker 1: He wanted his money, and so there was no reason
1:58:48
Speaker 1: to worry about what or how he taught. In nineteen
1:58:51
Speaker 1: thirty four, a new development emerged which was to prove
1:58:54
Speaker 1: exceedingly fruitful in later years. Largely under the influence of
1:58:59
Speaker 1: professors Cross and Patrick, a small sum of money was
1:59:01
Speaker 1: secured to establish an intensive summer course in Russian for
1:59:04
Speaker 1: about twenty students. The course was held at Harvard University
1:59:08
Speaker 1: the first year and was directly under the control of
1:59:10
Speaker 1: Professor Patrick, who had come from the University of California
1:59:13
Speaker 1: to conduct it. With the aid of some assistants, the
1:59:16
Speaker 1: experiment was successful. In nineteen thirty five, joint sessions were
1:59:21
Speaker 1: held at Columbia University and were to a certain degree
1:59:24
Speaker 1: independent of the regular summer school courses. Professor Patrick was
1:59:28
Speaker 1: assisted by missus modul out of Columbia and doctor Jack A.
1:59:31
Speaker 1: Powsin of the University of California. After nineteen thirty five,
1:59:36
Speaker 1: the course was held at the University of California, largely
1:59:39
Speaker 1: because of the increasing illness of Professor Patrick. The session
1:59:42
Speaker 1: at Columbia was attended by two regular officers of the
1:59:45
Speaker 1: United States Army, Major Frank L. Hain and Lieutenant later
1:59:49
Speaker 1: Brigadier General Joseph A. Michaela. Their attendance was made possible
1:59:53
Speaker 1: by the efforts of Colonel Burnett, officer in charge of
1:59:56
Speaker 1: the Military Attache Service, who, having served several terms as
2:00:00
Speaker 1: United States Military attache in Japan, insisted that officers assigned
2:00:04
Speaker 1: to such posts as Moscow and Tokyo have a speaking
2:00:06
Speaker 1: and reading knowledge of the local language. This had been
2:00:10
Speaker 1: the case of Colonel Philip Faymonville, the first armyman to
2:00:12
Speaker 1: be sent to Moscow after the restoration of diplomatic relations
2:00:15
Speaker 1: between the Soviet Union and the United States. In a sense,
2:00:19
Speaker 1: it was almost the beginning of serious language worked by
2:00:22
Speaker 1: the United States Armed Services. Both Hain and Mikaela later
2:00:26
Speaker 1: were military attaches in Moscow, although Hain was transferred to
2:00:29
Speaker 1: Finland during the Soviet Finnish War. Mikayla remained in Moscow
2:00:34
Speaker 1: during the greater part of the war and participated in
2:00:36
Speaker 1: the removal of the capital to Kaybyshev when the Germans
2:00:38
Speaker 1: approached Moscow in the summer of nineteen forty one. At Columbia,
2:00:42
Speaker 1: these officers had special courses during a two year period.
2:00:46
Speaker 1: In the second year, they were joined by Captain Ivan Yeaton,
2:00:49
Speaker 1: who had previously served during World War I in the
2:00:51
Speaker 1: Siberian Expedition under General Graves. Other officers were later added
2:00:56
Speaker 1: to the group, but as World War II approached, the
2:00:58
Speaker 1: entire project was trans Desfred to Harvard University. The thirties
2:01:02
Speaker 1: also witnessed the beginning of a systematic interest in Russian
2:01:05
Speaker 1: studies by the American Council of Learned Societies. This group
2:01:09
Speaker 1: had previously considered the need for developing studies in specialized
2:01:12
Speaker 1: fields and had approached foundations to secure money for limited projects.
2:01:17
Speaker 1: It had been successful in fostering work in Chinese and
2:01:19
Speaker 1: in completing at least a preliminary survey of American resources
2:01:22
Speaker 1: in the field. It then turned its attention to Russian
2:01:26
Speaker 1: and established a committee to study the general status of
2:01:28
Speaker 1: Russian studies. Professor Cross was secretary of this important committee
2:01:32
Speaker 1: for several years. Through the activities of the American Council,
2:01:36
Speaker 1: coordination of work by the various universities and colleges was accomplished.
2:01:41
Speaker 1: This was but the beginning of a process which was
2:01:43
Speaker 1: to be greatly intensified during the war. In the thirties,
2:01:47
Speaker 1: the University of Wisconsin began to offer courses in Polish,
2:01:51
Speaker 1: elaborately planned. Professor Joseph Berkenmeyer from the University of Krakau
2:01:55
Speaker 1: was invited to direct the work. Unfortunately, he returned to
2:01:59
Speaker 1: Poland just on the eve of World War II, but
2:02:01
Speaker 1: the work was continued successfully thirty seven. The department at
2:02:05
Speaker 1: Wisconsin was established primarily through the influence of the Polish
2:02:08
Speaker 1: population of the state. When we consider the state of
2:02:11
Speaker 1: affairs as a whole on the eve of World War II,
2:02:13
Speaker 1: it is apparent that no important university or college had
2:02:16
Speaker 1: established an adequate course in Slavic languages and literatures other
2:02:19
Speaker 1: than those which had done so by the end of
2:02:21
Speaker 1: World War II. This does not mean that the period
2:02:23
Speaker 1: between the wars was lost. The departments at all the
2:02:26
Speaker 1: major centers were better equipped than they had been twenty
2:02:29
Speaker 1: years before. They had larger libraries, better trained instructors, and
2:02:32
Speaker 1: what is more, they were attracting more serious students. Further,
2:02:36
Speaker 1: there were in the United States a considerable number of
2:02:39
Speaker 1: men who had personal experience and acquaintance with the Slavic
2:02:42
Speaker 1: and adjacent countries. There were real experts in almost every
2:02:46
Speaker 1: field of Slavic studies, and there had been a large
2:02:48
Speaker 1: output of books on the languages, literatures, and histories of
2:02:51
Speaker 1: the Slavic nations. Of course, Russian predominated. Yet it is
2:02:56
Speaker 1: noteworthy that during the twenties and thirties, when American institutions
2:02:59
Speaker 1: were overrun with would be communists, the Slavic departments, which
2:03:03
Speaker 1: might have seemed the most vulnerable, somehow escaped with the
2:03:05
Speaker 1: least amount of trouble. They had not taken sides in
2:03:08
Speaker 1: the fervent polemics of the period that were carried on
2:03:10
Speaker 1: with more heat than light. And while there were a
2:03:13
Speaker 1: number of men who had studied or visited the Soviet Union,
2:03:15
Speaker 1: few if any, had become seriously infected with communism. They had, however,
2:03:21
Speaker 1: continued to repeat the old traditional formula set out by
2:03:24
Speaker 1: Russian scholarship before the Revolution, arbitrarily neglecting all aspects of
2:03:28
Speaker 1: the nationality problem in the Soviets treating Russia as a single,
2:03:31
Speaker 1: unified country without regard for the mixed elements of her population,
2:03:35
Speaker 1: or the Soviet division of the republics by an official
2:03:38
Speaker 1: policy of differentiation between the peoples. The most unsatisfactory aspect
2:03:42
Speaker 1: of the period concerned the non Russian Slavic tongues and histories.
2:03:46
Speaker 1: This was unfortunate for it tended to give instruction in
2:03:49
Speaker 1: the major centers of Russian if not Soviet orientation, a
2:03:53
Speaker 1: fact which would cause repercussions in the following period. Among
2:03:56
Speaker 1: the Slavic communities. Some leaders were beginning to understand better
2:04:00
Speaker 1: the peculiar problems of the American educational system, and though
2:04:03
Speaker 1: they had not yet come to cooperate actively, they were
2:04:05
Speaker 1: rapidly becoming aware that there was serious work being done.
2:04:09
Speaker 1: Their own institutions were improving, they were securing more American
2:04:13
Speaker 1: trained teachers, even if they were members of the groups,
2:04:15
Speaker 1: and many second generation Slavs were rising to prominence. Thus
2:04:20
Speaker 1: the period represented a marked deepening rather than an expansion
2:04:23
Speaker 1: of efforts. Slavic languages and history were no longer considered
2:04:27
Speaker 1: merely artificial and exotic. The way was cleared for a
2:04:30
Speaker 1: period of rapid expansion Chapter seven Slavic studies since nineteen
2:04:34
Speaker 1: thirty nine. In the period of tension which followed the
2:04:37
Speaker 1: Munich Agreement of nineteen thirty eight, the opening of World
2:04:40
Speaker 1: War II, and the period of Nazi Soviet cooperation, Slavic
2:04:43
Speaker 1: studies in the United States, as well as the studies
2:04:46
Speaker 1: of the neighboring East European countries, began to receive more
2:04:48
Speaker 1: serious consideration. A period of more active interest began. Because
2:04:54
Speaker 1: developments during World War II have continued since the ending
2:04:57
Speaker 1: of hostilities, it is difficult to draw a hard and
2:04:59
Speaker 1: fast line between the war and post war period, largely
2:05:02
Speaker 1: because of the Cold War and the establishment of the
2:05:04
Speaker 1: Iron Curtain. Oar better yet the recognition that there were
2:05:08
Speaker 1: tremendous gaps between the thinking of the Western free world
2:05:10
Speaker 1: and the Soviet dominated areas. On the surface, the reactions
2:05:14
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine differed little from those in nineteen fourteen.
2:05:19
Speaker 1: This is well illustrated by the fact that at the
2:05:21
Speaker 1: annual opening exercises of Columbia University in nineteen thirty nine,
2:05:25
Speaker 1: President Nicholas Murray Butler repeated large extracts from his talk
2:05:28
Speaker 1: of nineteen fourteen on a similar occasion, Yet the attention
2:05:32
Speaker 1: of the American public was more sharply focused on events
2:05:35
Speaker 1: in Eastern Europe than it had been in nineteen fourteen.
2:05:37
Speaker 1: In the colleges and universities during the preceding twenty five
2:05:40
Speaker 1: years had provided a larger nucleus of trained men. The
2:05:43
Speaker 1: events of the first months showed, however, that far too
2:05:46
Speaker 1: many of these trained men were still bound to the
2:05:48
Speaker 1: thinking of the past and were not prepared to take
2:05:50
Speaker 1: into account recent developments on a global and even on
2:05:53
Speaker 1: an East European scale. Such short sightedness prevented adequate consideration
2:05:58
Speaker 1: of the situation as it unfold day by day. The
2:06:02
Speaker 1: old myth that Russia was a single country inhabited by
2:06:04
Speaker 1: a single people, with boundaries defined long ago proved remarkably vital.
2:06:09
Speaker 1: President Wilson's formulation of a Russian Policy in nineteen eighteen,
2:06:13
Speaker 1: recognizing the need of the Russian people to choose their
2:06:15
Speaker 1: own form of government, was still accepted, and even the
2:06:18
Speaker 1: colleges and universities paid little attention to the structure of
2:06:21
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union as it saw itself. The American people
2:06:25
Speaker 1: and their government continued to use the word Russian as
2:06:27
Speaker 1: a synonym for Soviet Union, and were puzzled, as they
2:06:29
Speaker 1: had been in nineteen seventeen, by the movements that arose
2:06:32
Speaker 1: in the territory. As in nineteen seventeen, Finland stood out
2:06:36
Speaker 1: as a distinct nationality, but the popular reaction to the
2:06:39
Speaker 1: annexation of the Baltic Republics was marked as much by
2:06:42
Speaker 1: confusion as by indignation. Supposed experts even found grim relief
2:06:47
Speaker 1: in the fact that after nineteen thirty nine, the borders
2:06:49
Speaker 1: of Germany and Russia were touching in this scene to
2:06:51
Speaker 1: confirm the validity of the pre nineteen fourteen frontiers. Thus,
2:06:56
Speaker 1: the crisis tended to emphasize again the importance of Russian
2:06:58
Speaker 1: history and the Russian languae, which, in a sense this
2:07:01
Speaker 1: was justified. The force of events had made the Russian
2:07:05
Speaker 1: language predominant in Eastern Europe, and the leaders of the
2:07:07
Speaker 1: USSR were almost exclusively Russian, except the George and Stalin,
2:07:11
Speaker 1: who regularly espoused the Great Russian cause for foreign consumption.
2:07:15
Speaker 1: All tendencies distressed the opponents of Moscow and their cultures
2:07:18
Speaker 1: ended abruptly with the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union,
2:07:21
Speaker 1: and continued in the following period of Soviet democratic cooperation.
2:07:25
Speaker 1: Such emphasis on the Russian character of the USSR was
2:07:28
Speaker 1: furthered by many of the Russian emigrets, who, at the
2:07:30
Speaker 1: height of the war were only too ready, whatever their
2:07:33
Speaker 1: political convictions, to serve the cause of Mother Russia, a
2:07:36
Speaker 1: policy which was fostered by Stalin's clever use of Russian slogans.
2:07:40
Speaker 1: Many British and American authorities zealously compared the German attack
2:07:44
Speaker 1: on the Soviets in nineteen forty one to the German
2:07:46
Speaker 1: advance in nineteen eighteen. After the Soviet Revolution, a bitter
2:07:50
Speaker 1: propaganda attack was started, both inside and outside the universities
2:07:54
Speaker 1: against all national groups from the old Russian Empire having
2:07:57
Speaker 1: separatist aspirations. The old equation that all who were not
2:08:01
Speaker 1: pro Communists were pro Nazi was repeated, especially after nineteen
2:08:04
Speaker 1: forty one. The Ukrainians received the worst criticism, but they
2:08:08
Speaker 1: were not alone. Even though the United States government refused
2:08:12
Speaker 1: to recognize the seizure of the Baltic States, President Roosevelt
2:08:15
Speaker 1: acceded to the demands of Stalin and allowed him to
2:08:17
Speaker 1: sign the Atlantic Charter. They did not grant this to
2:08:21
Speaker 1: the representatives of the occupied countries, lest they break the
2:08:24
Speaker 1: friendship with that great anti Nazi power Russia. Under such conditions,
2:08:28
Speaker 1: Lectures arranged by Professor Manning at Columbia University in the
2:08:31
Speaker 1: spring of nineteen forty one, with the aid of the
2:08:34
Speaker 1: Ukrainian National Association and a number of distinguished professors of
2:08:37
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe, evoked severe criticism from many anti Nazi radio
2:08:41
Speaker 1: commentators who followed the whims of popular sentiment. The chief
2:08:44
Speaker 1: counterweight to this tendency was the arrival in the United
2:08:47
Speaker 1: States of many distinguished scholars who had escaped the holocaust
2:08:50
Speaker 1: of Nazi rule and the direct impact of Soviet power
2:08:53
Speaker 1: on Slavic scholarship. The circumstances of the peaceful occupation of
2:08:57
Speaker 1: Prague in the spring of nineteen thirty nine made it difficult,
2:09:00
Speaker 1: if not impossible, for many Czech professors to leave. The
2:09:04
Speaker 1: chief exceptions were Professor odokar Adlazilic and Professor Roman Jacobsen,
2:09:07
Speaker 1: who were outside the country when the storm struck. The
2:09:11
Speaker 1: Polls were more fortunate for during the crucial weeks of
2:09:13
Speaker 1: the destruction of Poland, many of their leading scholars had
2:09:16
Speaker 1: been able to escape north into Lithuania or south into Romania,
2:09:19
Speaker 1: from which countries they made their way to the West.
2:09:22
Speaker 1: When they arrived in the United States, the Polish organizations,
2:09:26
Speaker 1: working with the Polish Legation in Washington, found funds to
2:09:29
Speaker 1: allow them to continue their scientific work, to furnish a
2:09:32
Speaker 1: center for them and keep them from being lost in
2:09:34
Speaker 1: American life. An American branch of the Polish Academy of
2:09:37
Speaker 1: Arts and Sciences in krakou was formed under the distinguished
2:09:40
Speaker 1: historian Professor Oscar Alecki. This was later reorganized as the
2:09:44
Speaker 1: Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in the United States.
2:09:48
Speaker 1: During the war years, it received sufficient funds to publish
2:09:51
Speaker 1: a quarterly journal, the Bulletin of the Polish Institute of
2:09:54
Speaker 1: Arts and Sciences in America, and to issue several scholarly
2:09:57
Speaker 1: works on Polish subjects. Still later, when the Germans pushed westward,
2:10:02
Speaker 1: other Polish scholars, such as Professor Waclaw led nikki In
2:10:05
Speaker 1: Professor Manfred Criddle, succeeded in reaching the United States. Most
2:10:09
Speaker 1: of these men have since found places in the American
2:10:11
Speaker 1: scientific world. Few distinguished Russian scholars arrived at this time,
2:10:16
Speaker 1: and there was only one Ukrainian, professor Nichols Chibude, who
2:10:19
Speaker 1: almost by accident, arrived in the United States for a
2:10:22
Speaker 1: meeting of Pax Romana, an international organization for social action
2:10:26
Speaker 1: under the auspices of the Catholic Church, and remained here
2:10:28
Speaker 1: after the outbreak of hostilities. The Southern Slavs and Bulgarians
2:10:33
Speaker 1: fared even less well. War produced at first relatively little
2:10:37
Speaker 1: effect upon Slavic studies as a whole, or Russian in particular.
2:10:41
Speaker 1: It was not until nineteen forty that there came any
2:10:43
Speaker 1: appreciable increase in the number of students. Yet the general
2:10:47
Speaker 1: reaction of the public differed from that of nineteen fourteen.
2:10:51
Speaker 1: Despite the growth of anti Nazi and even anti German feeling,
2:10:54
Speaker 1: there was no attempt to exclude German from the curricula
2:10:57
Speaker 1: of any important institution. There was no decline of students,
2:11:01
Speaker 1: but rather an increase. The same was true of Russian
2:11:04
Speaker 1: and long before nineteen forty one the governing bodies of
2:11:07
Speaker 1: institutions without Slavic departments began to think of introducing them.
2:11:11
Speaker 1: We can only mention certain instances of this development. Thirty eight,
2:11:16
Speaker 1: Professor Alfred Sen, a Swiss philologist from the University of
2:11:19
Speaker 1: Kaunos who held several positions in other institutions, became professor
2:11:23
Speaker 1: of German philology at the University of Pennsylvania in nineteen
2:11:26
Speaker 1: thirty eight. During World War II, he offered courses in
2:11:30
Speaker 1: Russian and in nineteen forty eight became professor of Balto
2:11:33
Speaker 1: Slavic Philology and head of the Department of Balto Slavic Studies.
