CREES Newsletter Spring 2012

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

CENTER FOR RUSSIAN, EAST EUROPEAN & EURASIAN STUDIES

CREES Newsletter

CONTENTSSupport CrEES takE aCtion!3

poliSh hiStory and CrEES arEa StudiES

intErviEw with anna M. CiEnCiala

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ForMEr prESidEnt oF ukrainE, yuShChEnko at ku6

adaMS EduCation in MaCEdonia

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Fall SEMEStEr SnapShotS

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BrownBag highlightS

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outrEaCh highlightS

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FaCulty, aluMni & StudEnt nEwS 15–16

announCEMEntS

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CalEndar oF EvEntS

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SPRING 2012

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Happy New Year! Here’s hop-ing that 2012 brings each of you health, happiness, and success.

Fall 2011 was a semester of sub-stantial change in the life of CREES. Title VI cuts meant curtailment of

some of our standard large events—we did without our usu-al fall K-12 teacher workshop and held a more circumscribed, though very successful, research conference with fewer na-tional and international participants. That time instead was spent lobbying our representatives on Capitol Hill to per-suade them of the central importance of foreign language learning and area studies for the competitiveness and secu-rity of our country. The CREES team will be following up in the near future when our senators and representatives are in Kansas.

On a very bright note, in September, CREES Assistant Di-rector Bart Redford won KU Unclassified Senate Employee of the Month. Bart was acknowledged for the many hours he puts into CREES programming, our busy fall schedule just being one example of his dedication.

During the Fall semester CREES marked the 20th anniver-sary of the USSR’s dissolution with a panoply of events. In late August, 145 people participated in an area and interna-tional studies conference on “Identity and Community after the Cold War Era.” Keynote speakers included Ayse Zara-kol (Washington and Lee University, Political Science), and Reuel Hanks (Oklahoma State University, Political Science; CREES MA 1988). CREES worked with the School of Mu-sic and the Spencer Art Museum to show contemporary Chinese conceptual art and produce an evening concert devoted to the theme of “Crossing Borders: Music in the Postmodern Era.” Documentary director Robin Hessman screened her film, “My Perestroika,” and fielded dozens of questions from a fascinated audience.

CREES partnered with the Dole Institute of Politics to bring Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to receive the Dole Leadership Prize for 2011. CREES faculty and students enjoyed a lunch with President Yushchenko and the opportunity to dis-cuss issues around the Orange Revolution of 2004 and Ukrai-nian history and politics. Other events included a documentary movie on the Orange Revolution and an interview with one of the new media journalists who are making a huge difference in world politics, Azeri blogger Arzu Gaibullayeva. We owe a special thanks to Prof. Erik Herron for making Yushchenko’s and Gaibullayeva’s visits possible.

Other notable events included the 2011 Palij Lecture by Ukrainian-Canadian filmmaker, Yurij Luhovy, who screened his film on the 1931 Ukrainian famine, “Genocide Revealed,” fol-lowed with a lively discussion about the techniques and sourc-

es used in the film. The 2011 Backus Lecturer was Timothy Snyder (Yale) who discussed his new book, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin, with a standing room only audience.

Fall 2011 saw a number of additions and modifications to the CREES curriculum. In October the Kansas Regents ap-proved the four-year CREES MA/JD double degree pro-gram. The announcement of the program has already at-tracted a number of applications for fall 2012.

The core REES MA program has now shifted from the tradi-tional four-hour written examination to a portfolio presenta-tion, which will showcase students’ area-studies knowledge and foreign language skills much more fully. The first group of portfolio-tested MAs will bravely go through the experience in April. The portfolio presentations promise to be a learning experience for everyone. The outcome will be a much fuller and better synthesized experience for our MA students.

Despite the lack of Title VI outreach funds CREES started a number of new initiatives, including a new, biannual educa-tor-oriented newsletter, CREES Crossroads, and a Russian language club at Cordley Elementary School. MA student Sarah Bazih met with students throughout the semester and taught them Russian letters, games, and songs. It was a great success, and Sarah has been invited back to continue her outstanding work.

CREES welcomes three JFDP Scholars: Elvira Kushbekova (Kyrgyzstan, TESOL); Sotir Mali (Albania, Environmental Studies); Armen Mkrtchtyan (Armenia, Higher Education).

And now, mark your calendars for Spring 2012! This year’s Spring Festival takes place Friday, February 24, 4-8 pm at the Ecumenical Christian Ministries. Bring your favorite Slavic, Turkic, or Persian food and put on your dancing shoes! The Apollo-Soyuz Band will make a return appearance after last year’s blow-out success. We do promise to have shorter musical sets and a lower sound volume.

An all-area-studies K-12 workshop devoted to the world heritage sites is slated for Saturday, February 25. In April CREES will be hosting a Security Conference on Afghani-stan 2014 and Impacts on Global Security Identities. It will be held Wednesday, April 25. This one-day conference follows directly on the heels of a two-day conference on Environ-mental Security, spearheaded by REES geography professor, Shannon O’Lear. The Afghanistan conference will feature an array of nationally recognized speakers offering their insights on this timely topic, including Dr. Roger Kangas (Near-East South-Asia Center for Strategic Studies, National Defense University) and Dr. Marlene Laruelle (Institute for Europe-an, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES), Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University).

Please enjoy this issue of the CREES Newsletter and let us hear your news! Write to us at: [email protected]/

ku.creesEdith W. Clowes, Director, CREES

Edith ClowES

dirECtor

[email protected]

Mariya oMEliChEva

aSSoCiatE dirECtor

[email protected]

Bart rEdFord

aSSiStant dirECtor

[email protected]

Cathy SwEnSon-tuCkEr

aCCountant

[email protected]

adriEnnE landry

outrEaCh Coordinator

prograM aSSiStant

[email protected]

StudEnt aSSiStantS:BEn king

CriStin pErry

CREES Staff

2 CREES NEWSLETTER

“Landscape Painting to Music,” was created by a student in Kansas teacher Heather Olson’s 6th grade art class at Richardson Elementary in Lee’s Summit, Mo. Ms. Olson attended the KU International Studies Teacher Workshop: “Music, the Arts, and Migration” in Spring 2011. Her Teacher Scholar Lesson Plan is currently available on the CREES website.

Secu

rity

Conf

eren

ceIMPACTS ON GLOBAL SECURITYIDENTITIES

Afghanistan 2014

Wednesday25 April 2012

Malott RoomKansas UnionUniversity of Kansas

REGISTER AT:[email protected]

FOR MORE INFO GO TO:www.crees.ku.edu

Global Security Environment

NATO’s New Role

US Military Presence Abroad

Post-Afghan War Society

Perspectives and Prospects

Neighboring Countries and

New Dynamics

Stability Scenarios and

Critical Concerns

Diplomacy and Dialogue

SPONSORED BY: Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Center for East Asian Studies, Center of Latin American Studies, Center for Global and International Studies, Kan-sas African Studies Center, Foreign Military Studies Office, Ft. Leaven-worth. This Conference is partially supported by by an Army Research Offi ces grant and a US Dept. of Edu-cation Title VI grant.

Mark your Calendars!Wednesday, April 25, 2012Security Conference

“Afghanistan 2014 and Impacts on Global Security Identities” will be the featured topic of the Spring 2012 Security Conference, to be held in the Kansas Union on Wednesday, April 25 at 8:00 A.M.

With the reduction of the United States and international military presence in Afghanistan after 2014 the global security environment will change. The United States and its partners consider that Afghanistan will have adequate means of security, albeit with long-term as-sistance. However, the specific security perspectives and concerns of other regional and global actors have not been as well ar ticulated. The Spring 2012 Security Conference will seek to identify critical concerns in the post-Afghan-war environment. The conference will also address possible impediments to regional and global security.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: 20-minute papers are invited from experts in all world areas. Please submit a 250-word abstract by March 15, 2012, to Bart Redford at: [email protected]

We had a great response to the Fall 2011 Newsletter call-to-action. Thank you to all our supporters for doing your part to save CREES funding for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

We are grateful to those of you who sent letters to your congressmen, and we especially appreciate your donations.

In November 2011, CREES Director Edith Clowes, Assistant Direc-tor Bart Redford, and Outreach Coordinator Adrienne Landry met with Senators Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts, as well as with Kansas Representative Kevin Yoder. Due to the widespread negative reac-tion to Title VI funding cuts, all three congressman were aware of the issue, and all three had received letters from CREES supporters urg-ing reinstatement of Title VI funds. They agreed to maintain an open dialogue about educational funding for National Resource Centers in the leadup to the April 2012 appropriations committee vote which will determine the CREES budget for the following year.

Help us keep this issue front and center on their agenda. Please write to your congressman and remind them why CREES is important to you. From our critical language instruction and graduating funding to community education and outreach, keep your senators and represen-tatives informed about the role CREES plays in KU’s importance as a

top-notch educational institu-tion. Title VI programs are the portals through which Americans gain expert knowledge of critical lan-guages and cultures of the world, thereby becoming more pro-active in their interactions with other peoples. These programs are of high importance because they serve as the training ground for future specialists working for US Government, business, and NGOs.

Help support CREES by tak-ing action! Please write your Members of Congress now and ask them to restore fund-ing for these programs in the FY 2012 appropriations bill.

To sign the National Humani-ties Alliance Online Action petition, go to:

http://tinyurl.com/3ptr2ay.

On this website, the Alliance has set up a template mes-sage for you to customize, in-cluding sample bullet points. We strongly encourage you to personalize this message. Tell Congress, in your own words, why CREES along with all the other Title VI/Fulbright Hays programs are important to you.

