Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures

Abstract The current study analyzes signs and signifiers that constitute the structural composition of Pushkin's historical works Boris Godunov and The Captain's Daughter and compare them with their Soviet and post-Soviet screen adaptations. I argue that the popularity of these literary works with filmmakers is based on their inexhaustible topicality for Russian society of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, and therefore reassessment of their film adaptations guides us towards developing a better understanding of the sociopolitical complexities in modern Russia. The analysis employs methods of semiotics of film, which is a relatively young science, but has already become one of the most promising fields in the theory of cinema. The research is based on the scholarship of such eminent theorists and semioticians as Metz, Bluestone, Barthes, Lotman, Bakhtin, and others. By performing semiotic analysis of Russian intermedial transpositions and Pushkin's source texts, the study demonstrates the parallels between the historical periods and contemporary Russia.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2013, Slavic and East European Studies

The Symbolist period in Russian culture emphasized intense cross-pollination and hybridization of the arts. The purpose behind these "poetics of blending" was to show the existence of a spiritual world beyond physical-material reality and that the boundaries between them were not insurmountable. In my dissertation, I claim that this vision of the creative process as pursuing various strategies of blending draws on the overarching metaphoric conceptualization of our world, and the human domain as its integral part, as not "solid", but "fluid matter". I employ conceptual metaphor and blending theory approaches from the field of cognitive linguistics to account for the following: how three interactive arts of the period, poetry, painting and film, use the metaphor of world liquescence in their attempts to transcend the material world, realia, and to reach spiritual reality, realiora. The concept of world liquescence reveals itself not only in the choice of water as a physical substance present in the space of a given poem, canvas or film. The Symbolist arts with their close attention to the inner depths of the human psyche attempt to capture and symbolize the slightest stirrings of the soul through the domain of water and very often introduce this element through the plasticity of music. The "endless" Wagnerian melody reveals itself in poetry through protracted poetic meters and specific types of rhyme as well as various phonetic and semantic devices; in painting it is "endless, monotonic, impassive line without angles", in early filmmaking it is the use of movement vs. stasis, special lighting effects and long takes, including (extreme) close-ups of a person's face. In this connection we can also speak about moving water as a traditional metaphor for time: thus the introduction of music as a temporal element into both the temporal art of poetry and the spatial art of painting marks an attempt to convey its flow in both a congenial dynamic art and in a less congenia (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures

This study analyzes the colorful phenomenon of the shanson in the context of contemporary Russian culture and politics. It targets the shanson's complex symbiotic relationship with Putin's regime and its paradoxical place within the national consciousness. This musical genre has undergone a veritable sea change over time, evolving from a subcultural form mocking official powers to a normalized, commodified cultural product that now bears the Kremlin's stamp of approval. Faced with the new post-Soviet economic reality, the underworld song underwent mutations that transformed it from a subcultural expression to a commercially successful vein of contemporary music currently acknowledged, and even deployed, by the Russian authorities. While such shifts often mark subcultures' lifecycles worldwide, what is particularly striking in this case is the shanson's continued bond with the underworld. It is this study's claim that such a paradox arises from the specific nature of the Putin regime and from Russian society's particular mode of existence, in which both the population and the state have internalized the norms of the criminal world. The current analysis briefly covers the development of underworld music, from folk songs about criminals and rebels in the early period in Russian culture (seventeenth century) to the merchandising of the shanson in the 1990s, and then delves into manifestations of an incongruous quid pro quo synergy between the shanson and the president's politics, especially examining the genre's incorporation into the official discourse of the Putin era. My research demonstrates that in Russia, where the difference between the authorities and criminals is not always easily distinguishable, the shanson has been enjoying privileges bestowed on it by the current regime. In other words, in today's crime-ridden Russia, the shanson has found an officially approved home.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures

In my dissertation, I address how four twentieth-century Russian poets grapple(d) with the mysteries of poetic inspiration and I propose what I consider to be their personal mythologies of the creative process. As none of these poets offers a comprehensive description of his/her personal mythology of poetic creation, my task has been to sift through the poets' poems and prose in order to uncover pertinent textual references to themes of inspiration. The four poet-subjects are Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, and Olga Sedakova. Together they represent many of the factors contributing to the remarkable genius of twentieth-century Russian poetry. By looking at these four particular mythologies of poetic creation, we are able to view notions developed by both genders, within two faiths, in both capitals, and throughout the entirety of the century. It is significant that each of these poets has turned to prose to work out his/her ideas concerning the creative process. In reconstructing these mythologies of poetic creation, I have looked to the poets' entire oeuvres and the "single semantic system" working within each of them. My work aims to bring together poets' prose and poetry and to offer readings of texts that are guided by the poets' own concerns and beliefs.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2010, History

The life and writings of Russian author Ivan Alexseevich Bunin (1870-1953) provide a number of important insights into the major cultural discourses of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Russian history. This thesis uses his experiences and literature as well as those of a number of his contemporaries as a guide for examining the larger dialogues of Russian cultural life in which Bunin participated. In particular, it focuses on the question of Russian national identity, responses to the February and October Revolutions, and the role of nostalgia in Russian emigre culture in Russia Abroad. The use of Bunin's life to explore these themes also demonstrates the ways in which many of these issues carried over from the imperial era to the Soviet era in Russian emigre communities. A microhistorical study of his life thus provides a template for examining these themes within the larger scope of Russian history during this period.

Master of Music, University of Akron, 2010, Music-History and Literature

As an avid listener of Russian music I often noticed the tendency of Russian composers to produce music that tells a story, often a specifically Russian story. This proclivity is evident not only in vocal works such as solo songs or opera, but in the story choice for ballets and programmatic instrumental works. I sought to understand why Russians were so attracted to storytelling. As Richard Taruskin says in the introduction to his article, “Some Thoughts on the History and Historiography of Russian Music:” “We are simply curious to know and understand the music we love as well as we possibly can, and eager to stimulate interest in it.” Historically, Russia (and later the Soviet Union) has been dominated by totalitarian regimes and the flow of information into and out of the country has often been strictly controlled. The setting apart of Russian music (and the Russian arts as a whole) has helped create its mystique. But, in the opinion of musicologist Richard Taruskin, it has also marginalized the music. The music of Russian composers has become defined by how well it fulfills a stereotypical set of stylistic traits. As Taruskin says: “Verdi and Wagner are heroic individuals. Russians are a group.” Russian music has thus been held apart and—to borrow Taruskin's term—“consigned to the ghetto.” But in actuality the Russian intelligentsia, (of which authors and composers were members), were highly cosmopolitan and saw themselves as part of the European community. Many of the trends we associate with Russian music were not the result of some unique and original expression but rather were important trends across Europe during the nineteenth century. Nationalism, program music, and the interest in orientalism/exoticism, all had their origins in Western Europe. Russians then took these models and made them personal and national forms of expression. In this paper I argue that the inclination to produce music that tells a story can be attributed to the close development (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1972, Graduate School

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2024, History

This thesis focuses on the early post-Soviet period and explores the history of the Cherkizovsky market (Moscow, Russia). Being the largest and most high-profile market, Cherkizovsky epitomized the golden era of street trade. It emerged from the Soviet collapse in a wasteland and became by the mid-2000s the largest open-air market in Europe with almost 100,000 traders from China and Central Asia working and a total daily profit reaching $1,000,000. Due to its unprecedented size and notorious reputation, Cherkizovsky was always on the cutting edge of any discussion of markets which were criticized for increases in crime rates, illegal migration from Asia, drug traffic, and ghettoization of close neighborhoods. Russian authorities shut down the market in 2009 in a very authoritarian manner, promising “civilized” trade and renovation in its place. Instead, the market was turned into a wasteland again and remains largely so to this day. This story portrays the upheavals and turns that took place in post-Soviet Russia between the state and society. It demonstrates how the state regulation of public space and street trade changed in the 1990s–2000s, and how the Cherkizovsky market was discredited as an “uncivilized” place and became a multifaceted symbol.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2020, History