2:11:38
Speaker 1: As such, he was able to group around him a
2:11:40
Speaker 1: number of refugee scholars. In nineteen thirty nine, Cornell University
2:11:45
Speaker 1: invited doctor Jack Pawsen to teach Russian, and in nineteen
2:11:47
Speaker 1: forty one named Ernest J. Simmons Assistant Professor of English
2:11:52
Speaker 1: and Russian. In nineteen forty two, Simmons was named chairman
2:11:56
Speaker 1: of a newly established Department of Russian, and in nineteen
2:11:59
Speaker 1: forty five was promoted to a full professorship. Doctor Posen
2:12:03
Speaker 1: meanwhile had transferred to the University of Iowa in nineteen
2:12:07
Speaker 1: forty two as assistant professor of Russian. At Syracuse University,
2:12:11
Speaker 1: Professor Albert Manutt of the Department of Romance Languages, a
2:12:15
Speaker 1: student of Russian, was able to develop courses in Russian
2:12:17
Speaker 1: and to inaugurate a Russian program. The extent of Slavic
2:12:21
Speaker 1: development during this period is revealed in a survey conducted
2:12:24
Speaker 1: by Professor Arthur P. Coleman in nineteen forty five, which
2:12:28
Speaker 1: showed eighty one institutions offering courses in Russian and eleven
2:12:31
Speaker 1: in Polish. At the same time, there were one hundred
2:12:35
Speaker 1: and forty seven schools and colleges offering courses in Slavic
2:12:38
Speaker 1: history and culture. The increased interest in history seems all
2:12:42
Speaker 1: to the good, but it can be noted that well
2:12:44
Speaker 1: over fifty institutions offering work on Russian and Slavic subjects
2:12:47
Speaker 1: lacked collateral courses in the languages. This, however, was a
2:12:51
Speaker 1: far smaller proportion than existed in nineteen fourteen. Furthermore, it
2:12:56
Speaker 1: was not a peculiarity of the United States, for as
2:12:59
Speaker 1: late as nineteen twenty, in Germany there were professors of
2:13:01
Speaker 1: East European history who looked askant at students wasting their
2:13:04
Speaker 1: time on linguistic studies, for they preferred to have them
2:13:07
Speaker 1: work from translations. To secure a staff for the American expansion,
2:13:11
Speaker 1: particularly in Russian, offered many difficulties. There had been almost
2:13:15
Speaker 1: no immigration of Russians for many years, and the bulk
2:13:18
Speaker 1: of the possible instructors were persons who had come to
2:13:20
Speaker 1: the United States shortly after World War EYE. These were
2:13:24
Speaker 1: the only ones with any special training for During the
2:13:26
Speaker 1: period between the wars, few young Russians from educated families
2:13:29
Speaker 1: had seriously considered doing advanced work in Russian, even though
2:13:32
Speaker 1: there were many with knowledge of the educational system. An
2:13:36
Speaker 1: outstanding exception was Oleg Maslenikov, who at this time joined
2:13:40
Speaker 1: the staff of the University of California. The chief emphasis
2:13:44
Speaker 1: in this period of expansion was on a speaking knowledge
2:13:46
Speaker 1: of the language. Wherever it was possible, instruction was begun
2:13:51
Speaker 1: under the supervision of some member of the faculty with
2:13:53
Speaker 1: a knowledge of Russian, while much of the actual work
2:13:55
Speaker 1: was done by native assistants. This combination, originally applied to
2:14:00
Speaker 1: Russian by Professor Patrick, became the general rule and was
2:14:03
Speaker 1: successful where it was intelligently used. Unlike the situation in
2:14:07
Speaker 1: World War I, the United States government actively encouraged these
2:14:10
Speaker 1: studies and assigned draftees as well as volunteers to special
2:14:13
Speaker 1: units for the study of languages, and special language schools
2:14:16
Speaker 1: were established for the armed services throughout the country. This
2:14:20
Speaker 1: created still another problem. Wartime conscription reduced the number of
2:14:24
Speaker 1: students alarmingly, causing nearly all colleges and universities to become
2:14:28
Speaker 1: dependent upon government funds for their continued functioning. The larger institutions,
2:14:33
Speaker 1: with their highly developed laboratories and opportunities for scientific training,
2:14:36
Speaker 1: received most of the students to be trained in technical subjects.
2:14:40
Speaker 1: The government therefore often opened language centers in smaller institutions,
2:14:45
Speaker 1: many of which lacked necessary libraries, and in some localities
2:14:48
Speaker 1: secured a proper staff of instructors only with difficulty. Thus
2:14:53
Speaker 1: Bulgarian was assigned to the University of Denver, which was
2:14:56
Speaker 1: fortunate to find in that city an educated Bulgarian lady.
2:15:00
Speaker 1: She agreed to help, although she had never seriously considered
2:15:03
Speaker 1: teaching Bulgarian, and was compelled to prepare most of her
2:15:05
Speaker 1: materials from original Bulgarian texts which she owned. With the
2:15:09
Speaker 1: reduction of the armed forces after the war, many of
2:15:12
Speaker 1: these courses were suspended, although both the Navy and Air
2:15:15
Speaker 1: Force still send selected students to various universities. The Army, however,
2:15:20
Speaker 1: has established its own language school at the Presidio of Monterey,
2:15:24
Speaker 1: with a well selected civilian faculty, many of them former
2:15:27
Speaker 1: members of university staffs. This is rapidly becoming one of
2:15:30
Speaker 1: the best institutions of its kind for the study of
2:15:32
Speaker 1: the Slavic as well as other languages. It is preparing
2:15:36
Speaker 1: for its own use, its own courses, and it promises
2:15:39
Speaker 1: to become an important testing ground for Slavic and East
2:15:41
Speaker 1: European studies. In addition to this, Russian has been introduced
2:15:45
Speaker 1: into the curriculum of such service academies as West Point,
2:15:48
Speaker 1: where the work which was tentatively started after World War
2:15:51
Speaker 1: EYE is now on a definite and secure basis. This
2:15:54
Speaker 1: period too saw the beginning of the organization of the
2:15:57
Speaker 1: so called area studies. In these, the history, geography, and
2:16:01
Speaker 1: economics of the given area are stressed. Such efforts represent
2:16:05
Speaker 1: an attempt to overcome the gaps which have developed between historical,
2:16:08
Speaker 1: literary and cultural studies through the departmentalizing of institutions. But
2:16:13
Speaker 1: as they have developed, historical and economic elements have been
2:16:16
Speaker 1: stressed more than cultural and literary. This was perhaps natural. However,
2:16:22
Speaker 1: during the war, at the height of the enthusiasm for
2:16:24
Speaker 1: the us SR, studies of this kind tended to accent
2:16:27
Speaker 1: the Soviet version of the relations between the nationalities of
2:16:30
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union and the old Russian concept of a
2:16:32
Speaker 1: single Russian people. There was thus a perpetuation of the
2:16:36
Speaker 1: previous confusion in American thinking, and it was not overcome
2:16:40
Speaker 1: even when the Ukrainian and the Beelo Russian Soviet Socialist
2:16:43
Speaker 1: Republics were included as charter members in the United Nations.
2:16:47
Speaker 1: The greatest single deterrent to Slavic study was the almost
2:16:49
Speaker 1: simultaneous death of nearly all the older leaders of Slavic scholarship.
2:16:54
Speaker 1: To list but a few of the more prominent, Professor
2:16:56
Speaker 1: John Dineleiy Prince, who had retired from Columbia in nineteen
2:17:00
Speaker 1: thirty seven, died in nineteen forty five at the age
2:17:02
Speaker 1: of seventy seven. Professor Alexander Kaun of the University of
2:17:06
Speaker 1: California died at the age of fifty five in nineteen
2:17:09
Speaker 1: forty four. Professor George Z. Patrick of the same institution
2:17:14
Speaker 1: died at the age of sixty three in nineteen forty five.
2:17:16
Speaker 1: Professor Henry Lands of Stanford died in nineteen forty five
2:17:20
Speaker 1: at the age of fifty nine. Professor Samuel hazard Cross
2:17:24
Speaker 1: of Harvard died in nineteen forty four at the age
2:17:26
Speaker 1: of fifty five thirty nine. Thus, within three years, practically
2:17:31
Speaker 1: all the older men in the field of Slavic literature died,
2:17:34
Speaker 1: except Professor George Rapaulnois and Professor Manning. The losses in
2:17:38
Speaker 1: history were not so severe, but Professor Samuel N. Harper
2:17:41
Speaker 1: of the University of Chicago died in nineteen forty three
2:17:44
Speaker 1: at the age of sixty one. As a result, Professor
2:17:47
Speaker 1: Robert J. Kerner, for many years at the University of California,
2:17:52
Speaker 1: was the only person remaining in the field of history
2:17:54
Speaker 1: who had become prominent before nineteen fourteen. This, in a
2:17:58
Speaker 1: sense sharply delineated the earlier period of Slavic studies. To day,
2:18:03
Speaker 1: the leaders of Slavak scholarship belonged definitely to a different generation,
2:18:07
Speaker 1: one which is certainly better trained, but does not necessarily
2:18:09
Speaker 1: have the range of interests which often marked the older men.
2:18:13
Speaker 1: Another somewhat different development needs to be noted. During the
2:18:17
Speaker 1: first years of the war, when England was severely strained
2:18:20
Speaker 1: by the war and the bombing of her cities, it
2:18:22
Speaker 1: seemed that the Slavonic and East European Review would be
2:18:24
Speaker 1: compelled to suspend publication. To meet the crisis, it was
2:18:28
Speaker 1: decided that the journal would continue under the direction of
2:18:30
Speaker 1: the American contributing editors. Thus, until his untimely death, Professor
2:18:35
Speaker 1: Cross was the practical editor of the magazine, assisted by
2:18:38
Speaker 1: Professor Leonidai Strakowsky. Issues appeared with both an American and
2:18:43
Speaker 1: British volume number. After the war, when the British expressed
2:18:46
Speaker 1: a desire to resume publication, the American editors expanded their
2:18:50
Speaker 1: numbers and, with the aid of the Joint Committee on
2:18:52
Speaker 1: Slavic Studies, established the American Association for the Advancement of
2:18:56
Speaker 1: Slavic Studies to publish the American Slavic and East European Review.
2:19:00
Speaker 1: The present committee of scholars in charge of the publication
2:19:03
Speaker 1: is Professor Abram Bergson of Harvard, Professor George B. Cressey
2:19:06
Speaker 1: of Syracuse, Professor H. H. Fisher of Stanford, Professor Alexander
2:19:11
Speaker 1: Gerschenkrin of Harvard, Professor Oscar Halecki of Fordham University, Professor
2:19:16
Speaker 1: Roman Jacobson of Harvard, Professor Michael Karpovich of Harvard, Professor
2:19:19
Speaker 1: Robert J. Kerner of California, Professor w. Letniki of California,
2:19:25
Speaker 1: Professor Phillip Moseley of the Council for Foreign Relations, Professor
2:19:28
Speaker 1: Jeroid Robinson of Columbia, Professor Alfredsen of the University of Pennsylvania,
2:19:32
Speaker 1: Professor Ernest J. Simmonds of Columbia, Professor S. H. Thompson
2:19:36
Speaker 1: of the University of Colorado, Professor George Natsky of Yale,
2:19:40
Speaker 1: and Professor Francis J. Whitfield of the University of California.
2:19:45
Speaker 1: Nothing better illustrates the way in which Slavic studies has
2:19:48
Speaker 1: developed than this list. For the overwhelming majority of these
2:19:51
Speaker 1: scholars represent those institutions where departments had existed before World
2:19:55
Speaker 1: War One. The American Slavic and East European Review is
2:19:59
Speaker 1: the leading publication in the United States for Slavic studies. However,
2:20:03
Speaker 1: other journals, such as the publication of the Modern Language
2:20:06
Speaker 1: Association Speculum, the Journal of Central European History edited by
2:20:11
Speaker 1: Professor S. H. Thompson, and the Journal of East European
2:20:14
Speaker 1: History edited by the University of Chicago also contain specialized articles.
2:20:20
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, there are very few of
2:20:22
Speaker 1: the more specialized journals which during the past years have
2:20:25
Speaker 1: not included articles on some aspect of the East European
2:20:27
Speaker 1: historical and cultural world. There are also several quarterlies published
2:20:32
Speaker 1: in the United States which deal with East Europe. Among
2:20:35
Speaker 1: these are the Russian Review, edited by Professor D. Vaughan
2:20:39
Speaker 1: Morenschild of Dartmouth College, originally founded with the aid of
2:20:42
Speaker 1: the Russian Student Fund, The Ukrainian Quarterly edited by Professor
2:20:46
Speaker 1: Nicholas Chibady for the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, and
2:20:49
Speaker 1: the Polish Review published by the Polish Institute of Arts
2:20:52
Speaker 1: and Sciences in America. We may also place here the
2:20:56
Speaker 1: Armenian Review, edited by mister Reuben d'arbignien for the Hernick Associate, Boston, Massachusetts.
2:21:02
Speaker 1: These are scholarly journals devoted to the language, culture, and
2:21:06
Speaker 1: history of the people for whom they are compiled, which
2:21:08
Speaker 1: cannot be overlooked in any survey of the intellectual output
2:21:11
Speaker 1: for East European subjects. There are also many smaller organs
2:21:15
Speaker 1: and bulletins of societies, often with worldwide connection, which serve
2:21:18
Speaker 1: a more specialized political program. They are important for their
2:21:22
Speaker 1: frequent opposition to the accepted viewpoint of history and culture,
2:21:25
Speaker 1: but are essentially more political than scholarly in its content.
2:21:29
Speaker 1: As has been stressed again and again, Slavic studies have
2:21:32
Speaker 1: developed so largely under the influence of the imperial, Russian
2:21:35
Speaker 1: and German traditions that truth has often seemed to be
2:21:37
Speaker 1: merely what was decided in pre World War I St.
2:21:39
Speaker 1: Petersburg and Berlin. The Slavic Group of the Modern Language
2:21:43
Speaker 1: Association of America is still the leading scientific center for
2:21:46
Speaker 1: philologists and students of literature in the broadest sense of
2:21:49
Speaker 1: the word. It holds a yearly meeting concurrent with the
2:21:53
Speaker 1: Modern Language Association and is divided into two parts, literary
2:21:56
Speaker 1: and philological. It offers the best possibilit for the developing
2:22:01
Speaker 1: of personal contacts among more serious students. In time, it
2:22:04
Speaker 1: should become a section parallel to that of the English,
2:22:07
Speaker 1: Romance and Germanic sections, but the day when there are
2:22:09
Speaker 1: sufficient members is still in the future. For many years
2:22:13
Speaker 1: there was no special section in the American Historical Association
2:22:16
Speaker 1: and its allied societies devoted to the study of Slavic
2:22:19
Speaker 1: or East European history. This did not mean that the
2:22:22
Speaker 1: subject was ignored, for numerous papers were included in the
2:22:25
Speaker 1: regular program, and many times there were entire meetings devoted
2:22:28
Speaker 1: to Slavic problems. However, in nineteen fifty five, a special
2:22:33
Speaker 1: Conference on Slavak and East European Studies was formed to
2:22:36
Speaker 1: provide continuity and concentration in the subject. This activity will
2:22:40
Speaker 1: undoubtedly expand in future years. Another organization serving Slavak scholars
2:22:45
Speaker 1: is the American Association of Teachers of Slavak and East
2:22:48
Speaker 1: European Languages, formed by Professor Arthur P. Coleman, formerly of
2:22:53
Speaker 1: Columbia University and now president of Alliance College. Founded in
2:22:57
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one to parallel such groups as the U
2:22:59
Speaker 1: S American Association of Teachers of German, this organization exists
2:23:03
Speaker 1: to bring together teachers of the subject, rather than to
2:23:06
Speaker 1: promote research. The association is divided both by languages and
2:23:10
Speaker 1: by localities. It has appealed to many Emigree scholars, and
2:23:14
Speaker 1: this has led it to a more definite anti communist
2:23:16
Speaker 1: position than many other groups, which have often leaned over
2:23:19
Speaker 1: backward to appear impartial and unprejudiced. It has now established
2:23:23
Speaker 1: the Slavic and East European Journal. The ranks of Emigree scholars,
2:23:28
Speaker 1: which had started to grow with the arrival of many
2:23:30
Speaker 1: polls in nineteen thirty nine, were augmented after nineteen forty
2:23:33
Speaker 1: five by the arrival of many displaced persons. These men,
2:23:37
Speaker 1: for the most part Ukrainians, and often of considerable intellectual stature,
2:23:41
Speaker 1: found themselves in an un enviable position, chiefly because of
2:23:43
Speaker 1: their inability to speak English. The majority were already mature
2:23:48
Speaker 1: or even elderly. They had escaped the Holocaust caused by
2:23:51
Speaker 1: that interpretation of the Yalta Agreements, which had led to
2:23:54
Speaker 1: the forcible return of many refugees to the Soviet Union. However,
2:23:58
Speaker 1: they were aided by their own ability to make the
2:24:00
Speaker 1: most of opportunities given them by the freakish events of
2:24:02
Speaker 1: the last months of the war in Europe. In and
2:24:05
Speaker 1: out of the d P camps, they had created their
2:24:07
Speaker 1: own scholarly groups in Germany and Austria. Thus, the Ukrainian
2:24:12
Speaker 1: Free University, which had been established first in Vienna and
2:24:14
Speaker 1: then moved to Prague after World War One, was now
2:24:17
Speaker 1: reopened in Munich. An unraw University was started in the
2:24:20
Speaker 1: same city. A less formal Baltic University was established in
2:24:24
Speaker 1: Hamburg in the British Zone. At one time, there were
2:24:28
Speaker 1: plans to transfer this latter institution to Canada, but the
2:24:30
Speaker 1: plants carried. However, many of the leading professors of these
2:24:34
Speaker 1: institutions have come to the United States and Canada and
2:24:37
Speaker 1: are being absorbed into the American educational world. In the beginning,
2:24:41
Speaker 1: many of these men were compelled to take non intellectual positions.
2:24:45
Speaker 1: Others found places in institutions, usually Catholic of either the
2:24:49
Speaker 1: Western or Eastern Rites, educating their compatriots at schools such
2:24:53
Speaker 1: as Alliance College and the Ukrainian Catholic s T. Basel's
2:24:56
Speaker 1: College in Stamford, Connecticut, Asterisk forty plus. In addition to
2:25:01
Speaker 1: these institutions, the displaced persons opened many more elementary schools
2:25:05
Speaker 1: on all educational levels to train their fellow countrymen whose
2:25:08
Speaker 1: education had been interrupted by the war and the limitations
2:25:10
Speaker 1: imposed on general education both by the Soviets and the Nazis.