Support CREES. Take action!

CREES STILL Needs YOUR Help!Support Title VI International Education Programs

SUPPORTCREESTAKEACTION Contact Info

kanSaS SEnatorS:

Jerry MoranRussell Senate Office BuildingRoom 354Washington, D.C. 20510Phone: (202) 224-6521Fax: (202) 228-6966www.moran.senate.gov/public/

Pat Roberts Hart Senate Office BuildingRoom 109Washington, D.C. 20510Phone: (202 224-4774Fax: (202) 224-3514www.roberts.senate.gov/public/

kanSaS rEprESEntativE:

Kevin Yoder, 3rd District214 Cannon HOBWashington, DC 20515Phone: (202) 225-2865Fax: (202) 225-2807

3SPRING 2012

(Left) CREES staff in the office of Senator Jerry Moran with Legisla-tive Assistant Brian Perkins. (Right) CREES staff in the office of Sena-tor Pat Roberts with National Security Policy Advisor Theda Owens, and Legislative Coordespondent Lauren Stockwell.

LAIRD ESSAY CONTEST

CREES is currently accepting submissions for the 18th Annual Roy and Betty Laird Essay Competition. The annual essay contest is named after the late Dr. Roy D. Laird, a longtime member of the Russian and East European Stud-ies (REES) and Political Science faculties, and Ms. Betty Laird, whose support makes this prize possible. Recipients of the award receive $750, a book, a certificate, and a place on the CREES Laird plaque, bearing the names of all previous winners of the competition, which is displayed outside the main CREES office.

The most recent recipients of this award are Department of Political Science PhD Candidate Cody Brown for his essay “Comrades in Crime: The Rise of the Balkan Mafia in the Former Yugoslavia” (2010). And Geography Depart-ment MA student, Austin Charron, for his essay “The Sibiriak Movement and the Roots of Modern Siberian Regionalism” (2011). Austin’s essay is available to read on the CREES website at: www.crees.ku.edu/academics/Laird_Essay.shtml.

Please submit your essays before 5:00 pm on 26 March 2012. All submissions should be typed, double-spaced, and in 12-point font. Please email your sub-missions to CREES Office Manager Cathy Swenson-Tucker at:[email protected].

I was born in the Free City of Danzig/Gdansk (FCD), but lived in the nearby Polish port city of Gdynia until June 1939. Gdynia grew from a fishing village into a major Baltic city between 1922 and 1939. It was called “the little America of Poland” because it was full of young, ambitious, businessmen, had the newest port machinery, and was a very modern city. Gdynia began as a supplement to Polish shipping/trade rights in the Free City of Danzig, also as a naval base. By 1938, 78% of Polish foreign trade went through these two port cities.

In 1939, my family lived in a new office/apt house; we also had a brand new, large Chevrolet, assembled in Poland, and a seagoing yacht. Not being of noble birth, or from a prosperous family, my father achieved all this by his own ability, education, and hard work, in which he was like most of his Gdynia peers.

Both of my parents spoke German, having learned it at school, and they also spoke English. My sister and I had a German nanny, so we spoke both Polish and German. The region we lived in, Polish Pomerania – Polish: Pomorze, called the Polish Corridor by the Germans because it separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany – was preponderantly Polish-speaking even before 1918. After it became part of Poland, German was the second language especially in general business, but English was necessary in the shipping business. My aunt Sophie, who married uncle Vladek, was born in the USA, but spoke excellent Polish. She was executive secretary to the boss of the Gdynia-America Line, which carried passengers to and from the U.S. and she often came to visit us. All in all, mine was a happy childhood, at least for the first 9 years, up to September 1939.

In 1939 I witnessed the German – Polish War in central Poland. In September of that year, when the Soviet Army entered Poland, my father was co-opted into the Polish government as a maritime trade expert and left with them for Romania. He proceeded to Paris, then London, where he worked as director of a Polish-owned shipping company. With his help and that of his friends, my mother, sister, and I managed to reach Paris in January 1940. We stayed until mid-June near Bordeaux and then fled via Spain and Portugal to England. We were reunited with Father in early September, during the London Blitz. 1

The experience of losing my home and country certainly shaped my aca-demic interests. I wanted to learn the history of Poland and Europe, espe-cially in the period leading up to WWII and during the war. After obtaining

my B.A. in Modern European History at the University of Liverpool (1952), I studied for one year at the Russian Institute, Columbia University, New York (1952-53), then at McGill, Montreal, (M.A. 1955), and Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (Ph.D. 1962). I taught Modern European history at the Uni-versities of Ottawa and Toronto (1960–1965) and was offered a post at KU for the fall of 1965. The Polish immigration quota would mean a long wait, so KU offered to state that my teaching here was in the U.S. national inter-est. The wait proved to be shorter, however, because I found that in 1965 the FCD still had a quota of 800 visas. The law changed soon thereafter.

I last visited Poland in fall 2004 when I was especially impressed by the dy-namic development of Warsaw, which now has many skyscrapers. The new architecture has radically changed Warsaw’s looks except for the “old city” and the Royal Castle, both restored under pressure from public opinion, first by communist and then post-communist governments.

It is clear that Poland is modernizing at a great pace. The standard of living has risen, although mainly for the rich and well to do. The economy has done well during the current economic crisis, but it faces many difficult problems, including those we also face in the USA: loss of manufacturing jobs to China; the deteriorating infrastructure; under-employment of young, educated people; the increasing number of senior citizens and the decreas-ing number of births. I am glad that the moderately conservative political party, “The Platform,” led by Premier Donald Tusk, won the majority of seats in the parliamentary elections in October 2011.

Much was published in the West in Polish on the Polish aspect of the Katyn crime, but very little appeared in English before the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia in 1989–1991.2 Archival research on the Soviet aspect of the Katyn massacre was made possible by the opening of Russian archives after the fall of the USSR in late 1991. The spadework was done by Russian scholar Professor Natalia S. Lebedeva, and on the Polish side by Prof. Wojciech Materski. Lebedeva and Materski cooperated in edit-

Professor Emerita Anna M. Cienciala is an expert on the History of International Affairs and Europe, with emphasis on Poland, in the period 1914-1945. A leading scholar and prolific writer, Professor Cienciala is a member of the Board of Directors of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. In 2000 she received the Polish Cross of Merit from the President of Poland. Among her many scholarly works, which span a 40 year career, Professor Cienciala is perhaps best known for her recent work on the book Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment, for which she received the 2007 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences.

As a Professor in KU’s History Department, Professor Cienciala was known for her ability to hold her students’ at-tention with her charactersitic dry wit and amusing anecdotes. Former student and 2003 REES MA graduate, Randy Masten remembers, “She was an extremely engaging lecturer who brought the past to life in her classroom. Her classes were always enjoyable and I remain fascinated by her vast knowledge of Eastern and Central European history, which she always shared in a captivating and memorable fashion. She is one of the great instructors of KU.”

Although she retired in 2002, Professor Cienciala continues to be an active member of CREES and a life-long educator. She often attends the CREES Brownbag series and is always willing to introduce guest lecturers, as

she did at last fall’s Backus Lecture with History Professor Timothy Snyder. In the following interview Professor Cienciala recounts her early years, how she became interested in Polish and Russian history, and how CREES has developed over the years.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ANNA M. CIENCIALA, KU PROFESSOR EMERITA OF HISTORYPOLISH HISTORY AND CREES AREA STUDIES

4 CREES NEWSLETTER

FOOTNOTES:1. This story, along with those of Jarek Piekalkiewicz and Louis Frydman, is in the KU Alumni Magazine, April 1995.2. The best-known work was by Janusz K. Zawodny, Death in the Forest, University of Notre Dame, IN,. Press, 1962 and reprints.3. Yale University Press, 2007; reprint with corrections 2009; see also http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/katyn/.

CREES: What was it like to be a child in Poland in the 1930s? How did the events during this time and in WWII shape your academic interests?

Anna M. Cienciala,KU Professor Emerita of History

CREES: How has Poland changed since 1989?

CREES: How did the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 facilitate your research on the Katyn massacre?

ing and publishing the documents. The Polish-language series came out in 4 volumes, 1995–2007, with Materski’ s long introductions to each volume. The Russian-language edition, with Lebedeva’s introductions, appeared in 2 vols. in 1997–2001 with far fewer documents for reasons that I won’t go into. The English-language volume, KATYN: A Crime Without Punishment, which I co-edited with Lebedeva and Materski, contains 122 translated documents. I wrote the introductions to each of the three parts, adding glossaries, maps, and air photography with legends by a specialist, as well as adding new material to the endnotes.3

The memory of German murders and massacres of Poles in World War II is still strong in Poland, but mainly among people over 40. Loss of life by ethnic Poles under the German occupation is estimated by some Polish historians at about 2.8 million out of an estimated 24 million in 1939. As is known, out of the estimated 3.5 million Polish Jews, very few survived German genocide, most of them as refugees or deportees in the USSR. Loss of Polish life under the Soviet administration of former eastern Poland, 1939–1941, also of ethnic Poles who were shot, and others who died of hunger and disease in the USSR, is estimated to be at least 500,000.

The word Katyn covers both the POWs murdered at three sites by the NKVD: Katyn near Smolensk, Tver, and Kharkov. It also covers several thousand Polish citizens, including Ukrainians, murdered at the same time, spring 1940, in NKVD jails, for a total of 21,857 (Soviet figure). The crime is still an open wound for many Poles because for a period of 47 years (1943–1990), both the Soviet and Polish communist governments stuck officially to a lie: that the crime was committed by the Nazis. Most of the families had no news of their missing relatives, and were discrimi-nated against by the communist governments.