This thesis examines the life of an engineer and professor Gustav Trinkler under the Imperial and Soviet Russia. By using archival materials, such as letters, certificates, reports, questionnaires, and a memoir, it explores his living conditions and interactions with authorities before and after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Trinkler was born in 1876 to a prosperous family of a predominantly German ethnicity. Despite his origins, he identified as a Russian throughout his life. Before the 1917 Revolution, Trinkler enjoyed cultivating his estate, sent his family on vacation to the south and petitioned his superiors requesting positions and financial assistance. After 1917, Trinkler aspired to maintain his living standards and re-engineered the life he knew: he obtained a new summer house, enjoyed family vacations in the south and kept sending petitions asking new, Soviet, authorities for assistance and benefits based on his technical skills. He managed to manufacture a Soviet life that was strikingly similar to his Imperial one even after his imprisonment as a "bourgeois" specialist in 1930. Using Trinkler's biography as a microhistory, this thesis points to the need to examine individuals' lives before 1917 to better understand the Soviet system and what constituted novel, "Soviet," behaviors.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2017, History

This thesis examines the relationship between the Russian emigre publication Teatr' i Zhizn' and Russian national and cultural identities from late 1928-1929. This research examines how emigres used theatre and the arts to reinforce notions of identity within and outside the Russian emigre community. The research begins by exploring the creative anxieties felt by emigre artists as their art form and community was threatened by new innovations, such as cinematography, and emigration. This thesis then explores the centrality of children and their education to the community, by exploring the ways that the magazine discussed not only the arts but the community at large. Finally, by exploring the ways that emigres wrote about Russian emigre performances and Russian performances in the Soviet Union, this thesis explores the ways that emigres saw themselves as the true inheritors of Russian culture.

Master of Music (MM), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Music Ethnomusicology

This thesis explores the roles of internal others in constructing a Soviet and post-Soviet Ukrainian national identity. I begin with an analysis of the kobzars—a group of blind, itinerant minstrels who performed across Ukraine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before they disappeared entirely during Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s. First, I explore the ways in which the Ukrainian bandura, an asymmetrical lute instrument, has become a site for documenting epistemologies of blind musicians in Ukraine. I then examine how these ways of knowing blindness have been influenced by myths of blind musicians in Ukraine that seek to demystify these internal “others.” Furthermore, I discuss how these myths continue to influence 21st century depictions of blind minstrels through an analysis of the 2014 Ukrainian film, The Guide. Finally, I turn my focus to the Eurovision Song Contest in order to examine how narratives of internal others are deployed in order to negotiate Ukraine's position in 21st century Europe and in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. I then reflect on the ways in which deploying these narratives of internal others does not draw these groups into the mainstream, but instead emphasizes and exploits their difference for the purpose of rejecting external hegemony in Ukraine.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1978, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1977, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, History