2:25:15
Speaker 1: By a series of fortunate coincidences, the majority of the
2:25:18
Speaker 1: administration of the old Shivchenko Scientific Society in Laviv and
2:25:21
Speaker 1: a large part of its membership were saved in the
2:25:23
Speaker 1: DP camps there. This society, which had been suppressed by
2:25:27
Speaker 1: the Soviets in nineteen thirty nine after their occupation of Leaviv,
2:25:31
Speaker 1: was again revived under the same officers in Munich. The
2:25:34
Speaker 1: center was later moved to Sarcelis, near Paris. Many of
2:25:38
Speaker 1: its members have come to the United States, and while
2:25:40
Speaker 1: the headquarters are still in Sarcelis, American and Canadian branches
2:25:44
Speaker 1: have been established in New York and Toronto, and are
2:25:46
Speaker 1: working actively publishing the results of their studies in both
2:25:49
Speaker 1: Ukrainian and English. At about the same time, other Ukrainians
2:25:53
Speaker 1: in the camps, perhaps more often from Eastern Ukraine, formed
2:25:56
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences its memory, have also
2:26:00
Speaker 1: come in numbers to America and are functioning in New
2:26:03
Speaker 1: York and Winnipeg. They publish the quarterly annals in English,
2:26:07
Speaker 1: greatly aided by the East European Funds set up by
2:26:10
Speaker 1: the Ford Foundation. These two groups, which parallel the Polish
2:26:14
Speaker 1: Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, have counterparts in
2:26:17
Speaker 1: the Francis Karina Society, Privian and the White Ruthenian Institute
2:26:21
Speaker 1: of Arts and Sciences in the US, the Croatian Academy
2:26:24
Speaker 1: of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Serb National University
2:26:28
Speaker 1: in Chicago. The Masaric Institute, formed by a group of
2:26:31
Speaker 1: Americans and checks before the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, is
2:26:35
Speaker 1: in a sense similar, but it has also the features
2:26:37
Speaker 1: of the Kosciusko Foundation. It is too early to know
2:26:41
Speaker 1: what position these societies will take in Slavic programs of
2:26:44
Speaker 1: the future, but their outstanding individuals are securing recognition in
2:26:47
Speaker 1: American colleges and universities. Whether they will ultimately form a
2:26:52
Speaker 1: branch of this general educational field, or whether they will
2:26:54
Speaker 1: develop into more highly specialized groups drawing upon interested Americans
2:26:58
Speaker 1: of non Slavic origin cannot now be answered with certainty.
2:27:02
Speaker 1: Some of them are undoubtedly ephemeral, but some have had
2:27:04
Speaker 1: a long cultural tradition and can be expected in their
2:27:07
Speaker 1: new environment to exercise an influence out of proportion to
2:27:10
Speaker 1: their numbers. Many of the newly arrived scholars are already
2:27:14
Speaker 1: playing an important role in the development of Slavic studies
2:27:16
Speaker 1: and in the reorganization of some of the older departments.
2:27:20
Speaker 1: It would take too long to list all who have
2:27:22
Speaker 1: found important posts. Professor Oscar Halecki is developing the study
2:27:26
Speaker 1: of Polish history at Fordham University. Professor Roman small Stocky
2:27:30
Speaker 1: at Marquette University has taken a prominent part in the
2:27:33
Speaker 1: formation of a Slavic institute. There By such publications as
2:27:37
Speaker 1: The Nationality Problem of the Soviet Union, he is helping
2:27:40
Speaker 1: acquaint the American public with the dangers of open as
2:27:43
Speaker 1: well as secret communism in the United States. Besides exposing
2:27:46
Speaker 1: the inaccuracy of the American concept that all citizens of
2:27:49
Speaker 1: the former Russian Empire are Russians by blood, feeling, and culture.
2:27:54
Speaker 1: There is, in addition, the work of Professor George Schevlov
2:27:57
Speaker 1: in comparative philology at Columbia University and that of Professor
2:28:00
Speaker 1: dimitro Kozevsky at Harvard, which emphasizes the older Ukrainian literature.
2:28:05
Speaker 1: The rise of recently arrived Slavic scholars and the influence
2:28:08
Speaker 1: of transplanted organizations of Slavic scholarship was earnestly needed by
2:28:12
Speaker 1: American Slavic scholarship, and in fact was forced by the
2:28:15
Speaker 1: surprising number of deaths during the war period. Development in
2:28:19
Speaker 1: the different institutions has been conditioned, of course, by the
2:28:22
Speaker 1: general traditions and spirit of each school. While growth has
2:28:25
Speaker 1: been rapid, it cannot be said that all results have
2:28:28
Speaker 1: been unqualifiedly happy or successful, partly because of the sporadic
2:28:31
Speaker 1: interest by both faculty and students in the field as
2:28:34
Speaker 1: a whole. Slavic subjects, not to speak of the closely
2:28:38
Speaker 1: associated non Slavic languages like the Uralltaic groups, Modern Greek
2:28:42
Speaker 1: and Romanian, all of which have strong Slavic overtones, are
2:28:45
Speaker 1: extremely broad and diverse yet for the average American student,
2:28:49
Speaker 1: Slavic and Russian are too exclusively identified. Even interest in
2:28:53
Speaker 1: Russian has been chiefly limited to either pure philology or
2:28:56
Speaker 1: more frequently, Russian literature of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries.
2:29:01
Speaker 1: As an example, consider Columbia University's efforts to secure a
2:29:05
Speaker 1: balanced course. When Professor Ernest J. Simmons joined the staff
2:29:10
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty six as Professor of Russian Literature and
2:29:13
Speaker 1: chairman of the Department of Slavic Languages as it was
2:29:16
Speaker 1: now renamed, he hoped to build a broad program. The
2:29:19
Speaker 1: department was informally divided into four sections Slavac and Russian Philology,
2:29:24
Speaker 1: Czech and Slovak, Polish, and South Slavic. To help defray expenses,
2:29:29
Speaker 1: the university, reversing the policy formulated by President Butler after
2:29:33
Speaker 1: the unpleasant developments of the World War I period, saw
2:29:35
Speaker 1: from the lesser Slavic lands a yearly subsidy to pay
2:29:38
Speaker 1: the salary of a distinguished professor. This was easily secured
2:29:42
Speaker 1: from both Poland and Czechoslovakia, and Professor Roman Jacobsen was
2:29:46
Speaker 1: appointed the Thomas G. Masric Professor of Slavac Philology and
2:29:49
Speaker 1: Professor Manfred Crittle was named the Adam Mikovitch Professor of Polish.
2:29:54
Speaker 1: Arrangements were made without considering developments which might be caused
2:29:57
Speaker 1: by the Communists, and similar agreements were made with me
2:30:00
Speaker 1: many countries of the Near and Middle East. The experiment
2:30:03
Speaker 1: was hardly satisfactory. After the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the
2:30:08
Speaker 1: new regime imposed such conditions that maintenance of the chair
2:30:11
Speaker 1: was impossible. Poland more slowly followed the same course, despite
2:30:16
Speaker 1: other arrangements with less possible political interference made by the university.
2:30:20
Speaker 1: The number of students in the Czech, Slovak, Polish and
2:30:23
Speaker 1: South Slovic sections of the department has been scarcely larger
2:30:26
Speaker 1: than it was between the wars. There was no attempt
2:30:29
Speaker 1: at Columbia to break the traditional separation between the faculties
2:30:32
Speaker 1: of philosophy and political science or establish a single department
2:30:36
Speaker 1: for all Slavac or even all Russian instruction. Russian history
2:30:40
Speaker 1: under Professor Jerod Robinson continued to develop as it had,
2:30:44
Speaker 1: just as other areas of study continued under the Faculty
2:30:47
Speaker 1: of Political Science. Development at Harvard was somewhat different there
2:30:52
Speaker 1: after the interim period following the death of Professor Cross.
2:30:55
Speaker 1: Professor Roman Jacobson came to Cambridge in nineteen forty nine
2:30:59
Speaker 1: with a number of experts since Slavic fields. At about
2:31:02
Speaker 1: the same time, work in all Slavic subjects was at
2:31:05
Speaker 1: least partially consolidated, and Professor Karpovitch was named to the
2:31:08
Speaker 1: Kurt Hugo Risinger Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures in
2:31:12
Speaker 1: addition to his work in history. At the University of California,
2:31:16
Speaker 1: development was severely affected by the death of Professors Patrick
2:31:19
Speaker 1: and Kown until the staff was rebuilt by the appointment
2:31:21
Speaker 1: of Professor Gleb Struve and Waklaw led Nikki and the
2:31:24
Speaker 1: promotion of Professor Oleg Maslenikov forty one. There was no
2:31:27
Speaker 1: attempt to integrate the work in history under Professor Robert J. Kerner,
2:31:32
Speaker 1: although the department broadened with an increase of students in
2:31:35
Speaker 1: the same period. Slavic studies at Catholic universities, especially those
2:31:39
Speaker 1: administered by the Society of Jesus, have been greatly strengthened.
2:31:44
Speaker 1: While Georgetown University alone achieved standing in language instruction following
2:31:48
Speaker 1: World War I, the situation has changed since World War II.
2:31:51
Speaker 1: In Fordham, Notre Dame and Marquette are all setting new
2:31:54
Speaker 1: standards in the range of courses offered and in the
2:31:56
Speaker 1: thoroughness of their work. These institutions have all also contributed
2:32:00
Speaker 1: by studying the contrasts and similarities between the Russian Empire
2:32:04
Speaker 1: and the Soviet Union, with emphasis on the nationality problem
2:32:07
Speaker 1: of Russia USSR. Numerous conferences have been held and addresses
2:32:11
Speaker 1: have been published. Marquette University, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where
2:32:16
Speaker 1: there is a considerable population of Slavic descent, has established
2:32:19
Speaker 1: a Slavic Institute under the direction of Professor Roman small Stocky.
2:32:24
Speaker 1: In the announcement of its first publication, The Doctrine of
2:32:26
Speaker 1: Anarchism of Michael A. Bakunin, the institute stated its goal
2:32:31
Speaker 1: to strengthen the knowledge of Slavic matters and problems in
2:32:33
Speaker 1: America through this special series of monographs on Slavic nations,
2:32:36
Speaker 1: their history, culture, civilization, and their great personalities. Simultaneously, we
2:32:42
Speaker 1: would like to cultivate through original research the Slavic heritage
2:32:45
Speaker 1: of more than twelve million of America's citizens. According to
2:32:49
Speaker 1: our anniversary motto, we dedicate the series to the pursuit
2:32:52
Speaker 1: of truth to make men free and in this spirit,
2:32:54
Speaker 1: we shall approach all Slavic nations large and small, with
2:32:57
Speaker 1: a deep sense of their fundamental equality, disregarding all Slavak
2:33:01
Speaker 1: imperialisms and colonialisms, and with a warm respect for their
2:33:04
Speaker 1: fine heritage which has become a component part of our
2:33:07
Speaker 1: American culture and civilization. Scholarly purposes of this sort, which
2:33:12
Speaker 1: respect the culture of the Slavic peoples apart from political dominations,
2:33:15
Speaker 1: and the avowal to study changes of Slavic culture in
2:33:18
Speaker 1: the New World bid fair to mark a new era
2:33:20
Speaker 1: for such studies. Leading American colleges as a whole have
2:33:24
Speaker 1: introduced Russian into their curricula. Most courses are taught by
2:33:28
Speaker 1: men trained while in American government service during World War II,
2:33:31
Speaker 1: who have continued their preparation in graduate programs at one
2:33:34
Speaker 1: of the longer established Slavic departments forty two. Much of
2:33:38
Speaker 1: the recent development in Slavic scholarship must be credited to
2:33:40
Speaker 1: the work of the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies, started
2:33:44
Speaker 1: before World War II by the American Council of Learned Societies.
2:33:47
Speaker 1: A committee was established in the Slavac area based on
2:33:50
Speaker 1: the prototype which existed to aid the reorganization and development
2:33:53
Speaker 1: of studies in Chinese. Later, the Social Science Research Council
2:33:58
Speaker 1: established a Committee for the development of Slavia Studies in
2:34:00
Speaker 1: the Social Sciences. The committees of these organizations combined to
2:34:04
Speaker 1: form the Joint Committee, which was able to secure large
2:34:07
Speaker 1: subsidies from foundations for the development of courses, faculty salaries
2:34:11
Speaker 1: and scholarship grants. The initiative of this committee, working with
2:34:15
Speaker 1: influential and alert university officials, has aided the expansion of
2:34:18
Speaker 1: wartime area studies into institutes, organized programs, and centers of
2:34:22
Speaker 1: research and training. This approach to academic organization is in
2:34:26
Speaker 1: a sense borrowed from European University organization, which used institutes
2:34:30
Speaker 1: such as the Slavic Institute in Prague as a means
2:34:33
Speaker 1: of coordinating the activities of previously isolated chairs. In the
2:34:37
Speaker 1: United States, where the organization of courses led to the
2:34:40
Speaker 1: establishment of cohesive departments, the institutes became a means of
2:34:43
Speaker 1: coordinating departments which were in different faculties, sometimes in isolation
2:34:47
Speaker 1: and even competition, especially in courses on national cultures, which
2:34:50
Speaker 1: almost of necessity impinge on history. In addition, the institutes
2:34:55
Speaker 1: had a more practical side for along with the development
2:34:57
Speaker 1: of pure research they aspired to supply trained men and
2:35:00
Speaker 1: women for special technical work in both government and civilian enterprises.
2:35:05
Speaker 1: We can scarcely summarize this activity better than by quoting
2:35:07
Speaker 1: the purposes of the Russian Institute, as reported in the
2:35:10
Speaker 1: Announcement of the Faculty of Philosophy of Columbia University for
2:35:13
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty seven, Page one forty six. The Russian Institute,
2:35:16
Speaker 1: established in nineteen forty six with the assistance of the
2:35:19
Speaker 1: Rockefeller Foundation, has two major objectives, the development of research
2:35:24
Speaker 1: in the social sciences and the humanities as they relate
2:35:27
Speaker 1: to Russia, and the training of a limited number of
2:35:29
Speaker 1: well qualified Americans for scholarly or professional careers as Russian
2:35:33
Speaker 1: Soviet specialists in business, in finance, in journalism, in various
2:35:37
Speaker 1: branches of government service, and in academic research and teaching
2:35:41
Speaker 1: in the social sciences and in literature. It is believed
2:35:44
Speaker 1: that such perspective specialists should acquire a broad and thoroughly
2:35:48
Speaker 1: integrated knowledge of Russia and the Soviet Union, b command
2:35:51
Speaker 1: of a well developed specialty in a selected academic discipline
2:35:55
Speaker 1: as applied to that country, and c a broad training
2:35:59
Speaker 1: in the more general aspects of this selected discipline to
2:36:02
Speaker 1: this end, each candidate for the two year certificate will
2:36:05
Speaker 1: pursue certain survey courses on Russia, while giving special emphasis
2:36:09
Speaker 1: within the institute to one of five fields Russian history, economy,
2:36:13
Speaker 1: government and law, foreign relations, the social and ideological aspects
2:36:18
Speaker 1: of literature. At the same time, the candidate will be
2:36:21
Speaker 1: expected to follow outside the institute a parallel program of
2:36:25
Speaker 1: work in the graduate school or department of the university
2:36:27
Speaker 1: that is most closely allied with his Russian specialty within
2:36:30
Speaker 1: the institute. All of these institutes, wherever they have been founded,
2:36:34
Speaker 1: in whether they are institutes, studies, or programs, have been
2:36:37
Speaker 1: faced with the same fundamental dilemma, how is the term
2:36:39
Speaker 1: Russia to be defined? A certain number of scholars, who
2:36:43
Speaker 1: have been labeled by Professor Lev Dobrinsky of Georgetown University
2:36:46
Speaker 1: as the Russia Firsters, have stubbornly insisted that it was
2:36:49
Speaker 1: their duty to devote themselves to the study of Russia
2:36:51
Speaker 1: in the traditional sense of the word, i e. The
2:36:54
Speaker 1: consideration of Russian culture, history, and economics, without regard to
2:36:58
Speaker 1: the linguistically and culturally our genious character of the Old
2:37:01
Speaker 1: Russian Empire. To students of this school, every person within
2:37:05
Speaker 1: the Old Russian Empire is a Russian. Whether their studies
2:37:08
Speaker 1: concern economics or concentration camps, they refuse to separate the
2:37:12
Speaker 1: statistics in any way that might show increased pressure on
2:37:15
Speaker 1: the non Russian peoples by the Soviet government. They feel
2:37:18
Speaker 1: themselves free to do this, even though Stalin himself after
2:37:21
Speaker 1: World War Two, specifically attributed the victory of the Soviet
2:37:24
Speaker 1: Union to the loyalty of the Great Russians i e.
2:37:26
Speaker 1: Russians in the narrower sense of the word. This attitude,
2:37:30
Speaker 1: despite the prominence of its supporters, has been steadily opposed
2:37:33
Speaker 1: by those students who stress the cultural and linguistic differences
2:37:36
Speaker 1: which existed in the old Russian Empire as well as
2:37:38
Speaker 1: in the modern Soviet Union. These students emphasized the similarities
2:37:43
Speaker 1: between the Russian and Soviet concepts of dominance of the
2:37:45
Speaker 1: Great Russians and argue for a proper recognition of the
2:37:48
Speaker 1: oppressed nations of the ussr who sought their independence during
2:37:51
Speaker 1: the Revolution and have since been restrained by force of
2:37:53
Speaker 1: arms to adopt communism. They accordingly see in the restoration
2:37:57
Speaker 1: of the political independence of these nations the bestest answer
2:38:00
Speaker 1: to the communist menace to freedom This viewpoint has been
2:38:04
Speaker 1: expressed by Professor Roman Smallstocky and by James Burnham, formerly
2:38:07
Speaker 1: of the Department of Philosophy of New York University, who
2:38:10
Speaker 1: in all his writings has stressed the need to eliminate
2:38:12
Speaker 1: the new Russian Communism. A further requirement of this in
2:38:16
Speaker 1: a historical survey is expressed by a Russian in speaking
2:38:18
Speaker 1: of the failure of the anti communist movements during the
2:38:21
Speaker 1: Civil Wars. Those who were adverse to the new Communist
2:38:24
Speaker 1: regime could thus be divided into two very different groups,
2:38:27
Speaker 1: one comprising the property owning classes who had been deprived
2:38:31
Speaker 1: of their all by the Bolsheviks, the officers, the civil servants,
2:38:34
Speaker 1: and all those devoted to the ideals of the Russian
2:38:36
Speaker 1: state as constituted before the October Revolution. The other the
2:38:39
Speaker 1: national separatist groups, which desired complete separation from Russia. It
2:38:44
Speaker 1: is easy to see that, no matter how antagonistic these
2:38:46
Speaker 1: two groups might be to communism, their aims were absolutely dissociated.