The previous and current Polish governments have worked to improve relations with Russia. One terrible event has threatened to intervene. In April 2010, 96 prominent Poles, including President Lech Kaczynski, twin brother of Jaroslaw, and his wife, died in an airplane crash at the Smolensk airport. The major opposition party,“Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc” (PIS = Right and Justice), led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has used the Smo-lensk catastrophe as its key weapon against the government in 2010-11. PIS presents the incident as a second Katyn, accusing both the Polish and Russian governments of conspiracy to cause the crash, and charges the Polish government with inactivity over unresolved Katyn issues.

The Polish government attributes the crash to inadequate pilot training, as well as instrument failures both on the plane and at the Smolensk airport. It also shares the attitude of the Russian Memorial Association concerning Katyn, that is, it was both a “crime against humanity” and a “war crime.” PIS, however, sees it as genocide. Both demand that the Russian government give a legal classification of the crime; make acces-sible all the documents of the Soviet/Russian investigation; name all the Soviet participants in the crime; and rehabilitate (declare as innocent) every single victim. There is no demand for financial compensation.

It should be noted, however, that most Poles born after 1980 have little interest in history; they want to earn a good salary and live a comfort-able life. The Polish film director, Andrzej Wajda, stated that his major objective in making the film, Katyn (2007), was to remind these young people of a part of their country’s history.

I came to KU from Toronto, Canada, in fall of 1965, to teach what was then called Modern East European History. I helped build up the Polish

collections in the Watson and Spencer Libraries, when funds were read-ily available. We also had – and still have – an exchange of books with Polish libraries. In 1971, I led the second group of students from KU and other universities on our student exchange with the Adam Mickie-wicz University of Poznan. All of these activities were possible because Prof. Oswald P. Backus (1922-72) made good use of federal funds to establish the ancestor of CREES, the Center for Slavic and Soviet Stud-ies, increase library holdings, develop courses, and set up the student exchange. It was terminated in 1986 due to the Chernobyl disaster.

I developed HIST 342: One Third of the World: Communist Nations. The course was quite popular until it was cancelled after the collapse of the USSR. I must credit Prof. Em. Lynn Nelson with suggesting the course. It required me to do a lot of reading about all the communist countries! The largest enrollments came in 1980-81, due to frequent TV coverage of Poland.

I also developed the original HIST 557: Nationalism and Communism in East Central Europe, with emphasis on political history. Toward the end of my teaching career, I began putting the lecture notes online and developing my own textbook. I have been updating the texts and bibliography every year since my retirement (2002), as a public service (see http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist/557/index/htm). I gratefully ac-knowledge the technical help of film/media expert John Rinnert, of the former Instruction and Development (IDS) department, now working for Information Technology Services (ITS). My successor in the History Department, Prof. Nathan D. Wood, teaches the course with emphasis on cultural history.

5SPRING 2012

CREES: From a Polish perspective what will it take to move beyond the massacres of World War II?

Anna M. Cienciala, the future historian at age 4 with her sister Danuta, age 2, future mother and grandmother of Canadian citizens, in uncle Vladek’s American car, parked in front of the Maritime Navigation Building, Gdynia – port in background – Poland, August 23, 1933.

Check out Professor Cienciala’s

online course: nationaliSM and CoMMuniSM

in EaSt CEntral EuropE

http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist557/

CREES: You have had a great deal to do with developing Polish and Central European studies at KU. Can you tell us a little bit about this side of CREES history?

CREES: What was your role in developing the first Central European curriculum at KU?

6 CREES NEWSLETTER

FORMER PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE, VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO COMES TO KU

This fall, the Dole Institute of Politics presented the 2011 Dole Lead-ership Prize to former President of Ukraine and Orange Revolution leader, Viktor Yushchenko. The prize was presented to President Yush-chenko Monday, Sept. 19 at the Dole Institute.

“We are honored to give the Dole Leadership Prize to such a great cultural and revolutionary icon,” said Bill Lacy, director of the Dole Institute. “Yush-chenko and the Orange Revolution ignited a fire for the people of Ukraine, and his victory was a landmark for all of postcommunist Eastern Europe.”

The 2011 Dole Leadership Prize was part of the Dole Institute’s fall series, “The Fall of the Soviet Union: 20 Years Later.” The four-part series hosted expert KU faculty, an international blogger and a documentary on the Orange Revolution. The series also featured a supporting exhibit on elections in the former USSR, artifacts collected by Professor Erik Her-ron during his many visits to the region. Professor Herron played a large role in organizing these events, which were co-sponsored by CREES and the Center for Global & International Studies (CGIS).

Yushchenko served as Prime Minister of Ukraine from 1999-2001. During that time, he addressed economic and social problems by low-ering inflation, advancing privatization, and challenging corrupt practic-es. Although he was a popular prime minister, Yushchenko was forced out of office by higher ranking government officials.

Yushchenko responded by forming a broad-based democratic coalition called Our Ukraine, which was victorious in the parliamentary elections

in 2002. The newly organized opposition gave him a platform from which to mount a credible challenge to President Leonid Kuchma, who had been accused of overseeing an increasingly corrupt administration.

During his campaign for the presidency in 2004, Yushchenko became seriously ill from dioxin poisoning in an apparent assassination attempt; his face was left permanently disfigured. Mass protests, which became known as the Orange Revolution, followed a runoff round in which Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych had been declared the winner of fraudulent elections. Thousands of Ukrainian citizens, inspired by Yush-chenko’s candidacy and their desire for democracy, occupied the center of the capital city for weeks. The Supreme Court invalidated the falsi-fied result and ordered a second runoff to be held in December 2004. Yushchenko was officially confirmed as the winner the following month.

Yushchenko’s victory was proof that a civic movement, committed op-position politicians, and a resolute, rising middle class had come together to stop the ruling elite from rigging an election and stealing Ukraine’s presidency. The Orange Revolution was a high point in the history of Eastern Europe since the fall of communism and inspired pro-democracy movements all over the world.

The Dole Leadership Prize is awarded annually to an individual or group whose public service leadership inspires others. The award comes with a $25,000 prize. Typically, the Leadership Prize is awarded during a pub-lic event in the fall. Former Dole Leadership Prize recipients include George H.W. Bush, Lech Walesa and John Lewis.

(Left) REES Professor Alex Tsiovkh translates for President Yushchenko during the Dole Institute Luncheon for CREES students and Dole Fellows. (Top Right) President Yushchenko and wife, Kateryna, chat with Public Administration graduate student, Yaroslav Stetsenko. (Bottom Right) From left to right: REES MA students Nathan Pickett and Amy Murphy, Yaroslav Stetsenko with fellow KU student, and President Viktor Yushchenko with his wife, Kateryna.

7SPRING 2012

K-16 Teacher WorkshopFebruary 25, 2012

Brought to you by KU International Area Studies Centers: Center for East Asian Studies

Center for Global and International Studies

Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies

Center of Latin American Studies

Kansas African Studies Center

Kansas Consortium for Teaching About Asia

Lied Center of Kansas

Join KU International Area Studies Centers at the Lied Center for a day of education, activities, and curriculum development featuring World Heritage Sites from around the world. Hear lectures on architectural identity, witness a Taiko Drum performance, and take part in an Indian folk art workshop.

This opportunity is FREE for educators. Lunch will be provided by Kansas Consortium for Teaching about Asia. Professional Development Credits available.

To register, contact Randi Hacker, CEAS Outreach Coordinator: [email protected]

8:45 AM - 3:00 PM

THROUGH TIME

CREES

The Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies invites you to celebrate the spring holidays!

Join CREES faculty, staff, family and friends as we gather for an evening of good food and live music. Bring your favorite Slavic, Turkish or Persian dish to share!

WHEN:Friday, 24 February 20124:00-8:00 PM

RSVP to CREES at:[email protected]

WHERE: Ecumenical Christian Ministries 1204 Oread Avenue

SpringFestival

Featuring music from Apollo Soyuz

Professor Yaroslava Tsiovkh (Slavic Languages and Literatures) created an online collection of materials for intermediate study of Ukrainian, with support from a CREES curriculum development grant. Launched a little over a year ago, the website is now being distributed to Universities across the United States and other countries which have similar Ukrainian programs.

Activities include cultural readings with mouse-over glosses, audio recordings, embedded video, authentic materials from Ukrainian websites, and self-graded comprehension checks. The collection consists of six thematic units and a total of twenty-one individual ac-tivities, with topics ranging from the folktale Kolobok to contemporary pop music superstar Ruslana and gender equality in Ukraine.

The materials on the site are free to the public as a multimedia supplement that can be integrated into any existing program. Over the past year the materials for the website almost doubled with interesting issues like “Orange Revolution, “Dual Citizenship in Ukraine, and “Lviv.”

To check out Professor Tsiovkh’s online collection of materials, go to:

www.ukrainian.ku.edu

8 CREES NEWSLETTER

One of the best things about working at a University is seeing the many different paths our students take in their professional adventures. Re-cently we heard from REES alums Jeb Adams and Kristina Noveska Adams about their life and work in Macedonia. Both Jeb and Kristina received MAs in REES from KU in 2004. After graduation, Jeb began a career in international development in Washington D.C., but after four years of city life, Jeb and Kristina decided to move to Kicevo, Macedonia to open Adams Education, an English language school. Since then their work in Macedonia has taken off to include a local language newspaper, minority education projects, and a local NGO.