This dissertation examines the relationship between colonization and environmental change in the Russian province of Primor'e between roughly 1860 and 1940. In doing so, it explores the ecological dimensions of Russia's expansion across Asia and contributes a new perspective to the environmental history of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union. It contends that imperial competition over space and resources was the driving factor behind the environmental changes that occurred in Primor'e after 1860, yet also underlay the emergence of nature protection in the territory. From the outset of Russian colonization, Primor'e's nature, both as an idea and a material reality, was contested, highly politicized, and intertwined with ethnic and social divisions. This contestation over space, resources, and nature had far-reaching consequences for the territory and its nonhuman environment. Beginning in the late 1850s, the tsarist state sought to acquire Primor'e and colonize it with Russian and European settlers (including Ukrainians, Balts, Finns, and others) in order to take advantage of temporary Chinese weakness and to defend its eastern territories against other imperial powers. A territory that the Qing Empire had long preserved as a lightly-populated borderland, Russian authorities attempted to seize, demarcate, populate, and cultivate. Moreover, tsarist and (after 1922) Soviet authorities encouraged migrants to utilize Primor'e's natural resources in order to lay claim to the territory (along with its flora and fauna), and to provide a supply source for the Russian Far East. However, Primor'e's unique environment complicated Russian settlement efforts, particularly the transplanting of Russian-style agriculture and stock-breeding. Rather than producing a bounteous agricultural colony, settlers came to rely on hunting, fishing, wage-labor, and close economic relationships with migrants from China and Korea. Together, these groups precipitated significant env (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2014, History

The following thesis examines the creation, publication, and reception of Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy's posthumous novel, Khadzhi Murat in both the Imperial and Soviet Russian Empire. The anti-imperial content of the novel made Khadzhi Murat an incredibly vulnerable novel, subjecting it to substantial early censorship. Tolstoy's status as a literary and cultural figure in Russia – both preceding and following his death – allowed for the novel to become virtually forgotten despite its controversial content. This thesis investigates the absorption of Khadzhi Murat into the broader canon of Tolstoy's writings within the Russian Empire as well as its prevailing significance as a piece of anti-imperial literature in a Russian context.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2014, Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures

Politeness and facework are important aspects of communication that vary from culture to culture. They are influenced by factors such as the degree of social distance, the relative power of the participants, and the type of imposition or face-threatening act present in any given situation. Due to variation in the implementation of politeness and facework across cultures, locutions that may be interpreted as polite in one culture may be taken as rude in another, or they may simply fail to communicate the desired illocutionary force. This study investigates how differences in power, distance, and weight of imposition influence the choice of facework strategies across three participants groups: speakers of American English, Russian speakers residing in Russia, and Russian emigres in the U.S. It evaluates their use of politeness by having them envision 12 social situations and write an email, text message, or dialogue as if they were actual participants in the situations presented. These responses were evaluated and categorized for each cultural group using Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory. Then the data for the three cultural groups were compared against each other to determine similarities or differences in the use of politeness and, in particular, to evaluate how differential power, distance and weight of imposition affected each group's production of facework. The responses of the Russian-American participant group were also specially evaluated to assess whether there was any effect of L2 influence on their production of politeness and facework in their L1. The results of this study indicate that the use of positive politeness across the participant groups was relatively similar, while the use of negative politeness had more noticeable differences. In addition, the Russian-American groups did demonstrate clear L2 influence on their use of politeness and facework in the L1, but also diverged from both the American and Russian groups in some asp (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2013, Linguistics

Traditionally phonological analysis separates sounds into two categories: those that are contrastive, i.e. can distinguish words, and those that are not, i.e. are predictably distributed or vary without changing meaning. This binary definition of contrast, however, falls short in dealing with a number of phonological relationships in which sounds exhibit some traits of contrastive sounds, as well as traits associated with non-contrastive sounds. Such intermediate phonological relationships vary in the extent to which they utilize contrast along two dimensions: contexts in which the contrast is utilized and number of lexical items that utilize the contrast. I argue that phonology must include not only the potential, but the utilization of the potential to distinguish words in order to fulfill the implicit expectations built around the concept of contrast. Investigating the utilization of contrast as a quantifiable aspect of phonological relationships allows the phonologist to classify phonological relationships more accurately and more directly predict their effects on the phonological system. In this thesis I use Hall's (2009) Probabilistic Phonological Relationship Model, which employs the information theoretic concepts of probability and entropy, to quantify the degree to which sounds utilize contrast in specific environments. I look at the contrast between palatalized and non-palatalized consonants represented in three sets of Russian data: velars before non-front vowels, a set of consonants word-finally and a set of consonants before palatalized consonants. Each set of data supports the need to investigate utilization of contrast as a core trait of phonological relationships. I show that velars before non-front vowels minimally utilize contrast in two ways: they exhibit contrast in only one context, and only a limited number of lexical items exhibit the contrast in that context. I also show that contrastive consonants for which both palatalized and non-palat (open full item for complete abstract)

DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2008, College-Conservatory of Music : Voice

The Russian composer Valery Gavrilin, 1939-1999, composed music from the heart and hoped that his compositions would move his listeners in the same way all music, whether urban, folk or classical, moved him. He believed that music should be accessible to the audience and that it should connect and resonate with the listener. It should not stand above them nor force them to struggle to find its meaning. Though he wrote music in a variety of forms and for a variety of instruments, it is in his compositions for the voice,whether choral, operatic or art song, that Valery Gavrilin best achieved his aesthetic ideals. It is through this uniquely human instrument and its ability to bring to life the written word that Gavrilin finds his own expressive voice. Though his compositions are born of a variety of social, political, cultural and musical influences, Gavrilin's compositions remain uniquely individual, uniquely Gavrilin. By means of an exploration of the cultural and political history of Russian music from the turn of the nineteenth century through 1999, a review of Valery Gavrilin's musical heritage, a reflection on his life experience and an analysis of select works for voice and piano, this paper shows that Valery Gavrilin achieved a unique musical style that affords his works for voice and piano an important place not only in Russian vocal literature but also in the international standard vocal repertory.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2004, Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures

Russian writers have grappled with the notion of Russian identity between East and West and have mostly looked to Europe for answers since Peter the Great's reforms. The discussion of Russia's identity and historically ordained mission in the world came into sharp focus with the Slavophile-Westernizer debate in the first half of the nineteenth century, the resonance from which have informed Russian cultural philosophy since. Dostoevsky's “Pushkin speech” in 1881 introduced the notion of Pushkin as a “Universal Poet” who could transcend national boundaries as a result of his universal cultural receptivity and yet could at the same time remain quintessentially Russian. The Russian Silver Age (1890's-1910) witnessed a revival of the debate over Russia's mission in a crisis-ridden fin-de-siecle Europe and Russia. Russian Symbolist writers looked to other cultures – in particular classical antiquity, and renaissance Italy – for cultural models that would provide an insight into solving the crisis of positivism and naturalism. The symbolist poet Konstantin Bal'mont – who was a much feted poet in the first decade of his oeuvre and perhaps unjustly ignored later – differed from his contemporaries in his quest for solutions both in sheer breadth of cultures studied and in his unusual choice of an ideal. This dissertation revisits Bal'mont's oeuvre in order to examine his cultural philosophy – hitherto largely unexamined by critics – and discussed the poet's choice of India as a cultural partner in the synthesis of Russian elemental spirit and Indian wisdom that he envisioned for the future. While Bal'mont studied a wide variety of cultures – Mayas and Aztecs, ancient Egypt, Japan and Scandinavia among others, India remains the Land of Thought an ideal country that is universal and all-encompassing, where wise men possess the secret of Universal pantheism, a secret that resonates with Bal'mont' innate poetic pantheism. In his role as cultural philosopher Bal'mont also locates (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, 2006, College of Arts and Sciences - Russian

This thesis includes a discussion of hacker self-image and motives, the public perception of hackers, and the economic impact of Russian hackers. It looks at popular categories of hacker activity in Russia, such as phreaking and worm creation, and how these activities relate to Russian hacker motivations. I will show that the roots of hacking in Russia are tied to the following cultural and historical motivations: intellectual challenge, prestige among the hacker community, a desire for profit, nationalism, disenchantment and underemployment in post-1991 Russia, the Soviet Union's history of state-sponsored hacking, and a culture of opportunism. Finally, I will analyze specific case studies that illustrate many of these arguments and observations.