2:38:51
Speaker 1: The unity of the Russian state could only be re
2:38:53
Speaker 1: established in one of two ways, either by a restoration
2:38:56
Speaker 1: of the monarchy or by federation. Neither alternative appealed to
2:39:00
Speaker 1: the anti Bolshevik groups, and this circumstance explains the absence
2:39:04
Speaker 1: of cooperation in the civil war which broke out in
2:39:06
Speaker 1: many parts of the country in nineteen eighteen. It must
2:39:09
Speaker 1: be noted also that the majority of the population, the peasantry,
2:39:13
Speaker 1: stood entirely aloof from the activities of both groups, and
2:39:16
Speaker 1: remained during the initial stages of the civil war absolutely neutral.
2:39:19
Speaker 1: Forty three, with the practical elimination of the monarchist influences,
2:39:24
Speaker 1: the line is still drawn with the greatest bitterness between
2:39:26
Speaker 1: the so called Russian democratic elements who insist upon the
2:39:29
Speaker 1: unity of Russia, and the representatives of the non Russian peoples,
2:39:32
Speaker 1: especially the Ukrainians, Baltic, Caucasian and Turkestanian nations. During the
2:39:37
Speaker 1: first post war years, this latter tendency was little regarded
2:39:40
Speaker 1: in the American universities, and even now is less well
2:39:43
Speaker 1: represented than it should be. But recent years have seen
2:39:45
Speaker 1: the publication of several studies such as John Rischattar's as
2:39:48
Speaker 1: Ukrainian Revolution and John A. Armstrong's Ukrainian Nationalism nineteen thirty
2:39:52
Speaker 1: nine to nineteen forty three. The same division can be
2:39:56
Speaker 1: seen in the distribution of aid in the early years
2:39:59
Speaker 1: of the work of the E East European Fund, Inc.
2:40:01
Speaker 1: Which was created by the Ford Foundation and has done
2:40:03
Speaker 1: much valuable work. In its later years, it has given
2:40:07
Speaker 1: more money to aid in the preparation and publication of
2:40:09
Speaker 1: works by Ukrainian, beel Russian and other scholars, and is
2:40:12
Speaker 1: publishing a series of Ukrainian texts, either original works or
2:40:15
Speaker 1: books suppressed by the Soviet government. But all of these
2:40:19
Speaker 1: publishing activities fall far short of the work of the c.
2:40:21
Speaker 1: Chekhov Publishing House, which has issued over one hundred Russian
2:40:24
Speaker 1: books and received for this grants up to nineteen fifty four,
2:40:27
Speaker 1: totaling one million, two hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars. However,
2:40:32
Speaker 1: on the average, as shown by the Fund's report for
2:40:34
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four, the grants to the several Ukrainian and
2:40:37
Speaker 1: beul Russian, White Ruthenian scholarly and relief institutions have never
2:40:41
Speaker 1: been more than a third at most of that contributed
2:40:44
Speaker 1: for similar Russian purposes, in spite of its stated position
2:40:48
Speaker 1: of refraining from favoring or supporting any single Russian political grouping.
2:40:51
Speaker 1: The report shows how the Fund has tended, however, to
2:40:54
Speaker 1: see more value in the Russian projects than in the
2:40:56
Speaker 1: Ukrainian and Beulorussian White Ruthenian DOT forty four. Gradual changes
2:41:01
Speaker 1: of attitude can also be noted in the American supported
2:41:04
Speaker 1: publications of the Institute for the Study of the USSR
2:41:06
Speaker 1: in Munich, which is intended as a means for assistance
2:41:09
Speaker 1: to refugee scholars from the USSR, and in the various
2:41:12
Speaker 1: American radio and other organizations intended to aid in the
2:41:15
Speaker 1: fight against communism, such is the American Committee for Liberation
2:41:19
Speaker 1: from Bolshevism. It is to be noted also in the
2:41:22
Speaker 1: policy of George Cannon, formerly of the State Department and
2:41:25
Speaker 1: now connected with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,
2:41:28
Speaker 1: New Jersey, who is considered an outstanding American authority on
2:41:31
Speaker 1: the USSR. His entire policy of containment has long been
2:41:35
Speaker 1: based on the same idea of Russian unity as expressed
2:41:38
Speaker 1: by his uncle George Kennon see chapter three. To supplement
2:41:42
Speaker 1: these and similar tendencies in the study of the satellite
2:41:45
Speaker 1: states menaced by communism, there has been established in New
2:41:47
Speaker 1: York and other series of organizations to secure American help
2:41:50
Speaker 1: to furnish scholarly opportunities for displaced scholars from the countries
2:41:54
Speaker 1: liberated after World War One and to assist in training
2:41:56
Speaker 1: new students. This is the Mid European Study set. Its
2:42:01
Speaker 1: counterparts in Europe are Radio Free Europe and in the
2:42:03
Speaker 1: university field in the United States the Mid European Studies
2:42:07
Speaker 1: Program at Columbia University. This is more or less on
2:42:10
Speaker 1: the pattern of the Russian Institute, and it is but
2:42:12
Speaker 1: one example of the efforts that are being made to
2:42:14
Speaker 1: develop interest in the culture of the satellite states, which,
2:42:17
Speaker 1: save for the efforts of their compatriots in the United States,
2:42:20
Speaker 1: have been largely neglected. A point often raised regarding studies
2:42:24
Speaker 1: in this area is the limitation placed upon them by
2:42:26
Speaker 1: the American distrust of communism, which has expressed itself in
2:42:29
Speaker 1: many congressional investigations, as well as the public and private
2:42:32
Speaker 1: attempts to root out from the various important fields open
2:42:35
Speaker 1: or secret communists or fellow travelers. This point is raised
2:42:39
Speaker 1: by Professor James F. Clark of the University of Indiana Frani,
2:42:42
Speaker 1: Face forty five. In more recent times, a similar blind
2:42:45
Speaker 1: emotional reaction to communism, as well as partisan evaluations of
2:42:48
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, have constituted a threat to the free
2:42:51
Speaker 1: and rational expansion of East European studies. Today, college students, teachers,
2:42:56
Speaker 1: and administrators interested in the area dominated by Communism, while
2:43:00
Speaker 1: they may not yield to anti communist hysterics, must at
2:43:02
Speaker 1: the same time heat its potential effect on parents, taxpayers, legislators, trustees,
2:43:07
Speaker 1: and employers. It is the opinion of the present writer
2:43:11
Speaker 1: that such arguments serve merely to cover the failure of
2:43:13
Speaker 1: the scholars to interpret the complications of the Soviet mode
2:43:16
Speaker 1: of thought to an American audience. The Sopian language in
2:43:19
Speaker 1: which so much of the current Communist propaganda is couched,
2:43:22
Speaker 1: both for home and foreign consumption, and the belief that
2:43:25
Speaker 1: truth is what is best at the moment for the
2:43:27
Speaker 1: Communist Party have laid a responsibility upon students of Eastern Europe,
2:43:31
Speaker 1: a burden not born by the more established subjects, where
2:43:34
Speaker 1: the sources are less subject to deliberate falsification. In addition
2:43:38
Speaker 1: to this, certain men who followed during World War II
2:43:42
Speaker 1: the tendency to gloss over the cruelties of the Soviet
2:43:45
Speaker 1: Union on behalf of mutual understanding and a misinterpreted liberalism,
2:43:48
Speaker 1: now find it difficult to disavow some of their most
2:43:50
Speaker 1: tendentious writings. This by no means implies that they are
2:43:54
Speaker 1: either communists or fellow travelers, but they deliberately close their
2:43:57
Speaker 1: eyes to unpleasant situations and now shrink from admitting the
2:44:00
Speaker 1: full truth. As we have noted above, few if any,
2:44:04
Speaker 1: of the outstanding scholars of Slavac have accepted communist ideas.
2:44:09
Speaker 1: The burden of Communist infiltration in the past and in
2:44:11
Speaker 1: the present has been in departments and subjects that might
2:44:14
Speaker 1: be considered most immune to them, especially some of the
2:44:17
Speaker 1: natural sciences, which have only recently become subjects for international
2:44:20
Speaker 1: intrigue and spying. For this reason, the fears of being
2:44:24
Speaker 1: labeled the communists are far less vital than the pressure
2:44:26
Speaker 1: that has been exerted at many different periods to present
2:44:28
Speaker 1: communism as a liberal doctrine that is in harmony with
2:44:31
Speaker 1: American ideals. It is this misplaced liberalism that has been
2:44:34
Speaker 1: responsible for what the author of the article quoted calls
2:44:37
Speaker 1: anti communist hysterics. In addition to this, any objective study
2:44:41
Speaker 1: of the communist dominated world is rendered impossible if the
2:44:44
Speaker 1: supplemental goal is to promote mutual understanding. This, of course,
2:44:48
Speaker 1: is an object of study when the system of two
2:44:50
Speaker 1: distinct peoples is founded upon the same general principles, and
2:44:53
Speaker 1: when words are used on both sides with similar meanings.
2:44:57
Speaker 1: In a study of the communist world, far more can
2:44:59
Speaker 1: be effected by a rigorous emphasis on the differences than
2:45:01
Speaker 1: can be gained by soft peddling and concealing them. Another
2:45:05
Speaker 1: important factor that has worked against the increase of students
2:45:08
Speaker 1: in the East European field has been the nature of
2:45:10
Speaker 1: the opportunities which are offered to students. Immediately after the
2:45:14
Speaker 1: liberation of the Slavic countries after World War EYE, there
2:45:17
Speaker 1: seemed to be a chance that students who acquired some
2:45:19
Speaker 1: knowledge of Slavic could put it to use in their
2:45:21
Speaker 1: ordinary vocations. Those opportunities for employment abroad that loomed so
2:45:26
Speaker 1: large in the calculations of students of Spanish proved to
2:45:28
Speaker 1: be conspicuously absent in view of communist actions. The spurt
2:45:32
Speaker 1: that occurred after World War II came to an end
2:45:35
Speaker 1: when the Iron Curtain descended over almost the entire Slavic world,
2:45:38
Speaker 1: at least so far as the average student was concerned.
2:45:41
Speaker 1: Men who had received some instruction while in the armed
2:45:44
Speaker 1: services were able to take advantage of the gi Bill
2:45:46
Speaker 1: of Rights and continue their studies, Yet most very soon
2:45:50
Speaker 1: found that unless they intended to become real specialists, they
2:45:53
Speaker 1: would not have the opportunity to use their knowledge. The
2:45:56
Speaker 1: colleges and universities needed more men in view of the
2:45:59
Speaker 1: widespread conviction that Russian, especially was a proper and necessary subject,
2:46:04
Speaker 1: Yet the field was relatively limited and did not require
2:46:07
Speaker 1: many generations of postgraduate students to adequately staff the departments.
2:46:11
Speaker 1: The chief opportunity besides teaching was government service, and this
2:46:14
Speaker 1: absorbed the greatest number. But for those who did not
2:46:18
Speaker 1: care for government work, the range of opportunities soon became restricted.
2:46:22
Speaker 1: Most of these men and women who are today specializing
2:46:24
Speaker 1: actively are persons who have received fellowships of some kind
2:46:27
Speaker 1: or value from one or another of the larger foundations
2:46:30
Speaker 1: the Rockefeller, Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation, as in
2:46:35
Speaker 1: other branches of scholarship and even the sciences, were those
2:46:38
Speaker 1: humanistic subjects which almost ensure teaching positions. These fellowships and
2:46:42
Speaker 1: scholarships play a more important part in the economic life
2:46:45
Speaker 1: of the graduate student than ever before, in any increase
2:46:47
Speaker 1: or decrease in them is reflected almost immediately in the
2:46:50
Speaker 1: number of students. The result has been a steady but
2:46:53
Speaker 1: perceptible drop in graduate students during the past years. This
2:46:57
Speaker 1: has not been a bad sign in reality, even though
2:46:59
Speaker 1: it may superficially seem a lack of interest. We can
2:47:03
Speaker 1: be very sure, the world and human nature being what
2:47:05
Speaker 1: it is, that there will be no such reaction against
2:47:07
Speaker 1: foreign languages as there was during and after World War I.
2:47:10
Speaker 1: There are already signs that the number of students has
2:47:12
Speaker 1: dropped to the point where it will remain stationary, or
2:47:14
Speaker 1: from which it will perhaps rise slightly during the next years.
2:47:18
Speaker 1: The study of Slavac and East European subjects has followed
2:47:21
Speaker 1: a very definite pattern in the last ten years, with
2:47:23
Speaker 1: its shifts of emphasis reflecting the changes that have taken
2:47:26
Speaker 1: place in that part of the globe. It has followed
2:47:29
Speaker 1: political and economic relationships of the United States, and we
2:47:32
Speaker 1: can be confident that it will continue to do so. Thus,
2:47:35
Speaker 1: since the beginning of World War I, the picture of
2:47:38
Speaker 1: Slavac and East European studies in the United States has
2:47:40
Speaker 1: changed markedly. The prospects today are far brighter than they
2:47:44
Speaker 1: ever have been. The foundations have been laid, and it
2:47:47
Speaker 1: only remains to build a superstructure to fit into American life.
2:47:50
Speaker 1: And at the same time present a consistent and coherent
2:47:53
Speaker 1: picture of what that American life and Slavic studies really need.
2:47:57
Speaker 1: The first period of test is over. Now is the
2:48:00
Speaker 1: time to present Slavic scholarship to the American public and
2:48:03
Speaker 1: the scholarly world in such a form that it can
2:48:05
Speaker 1: be assimilated and incorporated in the intellectual life of the nation,
2:48:08
Speaker 1: and at the same time take account of the possibilities
2:48:10
Speaker 1: offered by the large section of the population with Slavic traditions.
2:48:14
Speaker 1: Chapter eight, The Future Tasks of Slavic and East European Studies.
2:48:17
Speaker 1: It is obviously impossible under present conditions in America even
2:48:21
Speaker 1: to dream of offering any outline for a definite organization
2:48:24
Speaker 1: of studies of that large area east of Scandinavia, Germany
2:48:27
Speaker 1: and Italy. We are dealing with several linguistic and cultural
2:48:31
Speaker 1: entities which historically have been subjected to widely differing influences,
2:48:36
Speaker 1: especially in the field of history and of culture in general.
2:48:39
Speaker 1: The old notion that a boundary could be drawn between
2:48:41
Speaker 1: the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, or between the Christian
2:48:44
Speaker 1: and the Islamic worlds, is definitely antiquated. It was non
2:48:48
Speaker 1: existent during the earlier periods of history, although it was
2:48:51
Speaker 1: partially valid for a few centuries. Even at the height
2:48:54
Speaker 1: of religious separation, the Slavic world was itself divided, the
2:48:58
Speaker 1: Western Slavs and some Southern Slava on one side, and
2:49:01
Speaker 1: the Eastern and most Southern Slavs on the other. Today,
2:49:04
Speaker 1: with the general movements that are sweeping both Europe and Asia,
2:49:07
Speaker 1: these lines are obliterated. We are forced thus to recognize
2:49:11
Speaker 1: a far more complicated situation than seemed possible even a
2:49:14
Speaker 1: few decades ago, when the early students of Slavic blindly
2:49:17
Speaker 1: though sincerely followed either the German or the Russian cultural
2:49:21
Speaker 1: views of the area. Studies in the United States in
2:49:24
Speaker 1: these fields must find, despite the many obstacles, a new path,
2:49:28
Speaker 1: acquire a new breadth of vision, and work out a
2:49:30
Speaker 1: new outline wherever the old has been shown to be deficient.
2:49:34
Speaker 1: This can only be done by cooperation among both scholars
2:49:37
Speaker 1: and institutions. Though the leading colleges and universities have found
2:49:41
Speaker 1: during the past century their own methods for departmentalizing their
2:49:44
Speaker 1: courses and faculty, there is hardly one which cannot adapt
2:49:47
Speaker 1: its resources to contribute to the common cause. We will,
2:49:50
Speaker 1: therefore content ourselves with sketching briefly some of the problems
2:49:53
Speaker 1: and their possible solutions in the field of organization I
2:49:57
Speaker 1: integration in American consciousness. At the present, educated Americans seem
2:50:02
Speaker 1: to find it impossible to integrate the concepts that have
2:50:04
Speaker 1: been forced upon them by events since nineteen fourteen. The
2:50:08
Speaker 1: older generation and too large a part of the younger
2:50:11
Speaker 1: view the expanded practical concern for Eastern Europe and Asia
2:50:14
Speaker 1: as a serious and troublesome addition to the range of
2:50:16
Speaker 1: knowledge which it is compelled to acquire. This attitude has
2:50:19
Speaker 1: been fostered by the way in which the expansion has occurred.
2:50:23
Speaker 1: Under the pressure of World War II and its accompanying developments.
2:50:27
Speaker 1: The government and the foundations alike have been spending money
2:50:29
Speaker 1: to train men in present day problems and have looked
2:50:31
Speaker 1: askance at what we may call basic work in the
2:50:33
Speaker 1: evolution of the situation. Let us glance at this for
2:50:37
Speaker 1: a moment. Courses in ancient history, chiefly of Greece and Rome,
2:50:41
Speaker 1: are an established part of all college and university curricula,
2:50:44
Speaker 1: and are even found in many high schools. Yet invariably
2:50:48
Speaker 1: these courses fail to discuss Greece and Greek culture after
2:50:51
Speaker 1: the rise of Philip of Macedon and the Roman conquest
2:50:53
Speaker 1: of Greece. Studies of the Roman Empire rarely extend beyond
2:50:58
Speaker 1: the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine, where they are lost
2:51:00
Speaker 1: in vagueness about the Dark Ages and the Barbarian migrations.