Professor Marc L. Greenberg, former Chair of the KU Slavic Depart-ment notes “Jeb and Kristina Adams’ pioneering work in providing early education to children in Macedonia, particularly their special emphasis on advancing the intellectual development of minority and underprivileged children, reflects the best of American values. The KU community can be justly proud that they are graduates of its REES and SLL programs.”

The following article is written by Jeb Adams about his and Kristina’s life and work in Macedonia. Please feel free to contact Jeb at: [email protected].

In 2008 my wife Kristina and I decided to move to Kristina’s hometown of Kicevo, Macedonia. The decision came after having lived a disillu-sioned four years in Washington D.C.

My dreams of breaking into the world of in-ternational development had come true, but I did not like what I found once I arrived, nor did I like how the city sucked precious time from my family life. It was mutually decided that we needed to live in a small, more fam-ily-friendly environment that would simultaneously allow us to work in development and have plenty of time for our na-scent family. We had officially decided on ‘family and peace of mind over career and mon-ey.’ Almost four years later we are continuing to live out our dream in a small city of 30,000 people in western Macedonia.

Having only lived in Kicevo for a year as a Peace Corps volun-teer in 2001, I was not sure if we would succeed in guaran-teeing ourselves a living wage. We spent all our savings mak-ing the move. But it was a risk I was willing to take in order to free myself from the num-ber seven metro bus where I had spent an estimated 2000 hours of my life staring at a blackberry.

In order to hit the ground running we set up a small English language school that provid-ed private after-school English instruction to school-age children and adults. Our goal was to couple our love for languages with our de-sire to help build the English language capacity of the local people.

Macedonia is a small country with a popula-tion of only two million people (roughly the size of Vermont). With its economy depen-dent on imports and international support, it is a necessity for those seeking the few de-

cent paying jobs available in the country to speak English in order to compete. A majority of children from the capital city of Skopje are fluent in English by the time they finish high school, and while Kicevo is considered to be a backward provincial town, we felt that we could make a positive impact.

Kristina grew up in Kicevo and knew the needs of the target groups. I grew up in a small town in northern Wyoming with one bar, one gro-

cery store, and one bank. The slower speed at which Kicevo ran was the tempo I needed to readjust my inner clock. Bye-bye #7 bus, hello feet.

In September 2008 Kristina and I began the school year with close to 70 students, which was the break-even number we needed in or-der to pay rent and utilities and our monthly salaries of two hundred dollars apiece. Over the past four years the school, Adams Educa-tion, has grown to 270 students with a total of six employees (including Kristina and me).

As Adams Education prepares to enter its fourth school year, it is also entering its fourth year of implementing the Roma Capacity Building Program, which was initially instigated by John Wildgrude (of Washington D.C.) who sponsored the studies of the program’s first three Roma students (who incidentally have just entered high school this fall). Ten Roma students were sponsored during the 2009–2010 school year, and 2010–2011 exceeded

all expectations by delivering 24 total scholarships. This year has once again surpassed last year by providing 28 scholarships to Roma youth in the community.

These scholarships help break down ethnic division by provid-ing the Roma children with rele-vant skills to become productive members of society. Assuming these children manage to stay in school and get good grades, they will also have the opportunity to make a difference in their com-munity.

The local Roma population is in dire need of young leaders who understand English and can work in groups to solve problems. His-torically the Roma population has not received much formal education. Only recently, the Macedonian government made it mandatory for all Roma chil-dren to attend school (K–12).

This requirement has met with mixed reviews and yielded mixed results.

Many Roma families are reluctant to send their children to school as they are needed at home and/or needed to work. The girls are also pres-sured to marry at a young age, and few finish high school. Other ethnic groups (i.e., Macedonian and Albanian) are fond of saying that the Roma kids are disruptive at school and would rather be out running in the streets. This type of discrimina-tory comment clearly shows the uphill battle the Roma population has as an ethnic minority.

ADAMS EDUCATION IN KICEVO, MACEDONIA

MacedoniaKicevo

Skopje

Albania

Bulgaria

SerbiaKosovo

Montenegro

Greece

9SPRING 2012CREES NEWSLETTER

The majority of classes at Adams Education are ethnically mixed. In general, the mixing of the classes has yielded mixed results. The younger groups have been more accepting and able to work together in an environment relatively free of hostility. The older kids (7–9th grade), how-ever, have shown some resistance to working in ethnically mixed classrooms. Despite some pushback from a few kids and parents alike, we are confident that the students are gaining an appreciation for the “other” despite it being uncomfortable at times.

Kristina and I are determined to continue to pro-vide a mutually respectful environment where all the students feel they are on equal ground. The Roma program has been fundamental in our mis-sion to create this compassionate shared space. The Roma youth have demonstrated strong commitment to their studies and have shown the Macedonian, Albanian and Turkish students that they are just as competent and ambitious as anyone else. It is our future goal to expand this program to include other underprivileged groups and to eventually find American families willing to sponsor studies for a school semester in the U.S.

In March 2010, in order to provide much-need-ed information, Adams Education started a lo-cal bilingual newspaper. Until this point, no local information source existed in the region. The populace received its local news by word of mouth through friends, family, and co-workers. Our staff determined that rumor was one of the main causes for mass misinformation and unyielding stereotypes held by all ethnic and mi-nority groups. Each group received information from uninformed sources (like-minded people), which subsequently perpetuated the spread of miscommunication and mistrust.

In an effort to provide an alternative informa-tion source and a local stage that would aid in the social integration process we started pub-lishing the Kicevo Mirror. The Kicevo Mirror is the first bilingual newspaper in the region; it is one

of two in the entire country. In its short life the newspaper has made great strides to pro-vide local news that represents all ethnic and minority groups, even those who have been sidelined in the decentralization process.

The key achievement of this project has been the development of a public stage, in the form of a free bilingual local newspaper, that allows people to take part in the develop-ment of a more inclusive and tolerant society in the Kicevo, Macedonia region.

Since 2010, the Kicevo Mirror has proven to be a unifying medium where, for the first time in local history, citizens can read about its lead-ers, teachers, non-governmental innovators, minorities, public servants, and health workers (to name a few), all of whom help provide a sense of civic duty among the populace.

The newspaper also provides inspiration to local youth and other community-minded developers who had never received recog-nition for their acts of progressive-minded social inclusion. A local NGO, Wake Up and Play, received accolades from the newspaper for its work on promoting multi-ethnic youth dialogue and cooperation, inspiring others to create like-minded projects.

Additionally, the newspaper has provided a home for stories that otherwise would have gone untold. Ethnic minorities such as the lo-cal Roma population and its burgeoning civic-minded leadership have been key figures in many news stories and have begun to use the newspaper as a medium for showcasing their activities. “Albanian Woman,” an NGO aimed at emancipating local Albanian women, has also found its voice in the newspaper. Here, too, The Red Cross informs people of blood drives, and the local society for the blind and sight-impaired promotes its local meetings and activities. The impact the newspaper has had on the community has been profound and has begun to lay the groundwork for the

development of a shared identity in an other-wise segregated community.

Based on our success in the media sector, the team at Adams Education has most recently decided to develop a non-governmental organization to house the Kicevo Mirror, the Roma Capacity Building Project, and addi-tional projects we may want to implement in the future. The name of the NGO is “Inspire.” Inspire’s vision is that all people in the Kicevo region will be able to live in an inclusive com-munity based on a shared sense of local pride and sense of belonging. It is the NGO’s job to ‘inspire’ the community to help make this vision a reality. Kicevo is a multi-ethnic com-munity marred by exclusionist practices that have become an engrained part of the local fabric. People find themselves divided along ethnic, gender, religious, and economic lines. The mission of our NGO is to begin creat-ing a shared local identity and a sense of re-sponsibility toward a community formed of citizens of different ethnicities.

In addition to individuals being asked to take part in projects aimed at creating an inclusive society, our NGO will incorporate local busi-nesses and enterprises in the development process. It is of great importance that not only local citizens regard the city and surrounding areas as a public source of pride, but it is also essential that private entities begin taking re-sponsibility for the welfare of the community in which they do business and prosper.

Together, individuals and local private entities will develop and implement sustainable proj-ects focused on the collective welfare of the community thereby ensuring a safe, prosper-ous, inclusive society for future generations.

(Left) Kristina Noveska Adams and Jeb Adams with students. (Right) Adams Education instructor, Ana Arsovska, with local Roma students.

Inspired by Inspire? Want to get involved? Learn how at:

http://www.adams-education.com/

10 CREES NEWSLETTER

2011 Backus Memorial Lecture.

Professor Timothy Snyder, “Blood-

lands: Between Hitler and Stalin.”

On 22 September 2011, it was standing room only as Yale University’s Professor Timothy Snyder lectured on his groundbreaking book, Bloodlands: Between Hitler and Stalin. Profes-sor Snyder’s book chronicles the enormous human toll taken in today’s Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and the eastern Baltics between 1933 and 1944. The region, which Snyder refers to

CREES Outreach Coordinator Adrienne Landry at the Lawrence Festival of Cultures, Sept. 2011.

Summer ‘11 FLAS receipients:

Holly Glasgow, Austin Charron, and

Natalie Mauser-Carter.

CREES Asst. Director Bart Redford

awarded Unclassified Senate Employee

of the Month, Sept. 2011.Slavic Department Chair, Prof. Marc

Greenberg introducing the Russian

Jayhawk, Oct. 2011.

“Identity & Community” Conference Key Note Speaker, Ayse Zarakol, Aug. 25, 2011.

Fall Semester Snapshots

International Studies Conference.

“Identity & Community After the

Cold War Era.” Aug. 25-27, 2011.

Public lecture. Alex Grigorev,

“Flashpoint Kosovo.”

Professor Snyder signing books after the lecture.

as the bloodlands, suffered from the onslaught of both the Soviet and Nazi regimes, with its citizens

starved, shot or gassed.

The Backus lecture is dedicated to the mem-ory of Professor Oswald P. Backus III (1921-72), known as one of the early driving forces behind the development of KU as a national center for the study of Russia and Eastern Eu-rope. This fund is made available through a generous gift from an anonymous donor.

On 24 October 2011, Alex Grigorev, president and founder of the Council for Inclusive Gover-nance, presented for this year’s Jerkovich Lecture. Mr. Grigorev shared his personal observations and experiences working with ethnic minority politicians and community leaders in Kosovo before and since the 1999 war. Emphasizing the case of ethnic Serbs as they reconstruct identity and political community in Kosovo’s post-con-flict environment, Mr. Grigorev drew compari-sons with other minority groups in the Balkans.

11SPRING 2012

SPECIAL

FILM VIEWINGFREE & OPEN

TO THE PUBLIC

MEET THE

DIRECTOR

Q&A

FOLLOWING THE

FILM

THURSDAY

AUGUST 25

7:00 PM

KANSAS UNION

WOODRUFF

AUDITORIUM

BROUGHT TO YOU

BY:CENTER FOR RUSSIAN, EAST

EUROPEAN, AND EURASIAN

STUDIES

ERMAL GARINGER ACADEMIC

RESOURCE CENTER

HALL CENTER

FOR THE HUMANITIES

SLAVIC LANGUAGES

AND LITERATURES

FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES

On 25 August 2011, CREES hosted a spe-cial film viewing of the documentary, My Perestroika. Director Robin Hessman was on hand to intro-duce the film and an-swer questions fol-lowing the screening.

An intimate epic about the extraordinary lives of the last Soviet generation, My Per-estroika tells the stories of five Moscow schoolmates who were brought up behind the Iron Curtain, witnessed the joy and con-fusion of glasnost, and entered adulthood as the world changed around them.

My Perestroika premiered at the 2010 Sun-dance Film Festival, and has since screened at some of the world’s top documentary fes-tivals, including Full Frame, where it won the Filmmaker Award, Silverdocs, where it won the Special Jury Award, and the prestigious New Directors/New Films film festival.

T h i s e v e n t was co-s p o n -sored by the Ermal Garinger Academic Re-source Center (EGARC), Hall Center for the Humanities, Department of Slavic Lan-guages and Literatures, and Department of Film and Media Studies.

This year’s Palij Lec-ture featured a spe-cial film viewing of Genocide Revealed, a feature documen-tary by award-win-ning filmmaker, Yurij Luhovy. Genocide Re-vealed examines the Soviet government’s

efforts to destroy Ukraine as an indepen-dent nation. The film focuses on the 1932-33 famine in Soviet Ukraine and the accompa-nying decimation of the national elite. Based on testimonials of survivors, commentaries

by historians, rare stock shots of the period, and declassified Soviet archival documents, the documentary captures the broad scope of Stalin’s genocidal policies against the Ukrainian people.

UNIVERSITY OF KANSASCENTER FOR RUSSIAN, EAST EUROPEAN & EURASIAN STUDIES

Ukrainian Studies2011 Palij Lecture Series

Presents

Tuesday, October 4th7:00 pmKansas UnionAlderson Auditorium www.crees.ku.edu

Fall Semester SnapshotsCREES Fall Mixer

Sept. 9, 2011

On 27 October 2011, KU Geography Professor Shannon O’Lear presented her book, Environmental Politics: Scale and Power, at a CREES hosted booktalk in the Kansas Union’s Jayhawk Inc. Bookstore. Professor O’Lear’s book consid-ers issues of climate change, energy, food security, toxins, waste, and resource conflict to explore how political, eco-nomic, ideological and military power have contributed to present day environmental issues and the formation of dominant narratives communities use to discuss them.

Book Talk. Shannon O’Lear, Environmental Politics: Scale and Power.

CREES Holiday PartyDec. 6, 2011

BROWNBAG LECTURE SERIES

FALL 2011: HIGHLIGHTS

On 30 August 2011, Slavisa Rakovic outlined the development of minority rights in post-Milosevic Serbia. Drawing from his own personal experiences and observations, Dr. Rakovic discussed the changes that occurred in his community of Novi Pazar in Southern Serbia during and after the wars in former Yugoslavia. According to Dr. Ra-kovic, Novi Pazar became a fragmented and divided community with an identity crisis that embodies the ruptures that the wars left in the region.

Slavisa Rakovic studied Political Science and Arabic Studies at Belgrade University, and human rights at Sarajevo and Bologna University. He recently received a PhD in Social Anthropology at Ljubljana Graduate School for the Humanities. His thesis was on “The Structure of Socio-Political Representation of Europe Islam Relationship.”

DEMOCRACY, TEN YEARS LATER: POLITICS AND IDENTITY OF MINORITIES IN SERBIA

In Summer 2011, KU Political Science Professor and CREES Associate Director, Mariya Omelicheva, received an IREX short-travel grant to spend one month crary-ing out research in Kazkhstan and Kyrgyzstan. On 4 October 2011 she described her fieldwork and showed examples of surveys conducted in both countries. Dur-ing the brownbag, Professor Omelicheva explained her research methodologies and offered analysis on her preliminary results. Professor Omelicheva’s findings will be featured in her new project in which she applies framing perspective to democracy promotion efforts in Central Asia. Her recent book, titled Counterterrorism Policies in Central Asia (Routeledge 2011) recently won the 2011 Outstanding Academic Titles of the Year Award by Choice Reviews online.

DEMOCRATIZATION, COMPARING THE MODELS OF DEMOCRACY PROMOTED BY THE EU, US, AND

CENTRAL ASIAN STATES

FMSO FELLOWSHIP RESEARCH RESULTS: POST WAR REVERBERATION IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA,

A STUDY OF CHANGING DYNAMICS AMONG DEVOUT AND/OR CULTURAL MUSLIMS

12 CREES NEWSLETTER

Much of the literature on European NGOs focuses on their appearance in the 18th and 19th centuries and on the factors that facilitated or inhibited their growth. How-ever, scholars have given much less attention to the demise of civil associations and to the factors that made their existence difficult or impossible. Visiting History Professor Joseph Bradley’s 18 October 2011 talk examined the fate of independent science societies in Russia under conditions of war and revolution in the years 1917 to 1921. The talk focused on a handful of prominent, so-called “bourgeois” associations – the Free Economic Society, the Moscow Agricultural Society, the Russian Geographical Society, the Society of Friends of Natural History, the Russian Technical Society, and the Pirogov Society of Russian Physicians. After a brief “springtime” following the overthrow of the monarchy in February 1917, these associations, most of whose

leaders were hostile to the October Revolution, struggled to cope politically with the Bolshevik regime and materially with the dislocations and deprivations of the civil war. Despite hardships, these associations tried to cooperate with the Bolshevik regime and to recalibrate their missions in order to advance science and education, to continue patriotic service to a beleaguered Russia, and simply to survive.

THE INK IS FREEZING: RUSSIAN SCIENCE SOCIETIES AND THE BOLSHEVIK REGIME, 1917-1921

On 8 November 2011, Raymond Finch, Foreign Military Studies Office, lectured on the current state of Russia-NATO relations. In December 2011, it will have been a full twenty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Much has changed in the world since then, particularly in the realm of geo-politics. The old Soviet nemesis has been largely replaced by terrorism, militant Islam, and perhaps an assertive China. Given these new threats, many have presumed that the old Cold War rivalry between NATO and Russia would have been resolved. This, however, is a mistaken impression.

During his presentation, Raymond Finch outlined the many reasons the NATO-Russian relationship remains fraught with mistrust and tension. His presentation also explored some of the causes of this strain, and in particular, the role that Russia’s current Repre-sentative to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, has played in prolonging this distrust.

For over 30 years, the CREES Brownbag Lec-ture Series has been an informal forum for KU and the surrounding community to discuss general topics related to Russia, Eastern Eu-rope and Eurasia.

Rather than address specific themes, each se-mester the lectures cover a variety of topics and areas, and are presented by academics, students, and professionals – anyone with an interesting specialty to share. From the arts and literature to political science and current events, the CREES Brownbag Lecture Series continues to educate and inform all those in-

terested in this diverse and dynamic area of the world.

CREES brownbags are free and open to the public. They are held every Tuesday at Noon in 318 Bailey Hall. If you have a topic you would like to discuss or are interested in pre-senting, please contact:

Bart RedfordCREES Assistant Director [email protected]

CreeS BrownBag LeCture SerieS

13SPRING 2012

TSAR DMITRY AND RUSSIA-NATO RELATIONS

On 15 November 2011, Natalia Pushkareva lectured on the past two hundred years of the development of feminism in Russia. Her discussion was based on her recent book, Women in Russian History: From the Tenth to the Twentieth Century, which was edited and translated by KU History Professor, Eve Levin.

Professor Pushkareva is the head of the Women & Gender Studies Department at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences. She is a widely published scholar and is well known for her research at the academy, as well as being President of the Russian Association for Research in Women’s History.