2:51:04
Speaker 1: Even in the earlier period, almost no attention has been
2:51:07
Speaker 1: given to vestiges of Greek and Roman culture outside of Greece,
2:51:10
Speaker 1: Asia Minor and the Roman possessions in the West. Thus,
2:51:14
Speaker 1: there is a cloudy realization that the code of Roman
2:51:17
Speaker 1: law was finally drawn up in Constantinople, but the historical
2:51:20
Speaker 1: significance of the past is not keenly appreciated. At the
2:51:23
Speaker 1: same time, anything that can be labeled Byzantine is either
2:51:26
Speaker 1: treated separately or not considered at all. There is even
2:51:30
Speaker 1: no realization that the Scandinavian vikings extended their activities to
2:51:33
Speaker 1: the east as well as to the west, and such
2:51:35
Speaker 1: striking evidence of this as the marriage of the daughter
2:51:37
Speaker 1: of Herald the Saxon, the last Saxon King of England,
2:51:40
Speaker 1: to Volodi Mere Monomac of Kiev, seems an incredible and
2:51:43
Speaker 1: isolated event. The scholars at Dumbarton Oaks and the Medieval
2:51:47
Speaker 1: Academy of America are indeed doing work on Byzantine history, culture,
2:51:50
Speaker 1: and institutions, but the other scholars working on the foundations
2:51:53
Speaker 1: and development of the modern Western world have not attempted
2:51:56
Speaker 1: to take their work into account, and are still limiting
2:51:59
Speaker 1: the modern Western world to the British Isles, France, Germany,
2:52:02
Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Empire and its descendants, ignoring the contacts
2:52:06
Speaker 1: of that world with Byzantium in the Early and later
2:52:08
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, with a similar lack of understanding. The average student,
2:52:13
Speaker 1: though aware of the fight between the Holy Roman emperors
2:52:15
Speaker 1: and the popes, rarely knows that the Empire was then
2:52:17
Speaker 1: pushing into Slavic territory, or that Saint Cyril and Methodius,
2:52:20
Speaker 1: the apostles to the Slavs, were in Rome as well
2:52:23
Speaker 1: as Constantinople. There is a scattered appreciation of such events
2:52:27
Speaker 1: as the Latin seizure and the Turkish capture of Constantinople,
2:52:30
Speaker 1: but only for their impact upon the life of the West.
2:52:34
Speaker 1: The arrival in Western Europe of scholars from Constantinople is
2:52:37
Speaker 1: taught as a great influence in the Renaissance, but no
2:52:39
Speaker 1: attention is paid to their origin or where they had studied.
2:52:42
Speaker 1: The situation is even worse for later periods. There has
2:52:46
Speaker 1: been an almost complete neglect not only of the history
2:52:48
Speaker 1: of the Balkan Slavs, but of the Greeks as well.
2:52:52
Speaker 1: For years after the establishment of the Genadeon in Athens,
2:52:55
Speaker 1: one of the few still unplundered collections of Greek and
2:52:57
Speaker 1: Slavic manuscripts. Slavic scholars were as own unaware of the
2:53:00
Speaker 1: existence of this collection as the classical scholars were unaware
2:53:03
Speaker 1: of its importance. One result of this traditional lack of
2:53:07
Speaker 1: understanding of early Eastern history has been the tendency of
2:53:09
Speaker 1: American scholars to accept without hesitation, either the German view
2:53:12
Speaker 1: of Eastern Europe as a relatively primitive region or the
2:53:16
Speaker 1: Russian view that in some way everything in the East
2:53:18
Speaker 1: was Russian, and that it was only natural that Catherine
2:53:21
Speaker 1: too of Russia should dream of becoming the Empress of
2:53:23
Speaker 1: the Byzantine Empire, with her capital still at St. Petersburg. Thus,
2:53:27
Speaker 1: all the peoples of Eastern Europe disappear from European history
2:53:30
Speaker 1: shortly after the time of Constantine, and do not reappear
2:53:33
Speaker 1: until the foundation of St. Petersburg and the development of
2:53:35
Speaker 1: the Eastern question in the late eighteenth century. Even the
2:53:39
Speaker 1: national struggles in Vienna during the reign of Francis Joseph
2:53:42
Speaker 1: two are not evaluated, and far too many would be
2:53:44
Speaker 1: students of Eastern Europe are still under the impression that
2:53:47
Speaker 1: movements for national independence during World War I and the
2:53:50
Speaker 1: Russian Revolution arose out of thin air. The complicated events
2:53:53
Speaker 1: of the last decades preempt the concentration of students and
2:53:56
Speaker 1: give them little time to grasp the background which underlay
2:53:59
Speaker 1: the past and gave run to the complexities of the present.
2:54:02
Speaker 1: It would be presumptuous to expect adequate and detailed knowledge
2:54:05
Speaker 1: of Eastern history to be added to the intellectual burden
2:54:08
Speaker 1: of all students, even though it would be desirable. The
2:54:11
Speaker 1: most that can be hoped is that students and scholars
2:54:13
Speaker 1: interested in this field will be able eventually to focus
2:54:15
Speaker 1: more attention in the general curricula on a few of
2:54:18
Speaker 1: the major trends that worked openly and secretly in Eastern
2:54:21
Speaker 1: history for over a thousand years, culminating in the present situation.
2:54:25
Speaker 1: The last years have seen a few attempts, like those
2:54:27
Speaker 1: of the late doctor Bilmani's Minister of Latvia in Washington
2:54:31
Speaker 1: to prepare a history of Latvia. We now have histories
2:54:34
Speaker 1: of Lithuania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and two or three of Ukraine,
2:54:39
Speaker 1: but there is still lacking a general survey presenting in readable,
2:54:42
Speaker 1: popular and general form the outstanding developments in the Slavic area.
2:54:47
Speaker 1: The development of such a synthesis of the East European
2:54:49
Speaker 1: culture in a form that could be included with the
2:54:51
Speaker 1: more detailed studies of the Western countries would go far
2:54:54
Speaker 1: in overcoming the vague and unrealistic ideas which are fostered
2:54:57
Speaker 1: either by ignorance or by the propagandistic works of the
2:55:00
Speaker 1: formerly dominating nations. When we remember that it was nearly
2:55:04
Speaker 1: the end of the seventeenth century before Eastern Europe acquired
2:55:06
Speaker 1: the form that it had on the eve of World
2:55:08
Speaker 1: War One, and that this order was seriously challenged throughout
2:55:11
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, we can see the necessity of a
2:55:13
Speaker 1: complete revision of many of the established and traditional concepts.
2:55:17
Speaker 1: Such a need must be recognized by the educational leaders
2:55:20
Speaker 1: as a whole, for Eastern Europe has greatly and consistently
2:55:23
Speaker 1: influenced the West. No greater step forward can be taken
2:55:27
Speaker 1: than to emphasize this historical fact and to show the
2:55:29
Speaker 1: important role of Eastern Europe, both positively and negatively in
2:55:33
Speaker 1: shaping the world as we knew it at the beginning
2:55:34
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Two. The divisions of the area,
2:55:39
Speaker 1: awakening the American intellectual world to the need for reassessing
2:55:42
Speaker 1: its concept of Eastern Europe is of course an essential
2:55:45
Speaker 1: problem for Slavic students, but it can be fully accomplished
2:55:48
Speaker 1: only in co operation with those individuals and institutions concerned
2:55:51
Speaker 1: with the general outline of human history. Far more than
2:55:54
Speaker 1: a mere multiplication of courses, of lectures and of journals
2:55:58
Speaker 1: is needed. Yet, if we ass assume that steps are
2:56:00
Speaker 1: being taken towards this end, there still remains the very
2:56:03
Speaker 1: pertinent question of what divisions and subdivisions of the area
2:56:06
Speaker 1: are to be used in any detailed study. It is
2:56:09
Speaker 1: at this moment that we come face to face with
2:56:11
Speaker 1: the tremendous historical and linguistic complications. First, considering linguistics, Slavic
2:56:17
Speaker 1: easily can be placed at the center for the greater
2:56:19
Speaker 1: number of the inhabitants of Eastern Europe speak one of
2:56:21
Speaker 1: the Slavic tongues, the traditional point of view which is
2:56:25
Speaker 1: now being challenged by linguists is to divide the Slavs
2:56:28
Speaker 1: into Western Czech, Slovak, Polish and Luction, Southern Serb, Croatian,
2:56:33
Speaker 1: Slovene and Bulgarian, and Eastern Great Russian, Ukrainian and beel Russian,
2:56:38
Speaker 1: and to emphasize common linguistic aspects. This is of advantage
2:56:43
Speaker 1: from the strictly philological point of view, it is less
2:56:45
Speaker 1: valid when considering culture and history and the influence exerted
2:56:48
Speaker 1: throughout the last millennium by the neighboring states and cultures.
2:56:52
Speaker 1: As has been noted already, the constantly shifting line between
2:56:55
Speaker 1: Eastern and Western churches cuts directly across the Slavic world.
2:56:59
Speaker 1: On one side are the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and Croatians,
2:57:03
Speaker 1: all of whom have been primarily under Western influence. On
2:57:07
Speaker 1: the other of the rest of the Southern and Eastern Slavs,
2:57:09
Speaker 1: who have drawn their original inspiration from Byzantium and have
2:57:11
Speaker 1: then undergone, in varying degrees, cultural influence from the Latin
2:57:15
Speaker 1: and Germanic West, the Scandinavian North, the Mongol and Tatar East,
2:57:20
Speaker 1: and the Turkish South, Ukraine, and to a lesser degree
2:57:23
Speaker 1: be Ilorussia White Ruthenia have felt a consistently strong Western
2:57:27
Speaker 1: influence throughout their history. Western influence among the Serbs has
2:57:31
Speaker 1: been more spasmodic, while Russia Moscow remained relatively free from
2:57:35
Speaker 1: such influences almost until the time of Peterie. Furthermore, the
2:57:39
Speaker 1: area also includes the Uralic Altaic peoples, the Finns, Estonians, Hungarians, Turks,
2:57:44
Speaker 1: and many less developed peoples. These can hardly all be
2:57:48
Speaker 1: treated as offshoots of Slavic. The Uralic peoples, especially those
2:57:52
Speaker 1: who are most highly developed, have shared the influences of
2:57:55
Speaker 1: the Slavs and have been closely connected with Western Europe.
2:57:59
Speaker 1: The Finns and Estonians have had strong Scandinavian contacts, and
2:58:02
Speaker 1: the Hungarians have been closely associated with the Empire, the
2:58:05
Speaker 1: Poles and the Czechs. The Altaic peoples, largely Mohammedan, have
2:58:10
Speaker 1: become an inherent part of Islamic culture, and yet despite
2:58:13
Speaker 1: their distinct linguistic and cultural heritage, their fate has been
2:58:16
Speaker 1: closely linked with that of the Slavs. In addition, there
2:58:19
Speaker 1: are the modern Greeks, direct airs of the Byzantine tradition,
2:58:22
Speaker 1: with their own sharply defined culture. The Romanians, who are
2:58:25
Speaker 1: proud of their Latin traditions, and the Albanians, who form
2:58:28
Speaker 1: a distinct Indo European linguistic group crowded between the Southern
2:58:31
Speaker 1: Slavs and the Greeks. Neither can there be excluded such
2:58:35
Speaker 1: peoples of the Caucasus as the Georgians, the Armenians and
2:58:38
Speaker 1: the Azerbaijanians, nor other Christian and Mohammedan peoples formerly included
2:58:42
Speaker 1: in the Russian Empire. The time is long passed when
2:58:45
Speaker 1: all of these national groups can be studied only in
2:58:48
Speaker 1: terms of the Russian and Ottoman Empires. Their history and
2:58:51
Speaker 1: their struggles for liberation create many cultural subsections which cut
2:58:54
Speaker 1: across linguistic boundaries and in part natural geographical subdivisions. It
2:59:00
Speaker 1: is difficult to name satisfactorily these cultural subsections, for they
2:59:04
Speaker 1: vary in the different periods of history. Yet the definition
2:59:07
Speaker 1: of courses of detailed study or area programs, which have
2:59:10
Speaker 1: become so popular at the present time, demands it. There
2:59:14
Speaker 1: is another difficulty which arises the events of World War
2:59:18
Speaker 1: II and the creeping Soviet imperialism have succeeded in dominating
2:59:21
Speaker 1: all of the states which were established or attempted after
2:59:24
Speaker 1: World War I in the western extension of the Iron Curtain.
2:59:28
Speaker 1: Only Finland in the northern Greece and Turkey in the
2:59:30
Speaker 1: south have succeeded in maintaining a precarious independence. As a result,
2:59:34
Speaker 1: all of the programs of instruction that have been arbitrarily
2:59:37
Speaker 1: set up exclude these three countries. Whatever value such a
2:59:41
Speaker 1: division may have at present, it is certainly no guide
2:59:43
Speaker 1: to the past, for at times Finland was under Swedish rule,
2:59:47
Speaker 1: which extended south of the Gulf of Finland. Likewise, for centuries, Greece,
2:59:52
Speaker 1: the Southern Slavs, and Romania, then divided between Wallachia, Moldavia
2:59:56
Speaker 1: and Transylvania, together with Ukraine, formed another definite cultural block
3:00:00
Speaker 1: which to a large degree shared the same political fate.
3:00:04
Speaker 1: For many years, the nations of the Balkan Peninsula were
3:00:06
Speaker 1: treated as a Balkan bloc, and because of the ways
3:00:09
Speaker 1: these states secured their political independence, they shared years of
3:00:12
Speaker 1: stormy political life. The term Balkans was then with considerable contempt,
3:00:17
Speaker 1: applied to Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and Romania. Yet,
3:00:23
Speaker 1: after World War I, when the Adriatic literal was added
3:00:26
Speaker 1: to Serbia and Montenegro to form Yugoslavia and Romania recovered
3:00:30
Speaker 1: Transylvania and Bessarabia. The name came to have little meaning
3:00:34
Speaker 1: now with Turkey playing a positive role. Efforts have been
3:00:37
Speaker 1: made to use the name Southeastern Europe, but with little success.
3:00:41
Speaker 1: Dnubian Europe is worse for the Danube crosses both Austria
3:00:44
Speaker 1: and Hungary, and avoids Greece and Albania. At the present time,
3:00:49
Speaker 1: the term Eastern Europe is probably the least objectionable, but
3:00:52
Speaker 1: it is ridiculous to apply this term to Czechoslovakia and Hungary,
3:00:55
Speaker 1: which are almost in the heart of Europe. Still, this
3:00:58
Speaker 1: is the term added to Slam Slavic or Slavonic, used
3:01:01
Speaker 1: as a general title by both the British Slavonic and
3:01:03
Speaker 1: East European Review and the American Slavac and East European Review,
3:01:08
Speaker 1: But the culture area also includes all of the former
3:01:10
Speaker 1: Russian possessions in Asia. For the Urals owe their position
3:01:13
Speaker 1: as the boundary of Europe more to the fact that
3:01:15
Speaker 1: they run roughly north and south at the eastern end
3:01:17
Speaker 1: of the Caspian Sea, and so are useful to cartographers
3:01:20
Speaker 1: than to any historical importance. The term Mid Europe has
3:01:24
Speaker 1: been introduced lately to cover the history of that strip
3:01:26
Speaker 1: of countries which won their independence after World War I
3:01:29
Speaker 1: and lost it after World War II. It is an
3:01:32
Speaker 1: attempt to unify the non unifiable, except in terms of
3:01:35
Speaker 1: their present fate. For during much of the last thousand years,
3:01:37
Speaker 1: the fate of Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary has been intertwined.
3:01:41
Speaker 1: But Poland has been involved with Lithuania, Beulorussia, White Ruthenia
3:01:45
Speaker 1: and Ukraine, while the main relations of Latvia and Estonia
3:01:49
Speaker 1: have been with the Scandinavian and other Baltic peoples. For
3:01:52
Speaker 1: purposes of detailed study, then a division can be made
3:01:55
Speaker 1: between the Eastern Baltic shore in the north, Poland, Czechoslovakia
3:01:59
Speaker 1: and Hungaryanda and the states of the Balkan Peninsula including
3:02:03
Speaker 1: Turkey in the south. What then can we do with
3:02:06
Speaker 1: Ukraine and Belarussia, two of the three East Slavic states.
3:02:10
Speaker 1: For both countries connections with Moscow have been of a
3:02:12
Speaker 1: special character, with a long record of turbulence, opposition, and
3:02:15
Speaker 1: attempts at independence. They have lived their own lives with
3:02:19
Speaker 1: intermittent contact with the West. In fact, it was through
3:02:22
Speaker 1: them that most of the purely Western influences drifted into
3:02:25
Speaker 1: Moscow and the land of the Great Russians, which in
3:02:27
Speaker 1: ancient times was more closely connected through the Volga River
3:02:30
Speaker 1: with the Caucasian group of peoples and the Golden Horde.
3:02:33
Speaker 1: Attempts to divide the entire area into regional sections with
3:02:36
Speaker 1: common problems and cultural development produces only confusion, for such
3:02:40
Speaker 1: divisions are applicable only to short periods in the ever
3:02:43
Speaker 1: changing kaleidoscope of history. The realization of this fact presents
3:02:47
Speaker 1: one of the greatest obstacles to the student of present problems.
3:02:50
Speaker 1: The idea fostered in Prague that the key to all
3:02:53
Speaker 1: East European problems could be the assumption of a single
3:02:56
Speaker 1: Slavic history and Slavic culture can be easily proved to
3:02:58
Speaker 1: be as vain as Pandermaini, Pantoraneanism and pan Asianism. Yet
3:03:04
Speaker 1: today this oversimplification has been twisted by the Russian Messianic
3:03:07
Speaker 1: concept into a formidable weapon against the rest of the world.