FEMINISM IN RUSSIA: TWO CENTURIES OF HISTORY

On 29 November 2011, CREES MA student Sandra King-Savic presented her work for the Fall 2011 CREES-FMSO Research Assistantship. Her research focuses on the triangular relationship between the EU, Turkey, and Bosnia and evaluates the differ-ing influences on Bosnia, in general, and in the Southern Serbia region of Sandzak, in particular. As a FMSO-CREES Research Assistant, she is analyzing whether or not EU membership is having a strong enough affect to diminish radical movements in the Balkans. In her primary resources Sandra is seeking answers to the nature of religious influences from Islamic countries, for example, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, in the Sandzak region. Sandra was awarded a second FMSO-CREES Research Assistantship for Spring 2012 and plans to continue her research in Serbia during Summer 2012. You can read Sandra’s research blog at: http://crees-fmso.blogspot.com/

FMSO FELLOWSHIP RESEARCH RESULTS: POST WAR REVERBERATION IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA,

A STUDY OF CHANGING DYNAMICS AMONG DEVOUT AND/OR CULTURAL MUSLIMS

Miss a lecture? Watch it at your convenience online!

Our Brownbag and special guest lectures are available on the CREES website:

www.crees.ku.edu/videos

Raymond Finch with CREES Director Edith Clowes and Spring 2011 FMSO-CREES Research Assis-tants Ruoxi Du and Nathan Picket.

The FMSO-CREES Research Assistantship is a cooperative project of the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) and CREES. REES students in either Humanities or Social Sciences who have advanced level reading skills in their target language, a security-related research question, and are interested in gaining a better understanding of how the U.S. Military analyzes the Eurasian security en-vironment, are encouraged to apply. For more information, please send an email to: [email protected]

14 CREES NEWSLETTER

CREES OUTREACHCORDLEY ELEMENTARY RUSSIAN LANGUAGE CLUB

I really didn’t know what to expect when I agreed to lead a Russian language culture club at Cordley Elementary School this fall, but I confess I agreed with some trepidation. For starters, I had never really worked with kids before. Every Wednesday for 9 weeks I had an hour and fifteen minutes to teach kids about the CREES area of the world – kids who wanted to do anything other than sit for more learning after an already full day of school. But I agreed anyway because imparting knowledge about an area of the world which I hold so dear is not only exciting, but also important in that it provides kids an early acquaintance with a new culture.

My favorite moment in all the 9 weeks occurred on the very last day when I showed the students various Russian-language cartoons, including the Russian variant of Winnie the Pooh called Vinni Pukh. The reactions were not what I was expecting; Vinni Pukh was ac-cused of being “weird and funny looking.” Suddenly, out of the blue, one girl announced to the class, “Oh, I see … he’s not so weird, just different!”

And this was the perfect ending to a Russian language and culture club, where my ef-forts to ingrain any kind of vocabulary acquisition have probably failed – except for the ever memorable words brat (brother) and poop (bellybutton) – but where students in Lawrence were exposed to a new culture that is decidedly a little different. You see, vocabulary was not the point. Introducing kids (ranging from 5 to 10 years old) to a new culture by means of language was just one aspect of the club. Activities like making Matryoshka dolls and Russian flags, as well as singing songs, proved not only to be more popular, but more valuable. I found the kinetic activities (which also helped to work off a bit of the extra energy) engaged the students to ask questions and make connections (“The Russian flag has the same colors as ours!”). Overall, the experience was enlight-ening not only to the students (at least I hope), but also to me—after the first shaky sessions, I discovered I really enjoy working with children, and that they can be some of the more interesting and eager culture-enthusiasts.

Cordley’s language and culture club, which also includes sessions in Chinese and Span-ish, is organized by REES and Economics Professor Dietrich Earnhart, CREES Outreach Coordinator Adrienne Landry, and other Cordley parents.

By Sarah Bazih, REES MA 2012

(Top Right) REES MA student, Sarah Bazih, leads Cordley Elementary Students in a lesson about colors. (Bottom Right) Students making Russian flags using their newly learned Russian vocabulary for colors: красный! синий! и белый!

The first edition of CREES Crossroads was launched with great success to over 250 educators and members of the CREES community. CREES Crossroads is a new bi-annual webzine featuring entertain-ing and informative articles about the CREES area of study, along with useful lesson plans, curriculum development, and updates on upcoming KU CREES K-12 events.

The first edition included a brief history of the Cyrillic alphabet with an accompanying activity that teaches the Russian variant of the Cyrillic alphabet and uses US geography as a means of exercising new language skills. In the Eastern Europe section of the webzine, we discuss “turbo-folk,” a genre of music in Southeast Europe. The accompanying lesson plan challenges middle and high schoolers to think critically about what kind of music they listen to and what it represents about their society. Lastly, the first edition ties Europe and Asia together as it delves into the mystery behind the authorship of Eurasia’s classic book, Ali and Nino. A well-known romance novel, Ali and Nino is a unique alternative for educators seeking new literature options for their classroom.

Make sure and go to the CREES website and subscribe if you haven’t already! A second edition is already in the works for Spring 2012. CREES Crossroads is available on the CREES website at:

http://www.crees.ku.edu/outreach/crossroads.shtml

CREES CROSSROADS: FIRST EDITION

The CREES Outreach office is bravely launching into the modern world with our first QR code. Scan the code with your smart phone to read the first edition of CREES Crossroads on-the-go!

HIGHLIGHTS FALL 2011

FACULTY & STAFF NEWSMaria Carlson (Slavic Languages and Literatures) will spend the Spring 2012 semester on research leave at the Hall Center for the Humanities. She will spend this time writing her book on the undead.

In late September, Edith W. Clowes (CREES Director, SLL) was interviewed by Radio Svoboda (“Radio Liberty,” Prague/Moscow) about her new book, Rus-sia on the Edge: Imagined Geographies and Post-Soviet Identity. Read the full article in Russian at: http://www.svobodanews.ru/content/article/24338466.html

On August 13 at the annual meeting of the Society for Business Ethnics, Richard De George (University Distinguished Professor, Philosophy) received the Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Scholarship. He had received the Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Service in 2009. He is the first one to receive both awards. In 2010 he received the Chancellor’s Lifetime teaching Award in Teaching, giving him lifetime awards in the three areas on which faculty are judged—teaching, research and service.

Stephen Dickey (Slavic Languages and Literatures) has been invited to spend a semester at the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo, Norway. He is part of a grant to participate as a fellow in a research group examining “Time is Space: Unconscious Models and Conscious Acts,” January through June 2012. Professor Dickey was a keynote speaker at the conference “Verbal Aspect: Grammatical Meaning and Context,” which was the Third Conference of the International Commission on Aspectology of the International Committee of Slavists, at the University of Padua, Italy, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4.

Arienne Dwyer (Anthropology) is teaming up with Professor W. Ma from the Qinghai Nationalities University in China to develop ways to restore dying languages and train linguists how to continue that work. They have developed a website called the Interactive Inner Asia Project. The website will docu-ment the language of Salar, an endangered language spoken in a region of Western China, along with four other languages which are spoken in a western region that was settled by Mongols, Turks, Tibetans and Chinese in the 13th century. Professor Dwyer has also received a second grant to create an online dictionary for each language. In summer 2012, she will co-conduct a series of training programs designed for linguists working to preserve languages in risk of dying out because of mixing cultures and speakers relocating. The two grants are jointly supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For November 2011, Marc L. Greenberg (Chair, Dept. of Slavic Languages & Literatures) received a Collaborative Research Award from the Moravian-Silesian Region, Czech Republic, gave visiting lectures and did collaborative research at the Silesian University in Opava. Professor Greenberg published the paper “A Balkanism in Central Europe? Realis vs. irrealis in subordinate clauses in Prekmurje Slovene” in a special volume of Bibliotheca Slavica Savariensis (Szombathely, Hungary), honoring the 125 anniversary of the birth of the Slovene-Hungarian linguist Avgust Pavel. The volume and anniversary were celebrated with festivities in Szombathely, Hungary, and Cankova, Slovenia, Oct. 7-8.

During the fall, Gerald Mikkelson (CREES) was a visiting scholar at the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Russian Literature (Пушкинский Дом) in St. Petersburg. He gathered materials and consulted with Russian colleagues for scholarly papers titled “Pushkin’s Poem ‘The Prophet’: Whose Word Ignites the Hearts of Men?”, which he will deliver this spring at the Midwest Slavic Conference at Ohio State University, and “Russia’s Great Schism (Раскол) and Old Believers in Contemporary Russian Literature.” He gave lectures on poetic translation, Old Believers in Russian literature, and Russian writers Aleksandr Pushkin, Varlam Shalamov, Fyodor Abramov, and Viktor Astafiev at Gorno-Altaisk University in the Altai Republic, Urals State University in Ekaterinburg, the Leo Tolstoy Library, and the Anglia Bookstore in St. Petersburg.

Shannon O’Lear (Geography) kicked off the fall semester at the International Geographical Union’s Political Geography Commission meeting in Portorož, Slovenia. She presented her work on borders in the South Caucasus, the topic of her paper which has just been published in Defense and Security Analysis. She was also invited to give a talk at the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Geography, Planning, and International Development Stud-ies. Prof. O’Lear is the chair of the planning committee for a conference, “Environmental Security: Academic and Military Perspectives”, which will be held at KU in April 2012. In that project, she is working closely with KU’s Office of Professional Military Graduate Education, the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, and with faculty colleagues at KU. Prof. O’Lear continues to collaborate with the Foreign Military Studies Office at Ft. Leavenworth on a project focused on border security, and she has written an invited chapter on critical geopolitics of the environment for Companion to Critical Geopolitics, forthcoming from Sage Publications.

Counterterrorism Policies in Central Asia, a new book by Mariya Omelicheva (CREES Associate Director, Political Science), has won the Outstanding Aca-demic Titles of the Year Award by Choice Reviews online.

Marta Pirnat-Greenberg (Slavic Languages and Literatures) published a new, second edition of Colloquial Slovene: The Complete Course for Beginners (Ox-ford: Routledge), in October 2011. She will give a talk on her new book during the Spring 2012 semester at the Jayhawk Bookstore in the Kansas Union.

Norman Saul (Professor Emeritus, History) was on a panel in September at the Dole Center for the opening session of a series on the “Collapse of the Soviet Union: Twenty Years After.” In October he was the only non-Russian to attend a conference in Volgograd on “Russia and the American Civil War.” His paper in the plenary session at Volgograd State University was on “Saving the Union: the Roles of Diplomats Eduard Stoeckl (Russia/Washington) and Cassius Marcellus Clay (US/St. Petersburg).” He thoroughly enjoyed the visit: the restoration of the Hutterite Sarepta colony founded in 1765; the Mamaev Kurgan memorial to the Battle of Stalingrad; the museum-panorama of the battle; and very pleasant walks along the river and around the city. In November, he presented a paper on Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood and Russian-American Cultural Relations at the ASEEES national conference in Washington.

Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova (Slavic Languages & Literatures) received a research fellowship for Summer 2012 under the auspices of the Imre Kertesz Collegium at the University of Jena, Germany, which she will use to complete her book on the experience of communism in Central Europe. Bart Redford (Assistant Director, CREES) was awarded Unclassified Employee of the Month for September. Bart was recognized for his work in pro-gramming and logistics for 80-plus CREES events per year. Among his many accomplishments as the CREES Assistant Director, Bart applied and was awarded two Open World grants in the past year.

CREES Website Manager, Justin Smith, graduated in December 2011 with a BS in Chemistry and a minor in German. Justin plans to take some time off before starting graduate school in 2013. CREES welcomed a new Student Assistant this Fall: Cristin Perry is a Junior majoring in Slavic Languages and Literatures.

15FALL 2011

STUDENT NEWSIn December 2011, Seth Kozak successfully completed his REES MA in 18 months. He and his wife are being posted to Bucharest, Romania. Mike Fowler graduated as a REES Co-BA. Congratulations to both our graduates!!!

Chris Krampe was published in The Diapason. His article, “Franjo Dugan: Croatian Organist, Teacher, and Composer,” analyzes Dugan’s influential role in Croatian musical culture. You can read Chris’ full article in the October 2011 issue.

Throughout Fall 2011, Ruoxi Du had a number of articles featured in the Foreign Military Studies Office Operational Environment Watch: “Speculating Russia’s Motive for Expanding the SCO Membership” (November, 2011); “Chinese Espionage and Putin’s Visit to China” (October, 2011); “Expansion of the SCO?” (September, 2011); “Russia and China Deepen Military Cooperation” (August, 2011). Read her articles at: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/products.html#GSW. After being awarded a record number of FMSO-CREES Research Assistantships, Ruoxi continued her success and was awarded a FMSO-CGIS Security Studies Fellowship for Spring 2012.

Geography students, Vincent Artman and Austin Charron, were elected as the student representatives to the Association of American Geographer’s Russian and Eastern Europe specialty group. They will be attending the organization’s annual meeting in February 2012.

16 CREES NEWSLETTER

In conjunction with the Kansas Sesquicentennial, Betty Laird’s historical fiction play To Catch a Butterfly was performed in August at Theatre Lawrence. Based on real people and real events, the play focuses on two young teachers and their bumbling pastor father during the latter days of the Civil War, when Lawrence faced a serious threat of invasion by Rebel troops.

Lubomyra (Luba) Olha Palij (1922-2012) We mourn the passing of Lubomyra Palij on January 6, 2012. Ms. Palij was the wife of Michael Palij, founder of the CREES Maria Palij Memorial Fund for Ukrainian Studies. If you would like to send a message or condolence to the Palij family, please go to: http://rumsey-yost.com/2012/01/lubomyra-o-palij/

2004Lindsey Collier (BA, REES 2004; MA, Middlebury College 2007) and William Bohne were married November 12, 2011, at the Castle Tea Room in Lawrence, KS. Both newly weds are KU graduates, and the couple currently reside in Lawrence. CREES Outreach Coordinator Adrienne Landry was a member of the bridal party.

FRIENDS & ALUMNI NEWS

NEW DUAL-DEGREE

JD/MA REES ACADEMIC PROGRAM

KU School of Law and CREES are now accepting applications for a new academic pro-gram for students pursuing graduate degrees in both Law and Russian, Eastern European

& Eurasian Studies (REES). The program offers a five-year dual degree curriculum of intensive legal, foreign language, and international area study that can be completed in four years.

Growing US interaction with Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia has created a need for lawyers possessing knowledge of the region’s various cultures and legal traditions and professional-level proficiency in a REES target language. In addition to an enhanced ability to work with clients from various backgrounds, a joint degree in Law and Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies opens many doors, including opportunities in international trade and finance, immigration law, human rights advocacy, government service, and international education.

In addition to their international law school requirements, JD/MA REES students will gain advanced language skills in one of the 11 regional languages taught at KU. They will also

complete interdisciplinary coursework in regional Literature and Arts, History, Political Science/Law, Philosophy and Religion, and Economics, Business, and Geography.

The four-year JD/MA REES program means considerable savings for the stu-dent who can gain simultaneous acceptance to both programs. Un-

dertaken separately, the law degree and the REES MA would require a minimum of 5 years. The joint program saves

the student the cost of tuition and fees for the fifth year.

NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS!

For more information, contact:

LAW SCHOOLWebb Hecker(785) [email protected]

REES MAEdith Clowes(785) [email protected]

17SPRING 2012

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ILYCREES has announced a new schol-arship for MA students in Ukrainian studies. The scholarship will support top REES graduate students who have shown commitment and scholarly in-terest in Ukraine and Ukrainian stud-ies. It will be available for full-time stu-dents starting in the 2012-13 academic year.

Retired attorney Peter Jarosewycz of Kansas City, Mo. established the Ja-rosewycz Family Scholarship in Ukrai-nian Studies in honor of his late par-ents, Dmytro and Maria, and aunt Olha. Immigrating to the United States in 1949, his parents and aunt taught him to take deep pride in his Ukrainian heritage. Mr. Jarosewycz is a past presi-dent of the Kansas City Ukrainian Club and has helped to support Ukrainian speakers, artists, and filmmakers visit-ing the Kansas City area.

CREES offers one of the leading pro-grams in Ukrainian Studies in the US. It includes all levels of Ukrainian language study, as well as courses in Ukrainian history, politics, and culture. As part of the Ukrainian Studies Program, CREES conducts a summer school at Ivan Franko University in Lviv, the same school where Jarosewycz’s parents re-ceived their medical degrees.

The Ukrainian Studies program at KU is also supported by the Maria Palij Fund which sponsors the annual visiting Palij Lecturer and awards the annual Ukrai-nian Studies Prize for an outstanding student specializing in Ukraine.

FLASF O R E I G N LANGUAGE & AREA STUDIES

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ACADEMIC YEAR & SUMMER FELLOWSHIPSFROM THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

FOR KU UNDERGRADUATE + GRADUATE STUDENTS

DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 1, 2012Fellowships are available for undergraduate and graduate students of any discipline who study an approved foreign language. Undergraduate Academic Year FLAS Fellowships provide up to $10,000 for tuition and a $5,000 stipend. Undergraduate FLAS is available for intermediate and advanced language study only. Graduate Academic Year FLAS Fellowships provide full KU tuition (restrictions may apply) and a $15,000 stipend. Summer 2012 FLAS Fellowships (undergraduate and graduate) provide up to $5,000 for summer tuition and a stipend of $2,500. Travel funds may be available for summer. Summer undergraduate FLAS is available for intermediate and advanced language study only. All tuition amounts are limited to actual tuition charges. Fellowships are divided by language among the relevant KU area studies centers.Eligibility: Undergraduate applicants must qualify to enroll in second year language courses or above. Students must be enrolled at KU or in an approved study abroad program or in an approved domestic summer intensive language program. Study abroad programs must be pre-approved by the US Department of Education. Students must be studying a quali�ed language (see below.)Students must be US Citizens or permanent residents.

AFRICALanguages: Amharic, Arabic, Hausa, KiSwahili, Wolof and other languages on demand.

African Studies FLAS funding for Arabic is for programs that are held in Africa or in an African Studies related domestic program only.