3:03:11
Speaker 1: The Communist theories, like the old Tsarist theories of Moscow
3:03:14
Speaker 1: as the Third Reme, cannot be laughed away. They must
3:03:17
Speaker 1: be met by accurate and careful study, and this does
3:03:20
Speaker 1: necessitate some sort of recognizable division. But the solution to
3:03:24
Speaker 1: these contradictions cannot be found in either the Russian or
3:03:27
Speaker 1: the Old Germanic theories. It demands the most serious consideration
3:03:30
Speaker 1: from the modern scholars of the entire world outside the
3:03:33
Speaker 1: Iron curtain three undergraduate courses. Considering the material that can
3:03:38
Speaker 1: be reasonably included in the curriculum of the average American college,
3:03:41
Speaker 1: we must severely limit our expectations. Because the average college
3:03:46
Speaker 1: aims to give a well rounded education in many fields
3:03:48
Speaker 1: of knowledge, the number of persons specializing in Slavac and
3:03:51
Speaker 1: East European subjects will be very limited. The amount of
3:03:55
Speaker 1: time that the average student can spend on these subjects,
3:03:57
Speaker 1: and the amount of effort that the average institution will
3:03:59
Speaker 1: exc spent to make them effective is limited. Furthermore, there
3:04:03
Speaker 1: will be few colleges not connected with universities, either inclined
3:04:07
Speaker 1: to embark upon an ambitious program or supplied with the
3:04:10
Speaker 1: resources to undertake it. But this does not mean that
3:04:13
Speaker 1: nothing is to be done, or that it is to
3:04:15
Speaker 1: be done carelessly. Until that time when the main facts
3:04:18
Speaker 1: of the history of Eastern Europe and of Eastern European
3:04:20
Speaker 1: and Slavic culture are included in the general scheme of
3:04:23
Speaker 1: the development of the modern world or in courses in
3:04:25
Speaker 1: the development of contemporary civilization. Interested persons on the faculty
3:04:30
Speaker 1: must work out a minimum program. This will vary according
3:04:33
Speaker 1: to the general content, either in history or literature, and
3:04:36
Speaker 1: will fall into its proper place in the general curriculum,
3:04:39
Speaker 1: whether or not a special department is established. There are
3:04:42
Speaker 1: some things that can be expected, and we will divide
3:04:44
Speaker 1: these into four headings, History, Literature, culture and language. We
3:04:49
Speaker 1: will here consider the first three. The prime requirement in
3:04:53
Speaker 1: all these subjects is scientific accuracy, something which is far
3:04:56
Speaker 1: too often honored in the breach there has been in
3:04:59
Speaker 1: the past two rate a tendency to accept some superficial
3:05:02
Speaker 1: treatment composed of half truths. We must remember that ignorance,
3:05:06
Speaker 1: and conscious ignorance at that is often better than incorrect knowledge.
3:05:10
Speaker 1: The problem lies not so much in what a person
3:05:12
Speaker 1: does not know as in what he knows wrong. At
3:05:15
Speaker 1: the present time, there scarcely can be given a course
3:05:17
Speaker 1: in modern history which overlooks and omits the questions that
3:05:20
Speaker 1: have been forced upon the attention of the world by
3:05:22
Speaker 1: Russian communism. There is therefore little or no reason why
3:05:26
Speaker 1: the main facts of the present situation should not be
3:05:29
Speaker 1: correctly given with proper weight laid on the Soviet structure
3:05:31
Speaker 1: and methods. This involves a clear recognition that there are
3:05:35
Speaker 1: important differences not only between the old capitalistic and the
3:05:38
Speaker 1: new communistic Russia, but also that there is an ostensible
3:05:40
Speaker 1: stress which the Soviet Union lays upon the differences between
3:05:43
Speaker 1: the populations inhabiting her republics, subject as they all are
3:05:46
Speaker 1: to the same russianization. There can be no excuse for
3:05:50
Speaker 1: the oft repeated view that all the people of the
3:05:52
Speaker 1: Soviet Union are Russians in the old sense of the word.
3:05:55
Speaker 1: There is no reason for the arbitrary omission of the
3:05:57
Speaker 1: nationality problem on the ground that it has no vae
3:06:00
Speaker 1: lidity in fact or experience, just because it was denied
3:06:02
Speaker 1: by the Tsars a century ago. There have been too
3:06:05
Speaker 1: many instances of even responsible publications omitting from accurate surveys
3:06:09
Speaker 1: references to such problems at the will of certain anti
3:06:12
Speaker 1: communist nationalist Russian groups. Although there is available today adequate
3:06:16
Speaker 1: and easily accessible literature, far too little of it has
3:06:19
Speaker 1: penetrated the scholarly world, which is still burdened with the
3:06:22
Speaker 1: traditions of the past. The same can be said of literature.
3:06:27
Speaker 1: For many years, masterpieces of Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Gorky
3:06:31
Speaker 1: have been included in courses on modern European literature. Still,
3:06:35
Speaker 1: far too often they have been presented in a vacuum,
3:06:38
Speaker 1: without any attempt to equate them with Russian life and thought.
3:06:42
Speaker 1: This is perhaps less common today, but immediately after World
3:06:45
Speaker 1: War One it is not extreme to say there was
3:06:47
Speaker 1: a Western science of Russian literature almost as far from
3:06:50
Speaker 1: reality as the first French translation of Anna Karinina, which,
3:06:53
Speaker 1: in the interest of clarity, commonly omitted the entire Levenkiddy story.
3:06:57
Speaker 1: On the other hand, with the number of available translations
3:07:00
Speaker 1: of nearly all the prominent Russian authors of the nineteenth
3:07:03
Speaker 1: and twentieth centuries, there is no reason why courses on
3:07:06
Speaker 1: Russian literature in translation should not be offered. The material
3:07:10
Speaker 1: can be easily gathered to give an adequate picture of
3:07:12
Speaker 1: the development of the literature for the non specialist. Whether
3:07:16
Speaker 1: this is done as part of a general course or
3:07:18
Speaker 1: as a special course will depend upon the program of
3:07:21
Speaker 1: the institution, but it will benefit not only the general student,
3:07:23
Speaker 1: but also the person who is endeavoring to learn the language.
3:07:27
Speaker 1: The problem is more complicated for the other East European languages.
3:07:31
Speaker 1: Perhaps Polish literature is the only one that has been
3:07:34
Speaker 1: translated with even near minimal adequacy. Still, there are a
3:07:38
Speaker 1: number of translations from the Czech especially from krel Kapic,
3:07:41
Speaker 1: the popular dramatist who was active before World War II.
3:07:45
Speaker 1: There are some good Ukrainian translations, especially of poetry done
3:07:49
Speaker 1: by the late Percival Kundi. In the selections already in
3:07:51
Speaker 1: English give a fair representation of all the major Ukrainian authors.
3:07:55
Speaker 1: The literatures of the other Slavic groups are still poorly
3:07:58
Speaker 1: represented in translations. There is a real need, therefore, for
3:08:02
Speaker 1: the preparation of a series of anthologies in translation, not
3:08:05
Speaker 1: only from the Slavic languages, but also from the other
3:08:07
Speaker 1: literatures of East Europe. There may be difficulties in securing
3:08:11
Speaker 1: publication of such works and hesitation in introducing them with
3:08:14
Speaker 1: success into the various courses, but there is no reason
3:08:17
Speaker 1: why any college library should not work to build a
3:08:19
Speaker 1: collection of such works, even if it is not interested
3:08:22
Speaker 1: in expanding its study in this field. Where there are
3:08:25
Speaker 1: courses in one or more of the languages of the area,
3:08:28
Speaker 1: it will be of course easy to prepare courses on
3:08:30
Speaker 1: the literature with readings in the original, yet these can
3:08:34
Speaker 1: never replace the full need for courses in translation, or
3:08:37
Speaker 1: courses in which the originals are supplemented by translations. The
3:08:41
Speaker 1: same applies to courses in the fine arts, especially music
3:08:44
Speaker 1: and painting, both of which have flourished in Slavic lands.
3:08:48
Speaker 1: There are special difficulties here that are not present in
3:08:50
Speaker 1: the literature. For in the past, and especially the nineteenth century,
3:08:54
Speaker 1: most of the Slavic artists appeared in the Western world
3:08:56
Speaker 1: as either Russian, Austrian or Italian. As such, their contributions
3:09:01
Speaker 1: have been hidden even beyond their own desires. For in
3:09:03
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen the world discovered that many artists who had
3:09:06
Speaker 1: been invited as representatives of the dominating empires rebelled and
3:09:10
Speaker 1: proudly declared themselves polls or checks, much of the surprise
3:09:13
Speaker 1: of their audiences. We can be sadly confident that it
3:09:16
Speaker 1: will be some time before undergraduate courses in East European
3:09:19
Speaker 1: history and culture will everywhere acquire a proper direction and
3:09:22
Speaker 1: clear acceptance. But year by year, as these studies expand
3:09:26
Speaker 1: in the colleges, an increasing number of students are affected
3:09:29
Speaker 1: and Slavic studies are coming closer and closer to the
3:09:32
Speaker 1: academic level and seriousness of the older disciplines. This offers
3:09:36
Speaker 1: hope for the future end. While we cannot expect a
3:09:38
Speaker 1: Slavic department to become one of the numerically larger departments,
3:09:41
Speaker 1: it can rise to its opportunities and exercise its functions,
3:09:44
Speaker 1: both in training specialists and in broadening the knowledge of
3:09:47
Speaker 1: a larger and larger number of students. The lag in
3:09:50
Speaker 1: Slavic studies is diminishing with each year, and it will
3:09:52
Speaker 1: soon vanish entirely if developments of the present day are
3:09:55
Speaker 1: carefully regarded. Four. Language instruction. The first task of a
3:09:59
Speaker 1: Slava or East European language department is, of course, to
3:10:02
Speaker 1: teach the language. It should be taken for granted that
3:10:05
Speaker 1: any person who claims to be a specialist in the
3:10:07
Speaker 1: history and culture of any country should be able to read, write, speak,
3:10:11
Speaker 1: and understand its language. The language courses in any department
3:10:15
Speaker 1: are intended to satisfy these requirements. This, however, is a goal,
3:10:19
Speaker 1: and the merest contact with even good students will show
3:10:21
Speaker 1: how far it is from being fully realized. Yet it
3:10:25
Speaker 1: must be the goal. Even though we accept something far
3:10:27
Speaker 1: short of it as that which can be reasonably attained.
3:10:30
Speaker 1: There is no easy way to learn a foreign language
3:10:32
Speaker 1: and to maintain fluency in it, and fluency can be
3:10:36
Speaker 1: best secured by a constant use of the language, hardly
3:10:38
Speaker 1: possible in the United States, despite the aspiration of the student. Somewhere, somehow,
3:10:43
Speaker 1: there must be a compromise. There are, of course, scattered
3:10:47
Speaker 1: individuals like the late Professor John Dineley Prince, who seem
3:10:51
Speaker 1: to have a special gift for speaking foreign tongues. As
3:10:54
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, Prince built his entire scholarly and
3:10:57
Speaker 1: political career on this in born gift. His knowledge of
3:11:00
Speaker 1: spoken tongues was fantastic, but it should be recognized that
3:11:03
Speaker 1: he maintained it only by a constant preoccupation with language.
3:11:07
Speaker 1: The time that others spent on bridge and other hobbies
3:11:10
Speaker 1: he dedicated to reading dictionaries and annotating grammars. He continued
3:11:15
Speaker 1: so long as his health allowed the labor which made
3:11:17
Speaker 1: it possible for him to perform his almost incredible feats.
3:11:21
Speaker 1: Men like Prince are exceptional, but they emphasized the fact
3:11:23
Speaker 1: that there is northwest single road to success. Every individual
3:11:28
Speaker 1: learns languages in his own way and Hence there can
3:11:30
Speaker 1: easily be a wide divergence of educational methods recommended. There
3:11:34
Speaker 1: was a time when instruction in modern languages followed the
3:11:37
Speaker 1: methods used in studying Greek and Latin, with an excessive
3:11:39
Speaker 1: emphasis on knowledge of grammar and a corresponding neglect both
3:11:42
Speaker 1: of the finer points of usage and the ability to
3:11:44
Speaker 1: read fluently. The old joke that the object of learning
3:11:48
Speaker 1: the classical languages was to be able to distinguish the
3:11:51
Speaker 1: different uses of the genitive case was true only when
3:11:53
Speaker 1: scholars ceased using Latin as a medium of communication. While
3:11:57
Speaker 1: this was a passing phase, it left its mark on
3:11:59
Speaker 1: the study of modern languages. The Slavic languages, from their
3:12:03
Speaker 1: inception as subjects of university study, have been subject to
3:12:06
Speaker 1: this temptation. But even before the application of so called
3:12:10
Speaker 1: modern methods, there was a larger proportion of serious students
3:12:13
Speaker 1: able to express themselves satisfactorily in the Slavic languages than
3:12:16
Speaker 1: there was in the more common tongues such as French
3:12:20
Speaker 1: and German. On the other hand, the great increase of
3:12:23
Speaker 1: interest in Slavic languages came during World War II, and
3:12:26
Speaker 1: this left its imprint on the methods of instruction for
3:12:29
Speaker 1: military and governmental purposes. Speaking knowledge was very important, and
3:12:33
Speaker 1: became even more so when the schools were charged with
3:12:35
Speaker 1: training men for intelligence work. The emphasis on a speaking
3:12:39
Speaker 1: knowledge of Slavic languages was important in World War II
3:12:42
Speaker 1: because the number of young Americans who knew these languages
3:12:45
Speaker 1: well was seriously declining. Thirty years before, there were many
3:12:49
Speaker 1: young Slavs who had but recently migrated to the United
3:12:52
Speaker 1: States or were the children of parents who spoke their
3:12:54
Speaker 1: native languages fluently, though grammatically incorrectly. The children of these
3:12:58
Speaker 1: people trained in Amneramerican schools have lost most of their facility
3:13:02
Speaker 1: in their fathers tongues and need fundamental training. At the
3:13:06
Speaker 1: same time, the slow but persistent strengthening of the Iron
3:13:08
Speaker 1: Curtain and the refusal of the Soviet government to allow
3:13:11
Speaker 1: free emigration of its citizens has reduced the number of
3:13:13
Speaker 1: young instructors available. The majority of competent instructors in America
3:13:17
Speaker 1: have lived in this country since the close of World
3:13:20
Speaker 1: War I, and many of them are unfamiliar with the
3:13:21
Speaker 1: latest turns of the language as used in the Soviet Union.
3:13:25
Speaker 1: The difficulty of obtaining instructors is counterbalanced by the great
3:13:28
Speaker 1: improvement in methods of recording and reproducing sounds. It is
3:13:32
Speaker 1: now possible in almost all institutions to give students accurate
3:13:35
Speaker 1: and well rendered records and tapes of the leading Russian
3:13:38
Speaker 1: dramas and speeches as recorded and broadcast by the Soviet
3:13:40
Speaker 1: authorities themselves. It is also possible for the students to
3:13:44
Speaker 1: record their own pronunciation and compare it with the accepted standards.
3:13:48
Speaker 1: The use of these modern scientific and technical aids is
3:13:51
Speaker 1: undoubtedly improving pronunciation, though it is by no means certain
3:13:54
Speaker 1: that it is equally satisfactory in teaching fluency when the
3:13:57
Speaker 1: student is called upon to express his own thoughts. At
3:14:00
Speaker 1: the same time, the new interest in language often overlooks
3:14:03
Speaker 1: the fact that students may desire to learn a Slavic
3:14:06
Speaker 1: language for widely different purposes. In this respect, he does
3:14:09
Speaker 1: not differ from the average English speaking person, who may
3:14:12
Speaker 1: fully master the language and still be almost completely ignorant
3:14:15
Speaker 1: of the technical terms jargon of some particular profession or activity.
3:14:20
Speaker 1: Disregarding the notion that a foreign language should be learned
3:14:22
Speaker 1: only to read Bell's letra, we far too often replace
3:14:25
Speaker 1: it with the ability to carry on ordinary conversations on
3:14:28
Speaker 1: general subjects. There is of course in all languages an
3:14:32
Speaker 1: irreducible minimum of words of universal applicability, but methods must
3:14:36
Speaker 1: be found to include special vocabularies for students with special interests.
3:14:40
Speaker 1: This has been met in part by the production of
3:14:42
Speaker 1: technical dictionaries for the several sciences, but much work remains
3:14:45
Speaker 1: to be done. These remarks apply to all the languages
3:14:49
Speaker 1: of East Europe. However, modern methods have received their fullest
3:14:53
Speaker 1: application in teaching Russian, although auspicious beginnings have been made
3:14:56
Speaker 1: for others, especially Polish. It is highly desire hirable that
3:15:00
Speaker 1: textbooks and other aids be increased in the near future
3:15:03
Speaker 1: to provide all Slavic languages with adequate materials adapted to
3:15:06
Speaker 1: the use of English speaking students. Russian is still the
3:15:10
Speaker 1: language in which most American students are interested in a way.
3:15:13
Speaker 1: This is natural because Russian, both by its political importance,
3:15:17
Speaker 1: the number of persons speaking it, and the reputation of
3:15:19
Speaker 1: some Russian writers, is undoubtedly the most important. Other Slavic
3:15:23
Speaker 1: and East European tongues are adequately taught only in some
3:15:26
Speaker 1: of the larger universities or in smaller institutions with special interests.
3:15:30
Speaker 1: Be it circumstances of the administration or the character of
3:15:33
Speaker 1: the student body. Yet it is hardly true that any
3:15:36
Speaker 1: person interested in the broader studies of Eastern Europe can
3:15:38
Speaker 1: be adequately equipped if he possesses only a knowledge of Russian,
3:15:41
Speaker 1: though this does not make the situation as hopeless as
3:15:43
Speaker 1: it might seem. There are so many common roots and
3:15:46
Speaker 1: forms of expression in all Slavic languages that it is
3:15:49
Speaker 1: possible to prepare a course which will emphasize the salient
3:15:52
Speaker 1: features of each language, equip the student with the knowledge
3:15:54
Speaker 1: of any one Slavic language, and still enable him to handle,
3:15:58
Speaker 1: for scientific purposes the others without too much difficulty. This
3:16:02
Speaker 1: was successfully done by Professor Prince at Columbia, when, with
3:16:05
Speaker 1: a fine disregard for special grammatical features of the different languages,
3:16:09
Speaker 1: he arranged a general reading course in the Slavic tongues.
3:16:12
Speaker 1: For some years, Professor Manning followed his example. The course
3:16:17
Speaker 1: was finally dropped because of other departmental needs, But there
3:16:19
Speaker 1: is no reason why such a course could not be
3:16:21
Speaker 1: standardized and made available in many institutions which are unable
3:16:24
Speaker 1: to afford a complete university staff to teach the different
3:16:27
Speaker 1: languages individually. The greatest obstacle to the study of Slavic
3:16:31
Speaker 1: languages is the fact that until very recently, few students
3:16:35
Speaker 1: reached the graduate level with an adequate background in the languages.
3:16:39
Speaker 1: This has been somewhat relieved by the introduction of Russian
3:16:41
Speaker 1: and other Slavic languages in the colleges, but often language
3:16:45
Speaker 1: instruction could be advantageously introduced in high schools. Furthermore, there
3:16:49
Speaker 1: are many institutions, largely supported by churches or societies, which
3:16:53
Speaker 1: give instruction for which colleges should be willing to give
3:16:56
Speaker 1: appropriate credit. Such credit could be granted by a rigid
3:16:59
Speaker 1: insistent upon accomplishment, coupled with a liberal reading of the
3:17:02
Speaker 1: requirements for college entrants. Thus, despite the lesser emphasis paid
3:17:06
Speaker 1: to definite entrance examinations, it should be possible for educational
3:17:10
Speaker 1: institutions and state organizations to arrange examinations in East European languages,
3:17:15
Speaker 1: even where they were not learned in a recognized school.
3:17:18
Speaker 1: In many instances, the efficiency of summer courses, such as
3:17:21
Speaker 1: those given by the Ukrainian National Association under the supervision
3:17:24
Speaker 1: of the Ukrainian Free University could be checked by some
3:17:27
Speaker 1: central body. If instruction were satisfactory, credits could be accepted.
3:17:32
Speaker 1: In Toto or the graduates could be given the opportunity
3:17:34
Speaker 1: of an individual examination in order to receive credit. It
3:17:38
Speaker 1: would seem that almost all major churches and societies in
3:17:41
Speaker 1: the United States interested in the study of a foreign
3:17:43
Speaker 1: language would react favorably if there were any assurance that
3:17:46
Speaker 1: students in their courses would receive proper recognition. The American
3:17:50
Speaker 1: educational system is neglecting at present those resources for study
3:17:53
Speaker 1: of East European and Slavic languages which already exist. While
3:17:58
Speaker 1: it is true that formerly instruction was often given by
3:18:00
Speaker 1: ill prepared and incompetent teachers, the arrival in this country
3:18:03
Speaker 1: of large numbers of educated dpiece, often with teaching experience
3:18:07
Speaker 1: in their own lands, has changed the situation and made
3:18:10
Speaker 1: it possible to build up a large catra of language
3:18:12
Speaker 1: students prepared to undertake more advanced work at an earlier stage.
3:18:17
Speaker 1: In the language field. As nowhere else, we can clearly
3:18:20
Speaker 1: see marked improvement in the past thirty years. There are
3:18:23
Speaker 1: better textbooks and better instructors. If there is a negative aspect,
3:18:28
Speaker 1: it is in an excessive emphasis on what is conceived
3:18:30
Speaker 1: to be a modern system of study, which rests too
3:18:32
Speaker 1: much upon adherence to hypothetical rules regarding how a language
3:18:35
Speaker 1: should be learned, and a tendency to look askance at
3:18:38
Speaker 1: any exceptions to this. Regardless of what results may have
3:18:40
Speaker 1: been attained, there is still much more to be done
3:18:43
Speaker 1: before the knowledge of these languages is sufficiently spread throughout
3:18:46
Speaker 1: the intellectual and research organs of the country v graduate work.
3:18:52
Speaker 1: Considering the problems of graduate study in American universities, we
3:18:55
Speaker 1: must not overlook the fact that Slavic studies in Europe
3:18:58
Speaker 1: developed entirely under the methods and stars system of German scholarship.
3:19:02
Speaker 1: Although this may seem surprising, it was at Vienna, Leipzig
3:19:05
Speaker 1: and Berlin that the outlines of the modern sciences were laid.
3:19:09
Speaker 1: The early universities at St. Petersburg and Moscow were largely
3:19:12
Speaker 1: staffed by Germans, and the oldest university in Slavic lands,
3:19:16
Speaker 1: the Charles University of Prague, lost its Czech character during
3:19:19
Speaker 1: the Thirty Years War. A Czech section of the university
3:19:22
Speaker 1: was begun as an adjunct only in the eighteen eighties
3:19:25
Speaker 1: and did not recover its original insignia until after the
3:19:27
Speaker 1: liberation of Czechoslovakia. Hence, the German system of scholarship was
3:19:32
Speaker 1: considered basic, even though it was greatly altered by later
3:19:35
Speaker 1: development of Slavic studies at the universities of Prague and Krakow.
3:19:39
Speaker 1: The influence of Prague and Krakou was natural, for it
3:19:42
Speaker 1: was in Slavac universities in Slavac lands that Slavac would
3:19:45
Speaker 1: become the cornerstone of humanistic teaching, acquiring a position similar
3:19:48
Speaker 1: to that of English and American literature and history in
3:19:51
Speaker 1: American institutions. We can never hope to equal or surpass
3:19:55
Speaker 1: the work in these institutions, though we can admit it
3:19:57
Speaker 1: without any sense of failure. Since a Mariameric and graduate
3:20:00
Speaker 1: schools have been based on German models, they inherited the
3:20:03
Speaker 1: German division of faculty, with history and its allied subjects
3:20:06
Speaker 1: separated from literature and philology. Nor have these divisions been
3:20:10
Speaker 1: changed noticeably by grouping various chairs in allied subjects into departments.
3:20:15
Speaker 1: While there have been attempts, as at Harvard, to bring together,
3:20:18
Speaker 1: in the Slavic pattern, all courses dealing with Slavic subjects,
3:20:22
Speaker 1: this practice has not been generally followed. The result is
3:20:25
Speaker 1: that history and literature have been taught separately and have
3:20:28
Speaker 1: been combined only in part in more recent Russian and
3:20:30
Speaker 1: Slavic institutes in both general fields, the usual methods and
3:20:35
Speaker 1: regulations can be applied easily and completely. Hence, the introduction
3:20:39
Speaker 1: of Slavac and East European into the general curriculum has
3:20:42
Speaker 1: not caused difficulties. There remains only this question, should there
3:20:46
Speaker 1: be some provision for normally including one or more general
3:20:48
Speaker 1: courses from either section in the curriculum of the other,
3:20:51
Speaker 1: to augment the background of those students tempted to specialize
3:20:53
Speaker 1: too closely, who might thus fail to see the general
3:20:56
Speaker 1: cultural problems which any literature or history presents. There are, however,
3:21:01
Speaker 1: certain limitations which the student will encounter, do largely at
3:21:04
Speaker 1: the present time to the rule in the free world
3:21:06
Speaker 1: which prohibits a free exchange of students between countries. A
3:21:10
Speaker 1: student desiring to work in English, French and German history
3:21:13
Speaker 1: can go freely to the appropriate intellectual center to consult sources.
3:21:16
Speaker 1: A relatively large number of students in these fields have
3:21:19
Speaker 1: studied at the universities and archives of the country in
3:21:21
Speaker 1: which they were interested. This was also true to a
3:21:24
Speaker 1: certain degree between the wars in the so called Succession States,
3:21:28
Speaker 1: when every year students went to the universities of Poland Czechoslovakia,
3:21:32
Speaker 1: Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the Baltic and Greece. Today this is impossible,
3:21:37
Speaker 1: and the administration of students programs must take this fact
3:21:40
Speaker 1: into account. The limitation severely restricts research in certain slightly
3:21:44
Speaker 1: explored areas, such as the remains of Slavic literature from
3:21:47
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, the unpublished memoirs and manuscripts of many
3:21:50
Speaker 1: modern writers, and memorabilia from many periods of historical and
3:21:53
Speaker 1: economic importance. These limitations can be partly overcome by increased
3:21:58
Speaker 1: research in the archives of many of the US country
3:22:00
Speaker 1: still free. There is doubtless much material in the libraries
3:22:04
Speaker 1: of Western Europe, the Scandinavian countries, Greece and Turkey which
3:22:07
Speaker 1: has never been adequately studied by a Slavic expert. Limitations
3:22:11
Speaker 1: exist to an even greater degree in archaeology and ethnology,
3:22:15
Speaker 1: since research before World War I was still in its infancy,
3:22:18
Speaker 1: and subsequent discoveries have been filtered through the exigencies of
3:22:21
Speaker 1: Russian communist propaganda. This imposes upon the student the necessity
3:22:25
Speaker 1: for a most thorough and careful analysis of all Soviet
3:22:28
Speaker 1: references and newly published material, often edited to suit the
3:22:31
Speaker 1: policy of the moment, for it often involves a direct
3:22:33
Speaker 1: contradiction to what the Soviets declared to be true in
3:22:36
Speaker 1: the period between the two World Wars. This is the
3:22:39
Speaker 1: situation not only in history, but also in the literature
3:22:42
Speaker 1: of the past and present. The theses issued by the
3:22:45
Speaker 1: Communist Party for the three hundredth anniversary of the Treaty
3:22:48
Speaker 1: of Periaslov sixteen fifty four to nineteen fifty four, after
3:22:52
Speaker 1: the death of Stalin and under the new Soviet policy,
3:22:55
Speaker 1: stand in sharp contrast to the published statements of Soviet
3:22:58
Speaker 1: scholarship during the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties. Similarly, the
3:23:03
Speaker 1: rewriting of the biographies during the relatively unhampered conditions of
3:23:07
Speaker 1: the early nineteen twenties of such authors as Dostoevsky, Shivchenko,
3:23:11
Speaker 1: Franko Mikovich, and many others makes it impossible to accept
3:23:15
Speaker 1: uncritically either the older Soviet accounts or even much of
3:23:18
Speaker 1: the material published under the Tsarist regime. There is then
3:23:22
Speaker 1: imposed upon faculty in students the need to recognize that
3:23:25
Speaker 1: Slavic studies cannot merely accept the latest discoveries and statements
3:23:28
Speaker 1: as a correction of the past, as in other fields,
3:23:30
Speaker 1: but must include the most careful consideration of whether in
3:23:33
Speaker 1: the present or the past they have been more grossly
3:23:35
Speaker 1: falsified Reportedly, new discoveries in the humanistic and cultural fields
3:23:40
Speaker 1: may be only a dialectic exercise of the organs of
3:23:42
Speaker 1: the Tsarist or communist regimes in order to deceive the
3:23:45
Speaker 1: outside world. For example, the declaration of the validity of
3:23:49
Speaker 1: socialist realism meant a deliberate misinterpretation of the writings of
3:23:52
Speaker 1: earlier communist authors, which can be understood only in terms
3:23:55
Speaker 1: of politics, not literature. Promulgated ideas were accept did only
3:24:00
Speaker 1: after the publication of the official list of writings, as
3:24:03
Speaker 1: decided by communist authorities. Similarly, the original philological theories of
3:24:08
Speaker 1: marsoon lost what validity they possessed when they were adopted
3:24:10
Speaker 1: by mars fellow Georgian Stalin as the Soviet system and
3:24:14
Speaker 1: were imposed for twenty five years to serve Communist purposes.
3:24:17
Speaker 1: Even what remained valid suffered when Mar after his death,
3:24:21
Speaker 1: was officially discredited and his original ideas went through a
3:24:23
Speaker 1: second period of wilful perversion. Such instances could be multiplied
3:24:28
Speaker 1: by the hundreds, even including Sosira's poem Love Ukraine, which
3:24:31
Speaker 1: was deemed worthy of a Stalin Prize, only to be
3:24:33
Speaker 1: condemned a few years later as anti communist and bourgeois nationalist.
3:24:39
Speaker 1: This constant shifting of Soviet truth has involved strange deviations
3:24:42
Speaker 1: by even distinguished scholars who have tried to combine their
3:24:45
Speaker 1: sense of scholarship and accuracy with their desire to be
3:24:47
Speaker 1: admitted to the Soviet Union for further study. It has
3:24:51
Speaker 1: also increased the American public fear of communism and has
3:24:54
Speaker 1: aided the rise of the so called anti communistysteria, which
3:24:57
Speaker 1: has restrained men who, though not communists themselves, are unwilling
3:25:00
Speaker 1: to be accused by the Soviets of open hostility. There
3:25:04
Speaker 1: is still another unsatisfied need in Slavic studies. The Western world.
3:25:08
Speaker 1: Since the seventeenth century, for good or ill, has relegated religion,
3:25:12
Speaker 1: or the lack of it, to a subordinate place in
3:25:14
Speaker 1: modern history. While recognition is given both religious and non
3:25:18
Speaker 1: religious authors and movements, nowhere have religious motives played the
3:25:22
Speaker 1: ultimate primary role. The contrary is true in the East
3:25:25
Speaker 1: European area, where religion or opposition to it plays the
3:25:29
Speaker 1: same role it did in medieval Europe. In Russian literature,
3:25:32
Speaker 1: of the nineteenth century. Both Leo Tolstoy and Dostoevsky were
3:25:36
Speaker 1: absorbed in the world of the Orthodox Church and in
3:25:38
Speaker 1: their reaction to it, where leaders of the westernizing intelligentsia.
3:25:42
Speaker 1: Neither's influence can be understood without a consideration of the
3:25:45
Speaker 1: ethos of Russian Orthodoxy, but this is rarely treated as
3:25:48
Speaker 1: a serious subject, even though it furnishes the key to
3:25:51
Speaker 1: that Russian messianistic dream which so frequently emerges in the
3:25:54
Speaker 1: stream of Russian culture. In a lesser degree, the same
3:25:57
Speaker 1: can be said of the more negative messianism of Mani
3:26:00
Speaker 1: Kovitch and other Polish writers, of the Goals of Shivchenko,
3:26:03
Speaker 1: and above all, of the patriotic works of the Serb
3:26:06
Speaker 1: poet Nigosh. In addition, there is the almost completely unknown
3:26:10
Speaker 1: world of the Russian Old Believers or Staroviri, who have
3:26:13
Speaker 1: left an imprint on many fields of Russian culture. Although
3:26:17
Speaker 1: rarely mentioned, they are far better known in the Russian
3:26:19
Speaker 1: revolutionary movement, particularly for their preservation of old Russian icons.
3:26:24
Speaker 1: Still another field for which material is available is the
3:26:27
Speaker 1: history of the Slavs and Slavic culture in the Western world.
3:26:31
Speaker 1: Professor Yaroslav rutnikge of the University of Manitoba has detailed
3:26:35
Speaker 1: changes of the Ukrainian language in Canada, and H. L.
3:26:39
Speaker 1: Mencken has provided startling information on Slavic languages in America
3:26:43
Speaker 1: in his The American Language. But the full extent of
3:26:45
Speaker 1: these changes and the effect of American life on Slavic
3:26:48
Speaker 1: folklore and folk art, as well as the history of
3:26:50
Speaker 1: the settlements, has not yet been fully studied. At present.
3:26:54
Speaker 1: Because of support given by foundations and the government, stress
3:26:57
Speaker 1: is laid upon present Slavic conditions and culture. This is
3:27:01
Speaker 1: only natural, but the present and indeed the future can
3:27:04
Speaker 1: only be understood by the past. There is much historical
3:27:07
Speaker 1: study to be done with the resources that the United
3:27:10
Speaker 1: States and Western Europe can furnish. Slavic history has been
3:27:13
Speaker 1: so consistently neglected or studied in such narrow contexts that
3:27:17
Speaker 1: its general lines of contact with the West and Asia
3:27:20
Speaker 1: have not yet been established with any degree of certainty,
3:27:22
Speaker 1: even in the Slavic countries. If interest has been shown
3:27:26
Speaker 1: in the relations between Kiev and the Scandinavians, it has
3:27:29
Speaker 1: not been extended to the contacts with Byzantium during all ages.
3:27:32
Speaker 1: Nor have scholars examined the Swedish Polish relations from the
3:27:35
Speaker 1: viewpoint of both countries. The interplay of the Balkan Slavs
3:27:39
Speaker 1: with both Italy and the Ottomans is still veiled in darkness.
3:27:43
Speaker 1: All these subjects can be studied by Slavic scholars in
3:27:46
Speaker 1: America without limiting the study to an assumed narrow sphere,
3:27:48
Speaker 1: which has too often been the fate of studies both
3:27:51
Speaker 1: in Europe and the Slavic lands. The viewpoint of American students, therefore,
3:27:56
Speaker 1: with a broader perspective, may result in a new school
3:27:58
Speaker 1: of Slavic studies, or wanted by an impartial attitude to
3:28:01
Speaker 1: either the Russian imperialistic claims or the German desire to
3:28:04
Speaker 1: treat Eastern Europe in the broader sense as a subordinate
3:28:07
Speaker 1: arena in the world's history. These traditional viewpoints are today
3:28:11
Speaker 1: being outmoded rapidly by current history. Therefore, the sooner American
3:28:15
Speaker 1: Slavic and East European scholarship realizes its own possibilities and
3:28:18
Speaker 1: its subject matter, the more valuable will be its contribution
3:28:21
Speaker 1: to the welfare of the United States and the world.
3:28:24
Speaker 1: Six Area studies. The development of area studies, which first
3:28:28
Speaker 1: attracted wide attention during World War II, fills a certain
3:28:32
Speaker 1: gap in the general organization of Slavac and East European studies.
3:28:36
Speaker 1: They compensate for a deficiency in the education and application
3:28:39
Speaker 1: of students, but they can never fully replace the work
3:28:41
Speaker 1: of the graduate school. Area studies are at their best
3:28:44
Speaker 1: when they train young men and women in a knowledge
3:28:46
Speaker 1: of regions relatively unknown to the general public, which for
3:28:49
Speaker 1: one reason or another, are so inaccessible that few, if
3:28:52
Speaker 1: any of the students will have an opportunity to visit
3:28:55
Speaker 1: them in the course of their studies. They can then
3:28:57
Speaker 1: be regarded in two quite different ways, for they are
3:29:00
Speaker 1: either a desirable prelude to more serious work, or they
3:29:03
Speaker 1: are vocational schools of the highest class. In either respect,
3:29:07
Speaker 1: they will prove their value if properly handled. To understand
3:29:10
Speaker 1: the place of area studies, it must be recognized that
3:29:13
Speaker 1: the American university system has sharply differentiated between the cultural
3:29:17
Speaker 1: linguistic phases and historical and economic aspects of any given
3:29:20
Speaker 1: section of the world. Both areas of understanding require a
3:29:24
Speaker 1: knowledge of the general geography, the outstanding products of the region,
3:29:27
Speaker 1: its population and characteristics. It has been far too easy
3:29:32
Speaker 1: in the past for students of Slavic as well as
3:29:35
Speaker 1: other cultures to secure a knowledge of the literature of
3:29:37
Speaker 1: a period without an adequate realization of the background against
3:29:40
Speaker 1: which that literature was produced. To cite an example from
3:29:44
Speaker 1: Russian literature during the first half of the nineteenth century,
3:29:47
Speaker 1: very few Russian writers ever visited Kievan. Apart from the
3:29:50
Speaker 1: visit of Pushkin to the south of Russia and the
3:29:52
Speaker 1: service of Lhermantov and Leo Tolstoy in the Caucasus, there
3:29:55
Speaker 1: are few works which picture anything but St. Petersburg, Moscow
3:30:00
Speaker 1: and the small area south of Moscow. While the average
3:30:03
Speaker 1: student does not expect such a limitation of subject matter,
3:30:06
Speaker 1: it is at once obvious from the most superficial knowledge
3:30:09
Speaker 1: of the expanse of Russia. We could parallel this case
3:30:12
Speaker 1: with any number of others. From this point of view,
3:30:15
Speaker 1: area studies represent but a slight increase of detailed knowledge
3:30:18
Speaker 1: over which the average student acquires before he begins specialization
3:30:22
Speaker 1: in any linguistic or historical field. This knowledge must be
3:30:26
Speaker 1: supplemented by detailed studies in one of the accepted fields
3:30:28
Speaker 1: of learning if the student is not to remain a
3:30:30
Speaker 1: talented amateur. But there is another aspect of area studies
3:30:34
Speaker 1: which has given them their vogue at the present time.
3:30:37
Speaker 1: The global complexion of World War II brought home to
3:30:39
Speaker 1: the American government all far sighted educators, and even to
3:30:42
Speaker 1: members of the general public, the tremendous ignorance which existed
3:30:45
Speaker 1: in the United States concerning all parts of the world
3:30:48
Speaker 1: except some sections of Western Europe. It was urgently necessary
3:30:52
Speaker 1: to prepare, in the minimum time relatively large numbers of
3:30:55
Speaker 1: individuals to serve throughout the world. The involvement of the
3:30:59
Speaker 1: Soviet unse Union and the Nazi overrunning of the states
3:31:01
Speaker 1: to its west further emphasize this need. Area studies were
3:31:05
Speaker 1: the result. These studies were definitely geared to educate men
3:31:09
Speaker 1: and women who could be quickly called in case of need.
3:31:12
Speaker 1: That need still exists in undoubtedly a large percentage of
3:31:15
Speaker 1: the students who enter such concentrated programs hope to put
3:31:18
Speaker 1: their knowledge to practical use. For the most part, outside
3:31:21
Speaker 1: the universities, there is still a great demand for area courses,
3:31:25
Speaker 1: and if ever the Iron curtain were lifted and free
3:31:27
Speaker 1: commercial relations re established, we would speedily find that even
3:31:30
Speaker 1: with all these courses, the demand would outstrip the supply.
3:31:34
Speaker 1: But it seems likely that area studies will diminish in
3:31:37
Speaker 1: popularity of Slavac and other East European studies find their
3:31:40
Speaker 1: rightful place in the undergraduate curriculum and provide students with
3:31:43
Speaker 1: a real appreciation of the significance and general culture of
3:31:45
Speaker 1: the area. If that were so, they might continue with
3:31:49
Speaker 1: still greater detail. For an area study including the entire
3:31:52
Speaker 1: Soviet Union and the satellites becomes almost a contradiction in terms.
3:31:56
Speaker 1: It would be the same as if a student selected
3:31:58
Speaker 1: North and South America for a SUS single area study.
3:32:02
Speaker 1: It becomes very little more than a brief survey of
3:32:04
Speaker 1: conditions in some particular field. This danger has appeared already
3:32:08
Speaker 1: in places where area studies have been given on the
3:32:10
Speaker 1: Slavic lands and have tended to become mere adjuncts of
3:32:13
Speaker 1: certain phases of Russian and Communist politics and thought. Taken
3:32:17
Speaker 1: in the true sense, these courses have amply fulfilled the
3:32:19
Speaker 1: purpose for which they were intended. They have served to
3:32:22
Speaker 1: focus attention on many neglected problems. More than this, they
3:32:26
Speaker 1: have served to round out the point of view of
3:32:28
Speaker 1: many students. But their unfortunate preoccupation with the present has
3:32:31
Speaker 1: also created lacuni which can only be filled by other means.
3:32:35
Speaker 1: Area studies in their present sense and scope are a
3:32:38
Speaker 1: welcome sign of progress, but they are not an adequately
3:32:41
Speaker 1: developed source of our knowledge of Slavic and East European subjects.
3:32:45
Speaker 1: They are a step in the right direction, have contributed
3:32:47
Speaker 1: much to overcome the almost complete ignorance with which our
3:32:50
Speaker 1: country entered World War II, but they fall short of
3:32:52
Speaker 1: the full needs. Seven summary. We have now reviewed the
3:32:56
Speaker 1: history of Slavic studies in the United States, indicating their scope,
3:32:59
Speaker 1: their limitations, and their prospects. It remains to summarize all
3:33:03
Speaker 1: this end in terms of past experiences to make some
3:33:06
Speaker 1: tentative predictions of needs for the future. The number of
3:33:10
Speaker 1: students of Slavic and East European subjects increased many times
3:33:13
Speaker 1: during and after World War II because public attention was
3:33:16
Speaker 1: centered on this area. There are now signs which indicate
3:33:19
Speaker 1: that this marked increase is coming to an end for
3:33:22
Speaker 1: propaganda purposes, sometimes deliberate and sometimes based upon ignorance. Slackening
3:33:27
Speaker 1: interest is attributed to the fear of being labeled a communist,
3:33:31
Speaker 1: yet there are deeper reasons for It is rare that
3:33:33
Speaker 1: the rush of American students into any subject, whether a
3:33:36
Speaker 1: science or a humanistic study, lasts more than a few years.
3:33:40
Speaker 1: One reason is in many cases purely materialistic. The overwhelming
3:33:45
Speaker 1: majority of students who pursue higher studies do so for
3:33:48
Speaker 1: purely professional reasons, either in government service, scholarship, journalism, or business.
3:33:54
Speaker 1: An added complication today is the fact that most students
3:33:56
Speaker 1: expect to receive scholarships or fellowships during their period of stuff,
3:34:00
Speaker 1: and these have been distributed liberately by the foundations, colleges
3:34:03
Speaker 1: and universities. Yet at the very moment when the number
3:34:07
Speaker 1: of students in Slavic studies show signs of diminishing, we
3:34:10
Speaker 1: are also given an intensive barrage of propaganda on the
3:34:13
Speaker 1: need for increasing the number of students in the natural sciences.
3:34:17
Speaker 1: There will be increased future assistance for the sciences, resulting
3:34:19
Speaker 1: in more available and far better positions than in the
3:34:22
Speaker 1: Slavic and East European field. We must remember too that
3:34:26
Speaker 1: because of the rapid development, most of the key men
3:34:28
Speaker 1: in Slavic studies, no matter what their fields, are still
3:34:31
Speaker 1: relatively young. Few are over fifty five, and unless the
3:34:35
Speaker 1: mortality rate experience during World War II is repeated, we
3:34:39
Speaker 1: can only accept the fact that the rate of promotion
3:34:41
Speaker 1: will be slow and attrition by retirement and death will
3:34:43
Speaker 1: be at a low level. Prospects for advancement then are
3:34:47
Speaker 1: not as good as they were even ten years ago.
3:34:49
Speaker 1: Although there will always be openings for the well trained scholars,
3:34:53
Speaker 1: a need will probably last longest in Eastern non Russian languages,
3:34:56
Speaker 1: for with the passing of time, the present lack of
3:34:58
Speaker 1: competence scholars in Mena any of these countries will be
3:35:01
Speaker 1: felt more and more. There will also be a lack
3:35:04
Speaker 1: of those who have really studied the origins of the
3:35:06
Speaker 1: present situation, the past history of these lands and even
3:35:09
Speaker 1: of the Russian people, and are familiar with those currents
3:35:11
Speaker 1: which have led to the development of the present situation.
3:35:14
Speaker 1: We need, in other words, to study the Byzantine relationships
3:35:17
Speaker 1: with the Slavs, the pre eighteenth century, German contacts with
3:35:20
Speaker 1: the Slavs, the nineteenth century, and those more specialized subjects
3:35:24
Speaker 1: such as archaeology and ethnology which are still ignored. The
3:35:28
Speaker 1: second aspect closely connected to this, both in the present
3:35:31
Speaker 1: and future, is the furnishing of an instructional staff. In
3:35:35
Speaker 1: some fields, there are still two few men now available,
3:35:38
Speaker 1: and while the younger generation is being trained, the United
3:35:41
Speaker 1: States is wasting the services of many competent scholars who
3:35:43
Speaker 1: have arrived since World War II began, who, because of
3:35:46
Speaker 1: their ignorance of English, are often compelled to take menial
3:35:49
Speaker 1: and unintellectual positions. This is a tragic waste at a
3:35:53
Speaker 1: time when so much half knowledge is being disseminated. There
3:35:56
Speaker 1: must be more contact between these newly arrived specialists and
3:35:59
Speaker 1: the general educational system. Some of these men undoubtedly need
3:36:03
Speaker 1: special training to equip them to function advantageously in the
3:36:06
Speaker 1: American system, but it is sheer folly for the country
3:36:08
Speaker 1: and the universities alike to discount them wholly or to
3:36:11
Speaker 1: confine them to minor institutions maintained by their own groups.
3:36:15
Speaker 1: American Scholarly Society should make every effort to bring into
3:36:18
Speaker 1: their membership the newly arrived scholars, and to cooperate with
3:36:21
Speaker 1: those institutions which have been recently transplanted to America, such
3:36:24
Speaker 1: as the Shifchenko Scientific Society. By neglecting to do so,
3:36:28
Speaker 1: American education is overlooking a large reservoir of trained personnel
3:36:32
Speaker 1: with long experience and a wide range of knowledge and ideas.
3:36:36
Speaker 1: Another pressing problem is the need for money, money for
3:36:38
Speaker 1: the payment of faculties, for scholarships, for the expansion and
3:36:42
Speaker 1: establishment of libraries and museums. The lack of financial resources
3:36:46
Speaker 1: in the past has often been the greatest handicap for
3:36:49
Speaker 1: Before World War II, contributions for this type of work
3:36:52
Speaker 1: were few. While the foundations have contributed handsomely to make
3:36:55
Speaker 1: the present expansion possible, it is hardly to be expected
3:36:58
Speaker 1: that they will continue in debath definitely. Thus, even now,
3:37:02
Speaker 1: the East European Fund of the Ford Foundation seems to
3:37:05
Speaker 1: be in the process of liquidation. Similarly, with the pressure
3:37:08
Speaker 1: exerted on universities, we can scarcely hope that they already
3:37:12
Speaker 1: pressed for funds to conduct research in other branches, will
3:37:14
Speaker 1: be able to provide the money needed for Slavac and
3:37:17
Speaker 1: East European studies. At the present time, there is a
3:37:20
Speaker 1: movement on foot to secure large grants on a one
3:37:23
Speaker 1: time or yearly basis from many of the larger corporations.
3:37:27
Speaker 1: The plans offer encouragement, but there is always the danger
3:37:29
Speaker 1: that funds will be diverted to those subjects which promise
3:37:32
Speaker 1: the most direct advantage to the donors, and while this
3:37:34
Speaker 1: may set free certain university funds, it may also serve
3:37:37
Speaker 1: to furnish those favored departments something more than their regular
3:37:40
Speaker 1: share of the institutional income. On the other hand, many
3:37:44
Speaker 1: societies of the larger groups of Slavac and East European
3:37:46
Speaker 1: peoples possess relatively large sums of money which can be
3:37:49
Speaker 1: used for cultural purposes. Some of these societies have already
3:37:53
Speaker 1: awakened to their responsibility and are doing praiseworthy work in
3:37:56
Speaker 1: publishing materials in English, in supporting refugee scholars, and us
3:38:00
Speaker 1: in maintaining cultural institutions. It can only be hoped that
3:38:03
Speaker 1: all of the societies will consider carefully the opportunities that
3:38:06
Speaker 1: are offered for aiding in the development of endowment funds
3:38:09
Speaker 1: and gifts for Slavic and other study. In connection with this,
3:38:12
Speaker 1: the universities have an obligation to keep an open mind
3:38:15
Speaker 1: about these offers and not to judge them in terms
3:38:17
Speaker 1: of the teaching accepted in hoens Aalleren, Germany, Habsburg, Austria, Hungary,
3:38:21
Speaker 1: romanov Russia and the Communist Soviet Union. This is not
3:38:25
Speaker 1: asking the universities to alter their demands for objectivity, but
3:38:28
Speaker 1: it is asking them to recognize that points of view
3:38:30
Speaker 1: which serve the political aspirations of the old imperialists should
3:38:33
Speaker 1: not be maintained because of their prestige alone, for they
3:38:36
Speaker 1: have been challenged in large part by outstanding scholars since
3:38:39
Speaker 1: World War One. The epigony of the old Russian professors
3:38:42
Speaker 1: are by no means as sure of their ground as
3:38:44
Speaker 1: were their masters, and it is ridiculous to suggest that
3:38:46
Speaker 1: no new ideas have been developed by a reworking of
3:38:49
Speaker 1: the old and new material. We may still be far
3:38:52
Speaker 1: from the time when there will be professors in the
3:38:54
Speaker 1: history and culture of every one of the Slavic and
3:38:56
Speaker 1: East European groups in a single institution. But scot Olllarship
3:39:00
Speaker 1: has advanced beyond the simple view which lumps all the
3:39:02
Speaker 1: nations of Eastern Europe into one or two convenient sections,
3:39:05
Speaker 1: and accepts the view of the dominant nation as absolute truth.
3:39:09
Speaker 1: There is, in addition, a great need for the collection
3:39:12
Speaker 1: and preservation of material on Slavic and Eastern Europe. At
3:39:16
Speaker 1: the time of World War I, the American Relief Commission,
3:39:19
Speaker 1: under instructions from its chief Herbert Hoover, collected enormous masses
3:39:23
Speaker 1: of material, now preserved in the Hoover War Library at
3:39:25
Speaker 1: Stanford University. Slavic groups, societies and associations have brought together
3:39:30
Speaker 1: relatively large collections of the most valuable material that has
3:39:33
Speaker 1: appeared during and after World War II. Much of this
3:39:36
Speaker 1: material has been saved at tremendous risks, but is still
3:39:39
Speaker 1: scattered in various repositories, not always under ideal conditions. In addition,
3:39:45
Speaker 1: the libraries of American universities are becoming so crowded that
3:39:48
Speaker 1: they often hesitate to accept copies of works which may
3:39:50
Speaker 1: seem superfluous at first sight. Thus, it would be highly
3:39:54
Speaker 1: desirable to form a new institution, sponsored by interested universities
3:39:58
Speaker 1: and the scholarly societies of the New Image Migration, to
3:40:00
Speaker 1: preserve in a convenient place under modern library conditions, all
3:40:04
Speaker 1: this material. Such a project, admittedly ambitious, would require assistance
3:40:09
Speaker 1: from some foundation, the co operation of all the factions
3:40:12
Speaker 1: among the New Immigration as well as the American institutions.
3:40:16
Speaker 1: Administered by a joint board, it could easily be made
3:40:19
Speaker 1: a center which would soon be unrivaled in the world.
3:40:22
Speaker 1: Even ephemeral material such as newspapers and programs, which seem
3:40:26
Speaker 1: of little or no intrinsic importance, should be preserved for
3:40:29
Speaker 1: in a few years they will be hotly bargained for
3:40:31
Speaker 1: by the greatest libraries. Why should this not now be
3:40:34
Speaker 1: brought together and made available for duly qualified students. Such
3:40:38
Speaker 1: a collection would soon prove to be more important than
3:40:40
Speaker 1: many apparently more valuable sources. In the same way, perhaps
3:40:45
Speaker 1: under the same roof, there could be a Slavic museum,
3:40:47
Speaker 1: not only for the major arts, but also for articles
3:40:50
Speaker 1: of domestic use. Early immigrants brought with them home made utensils, weavings,
3:40:55
Speaker 1: carpets and dishes, which now seem crude and are discarded. However,
3:40:59
Speaker 1: their real value is suggested by the fact that the
3:41:02
Speaker 1: New York State Historical Society has organized in Cooperstown an
3:41:05
Speaker 1: agricultural museum to preserve similar articles made in the early
3:41:08
Speaker 1: United States. The disappearance of the old way of life
3:41:12
Speaker 1: in Eastern Europe, evident even before the communist wave of
3:41:14
Speaker 1: devastation and the ravages of the war, have given these
3:41:17
Speaker 1: articles now in the United States of value far beyond
3:41:20
Speaker 1: anything imagined a few years ago. Some organizations, such as
3:41:24
Speaker 1: the Polish Roman Catholic Union in Chicago, the Ukrainian Museums
3:41:28
Speaker 1: in Ontario, California, Chicago and Cleveland, and other groups have
3:41:32
Speaker 1: made small scale efforts to establish collections and libraries. Some
3:41:35
Speaker 1: of them, such as the Shuvchenko Society Library, the Ukrainian
3:41:39
Speaker 1: Academy of Sciences Library in the Hungarian Pelichy Library have
3:41:43
Speaker 1: not yet found proper housing. There are many other small
3:41:47
Speaker 1: and scattered museums and collections. The development of a project
3:41:50
Speaker 1: on a continental scale would at once reveal the similarities
3:41:53
Speaker 1: and dissimilarities existing among the Slavic and East European peoples.
3:41:58
Speaker 1: No single institution can possibly hope to achieve all this.
3:42:01
Speaker 1: Order to cover adequately the subjects included in a careful
3:42:03
Speaker 1: survey and study of Eastern Europe, some new form of
3:42:07
Speaker 1: co operation must be devised if the burden is not
3:42:09
Speaker 1: to become overwhelming and thus be neglected. It cuts sharply
3:42:13
Speaker 1: in some respects across some of the American educational traditions,
3:42:16
Speaker 1: but the establishments of atomic laboratory sponsored by several institutions,
3:42:20
Speaker 1: such as the Brookhaven Laboratory, shows that co operation is possible. These, then,
3:42:25
Speaker 1: are but a few possibilities for future expansion of Slavic studies.
3:42:29
Speaker 1: The Slavac and East European studies in the United States
3:42:32
Speaker 1: are still in their infancy. In American scholars, whether of
3:42:35
Speaker 1: Slavak or non Slavic origin, have an enormous opportunity to
3:42:38
Speaker 1: push forward to solve many of the problems which have
3:42:41
Speaker 1: until now isolated the peoples of Eastern Europe and have
3:42:44
Speaker 1: barred them from playing their proper role in world affairs.
3:42:48
Speaker 1: The end