Call 785-864-3745, e-mail [email protected], or go to www.kasc.ku.edu

EAST ASIALanguages: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Uyghur, Tibetan

Call 785-864-3849, e-mail [email protected], or go to www.ceas.ku.edu/academics/�as.shtml

GLOBAL & INTERNATIONAL STUDIESLanguages: Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Hebrew, Hindi, Mongolian, Turkish, Uyghur

Call 785-864-1120, e-mail [email protected],or go to http://global.ku.edu/opportunities/�as.shtml

LATIN AMERICALanguages: Haitian Creole, Kaqchikel Maya, Portuguese, Quichua,

Spanish (advanced graduate level only) and other languages possible for summer on demand.Call 785-864-4213,email [email protected], or go to www.ku.edu/~latamst

RUSSIA, EASTERN EUROPE & EURASIALanguages: Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Slovene, Tajik, Turkish,

Ukrainian, Uyghur, YiddishCall 785-864-4236, e-mail [email protected], or go to www.crees.ku.edu

A R A B I C A M H A R I C B O S N I A N -C R O A T I A N - S E R B I A N C Z E C H C H I N E S E F A R S I H A I T I A N C R E O L E H A U S A H E B R E W H I N D I J A P A N E S E K A Q C H I K E L M A Y A K I S W A H I L I K O R E A N M O N G O L I A NP O L I S H PORTUGUESE Q U I C H U A R U S S I A N S L O V E N E S P A N I S HT A J I KT I B E T A NT U R K I S H U K R A I N I A N U Y G H U R Y I D D I S H W O L O F

New Scholarship!

KU SCHOLARWORKS REACHES 1 MILLION DOWNLOADSIn November 2011, KU Scholarworks, the open access repository at the University of Kansas, freely shared the results of research done at KU more than 1 million times.

Launched in March 2007, ScholarWorks is a digital repository for scholarly work created by the faculty and staff of the University of Kansas. By offer-ing a central location for depositing research or other scholarly work, KU ScholarWorks makes research available to a wider audience and helps as-sure its long-term preservation.

KU has been a leader in the open access movement. In 2009, the Univer-sity of Kansas became the first public institution in the United States to adopt a faculty open access policy. In October 2011 KU became one of the first American universities to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. KU has taken the lead in forming the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI), a grow-

ing organization of 42 North American universities that collaborates and shares policy implementation strategies and advocates on a national level for institutions with open access policies.

“ScholarWorks puts KU on the leading edge of open access to new re-search on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia,” said CREES Director Edith Clowes. “It is a crucial component to CREES’s outreach effort, making hun-dreds of publications widely available to everyone from the general public to a high school student researching a National History Day topic to a non-academic professional looking for new thinking on a subject of interest.”

With users in over 215 countries, KU ScholarWorks currently has 7,517 total items available, including works of scholarship as varied as journal articles, full-length books, academic presentations and posters, recorded interviews, theses and dissertations, representing the research of KU faculty, staff and students.

CREEScalendarPREVIEW OF EVENTS

CREES Internal ReviewJanuary 25, 2012

Panel: Doing Business in Central and Eastern EuropeFebruary 1, 20127:30 amIrina Six, Slavic Languages and Literatures Kansas City International Trade CouncilHusch Blackwell, 4801 Main Street, KC, MOsee ITC website (www.itckc.org) for more info and to register

Conference: The Future of Agriculture from an International PerspectiveCenter for International Trade and Agriculture February 2, 201210:00 am - 5:00 pmGreen Hall, Room 107

Book Talk: “Colloquial Slovene”Marta Pirnat-GreenbergSlavic Languages and LiteraturesFebruary 9, 20124:30 pm - 6:30 pmKansas Union, Jayhawk Ink Lounge

Gallery TalkArt in a Global Context: The Museum Collection Across the CurriculumMarie-Alice L’Heureux, ArchitectureFebruary 16, 2012Spencer Museum of Art1:00 - 2:00 pm

CREES Spring FestivalFebruary 24, 20124:00 pm - 8:00 pmEcumenical Christian Ministries Center1204 Oread Avenue

K-14 Teacher Workshop: World Heritage Sites Through TimeFebruary 25, 2012Lied Center of Kansas 8:45 am - 3:00 pm

CARTA ConferenceCentral Association of Russian Teachers of AmericaMarch 30 - April 1, 2012Tulsa, Oklahoma

Conference: Environmental SecurityApril 23-24, 2012Kansas Union

Security ConferenceAfghanistan 2014:Impacts on Global Security IdentitiesApril 25, 20128:00 am - 5:00 pmKansas Union, Malott Room

CREES Stop Day MeetingMay 4, 20129:00 am318 Bailey Hall

Reception for Graduating REES StudentsMay 12, 201211:00 am - 1:00 pm318 Bailey Hall

Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS)Academic Year and Summer ApplicationsFebruary 1, 20125:00 pmCREES Office, 318 Bailey HallAdrienne Landry, [email protected]; [email protected]

Security Conference ProposalsAfghanistan 2014 and Impacts on Global Security IdentitiesMarch 15, 20125:00 pmCREES Office, 318 Bailey HallBart Redford, [email protected]

Roy and Betty Laird Essay CompetitionMarch 26, 20125:00 pmCREES Office, 318 Bailey HallCathy Swenson-Tucker, [email protected]

FMSO-CREES Research AssistantshipFebruary 28, 20125:00 pmCREES Office, 318 Bailey HallEdith Clowes, [email protected]; [email protected]

18 CREES NEWSLETTER

SpECial EvEntS and lECturES

2012SPRING

dEadlinES

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ceIMPACTS ON GLOBAL SECURITYIDENTITIES

Afghanistan 2014

Wednesday25 April 2012

Malott RoomKansas UnionUniversity of Kansas

REGISTER AT:[email protected]

FOR MORE INFO GO TO:www.crees.ku.edu

Global Security Environment

NATO’s New Role

US Military Presence Abroad

Post-Afghan War Society

Perspectives and Prospects

Neighboring Countries and

New Dynamics

Stability Scenarios and

Critical Concerns

Diplomacy and Dialogue

SPONSORED BY: Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Center for East Asian Studies, Center of Latin American Studies, Center for Global and International Studies, Kan-sas African Studies Center, Foreign Military Studies Office, Ft. Leaven-worth. This Conference is partially supported by by an Army Research Offi ces grant and a US Dept. of Edu-cation Title VI grant.

K-16 Teacher WorkshopFebruary 25, 2012

Brought to you by KU International Area Studies Centers: Center for East Asian Studies

Center for Global and International Studies

Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies

Center of Latin American Studies

Kansas African Studies Center

Kansas Consortium for Teaching About Asia

Lied Center of Kansas

Join KU International Area Studies Centers at the Lied Center for a day of education, activities, and curriculum development featuring World Heritage Sites from around the world. Hear lectures on architectural identity, witness a Taiko Drum performance, and take part in an Indian folk art workshop.

This opportunity is FREE for educators. Lunch will be provided by Kansas Consortium for Teaching about Asia. Professional Development Credits available.

To register, contact Randi Hacker, CEAS Outreach Coordinator: [email protected]

8:45 AM - 3:00 PM

THROUGH TIME

C REES

ALL FOR PAPERSUniversity of Kansas

Center for Russian, East European, & Eurasian StudiesThe 18th Annual

Roy and Betty LairdESSAY COMPETITION

All University of Kansas students actively pursuing interests in Russian, East European, & Eurasian studies in any KU academic program are eligible to submit an essay of approximately 2,000 words on any topic dealing with the region. The essay should be a “think piece,” not a formal research paper. It should explore a key issue in any discipline relevant to the region. For example, students might explore the causes and consequences of recent political changes in the region, discuss the implications of the post-imperial order for national languages and literatures, the role of religion today, or compose an essay on another topic. Students may rework papers from KU classes, but submissions must be reformatted to meet the following criteria. They must be typed, double-spaced, and in 12-point font size.

Submit an anonymous version of the essay to Ms. Cathy Swenson-Tucker in 320 Bailey Hall by 5:00 pm by Monday, March 26, 2012. A committee will evaluate the essays and select the winning entry. The winner will receive $750, a book of his or her choice, a certificate, his or her name on a plaque, and an impressive line on the résumé. The winner will be invited to present the pa-per at the final REES Brown Bag of the academic year and may have the paper posted on the CREES website.

If you have further questions regarding the topic or submission, please contact Cathy Swenson-Tucker in 320 Bailey, at 864-4236, or by e-mail at [email protected].

THE REES ESSAY COMPETITION IS SUPPORTED BY THE PROFESSOR ROY D. AND BETTY LAIRD ENDOWMENT.

Roy and Betty Laird ESSAY COMPETITION

750PRIZ

E

$

Russia at a Crossroads, October 2011 - January 2012: The Capitals and the ProvincesGerald Mikkelson, REESJanuary 24, 2012

Introducing the Stalin Digital Archive and News & Country ProfilesJon Giullian, Watson LibraryJanuary 31, 2012

Woland and Little Demons and the Failure of US-Russian Negotiations toward Global ZeroJacob Kipp, REES and HistoryFebruary 7, 2012

Topic and Speaker TBAFebruary 14, 2012

Title TBACynthia Annett (REES) and Helena Kralova (Brno University of TechnologyFebruary 21, 2012

From Arab Spring to the Russian ‘Evolution’: Technological Impacts on Protest and Censorship Practices in Post-Soviet RussiaPatrick Callen, MA REES and FMSO FellowFebruary 28, 2012

Topic and Speaker TBAMarch 6, 2012

Russia Presidential Elections RoundtableSpeakers TBAMarch 15, 2012

Modeling National Identity: Ukrainian PerspectivesAlexandra NovitchkovaKyiv-Mohyla Academy, UkraineMarch 27, 2012

Scapegoat Country: Leningrad during the Stalinist TerrorLesley RimmelSchool of International Studies, Oklahoma State UniversityApril 3, 2012

Title TBAAnna Ciencialla, Emerita HistoryApril 10, 2012

Ferghana Valley in Imperial TimesYulia UryadovaHistory, University of ArkansasApril 17, 2012

Russia Looking North: From the Kremlin’s Policy to Arctic MythologyMarlene Laruelle, Senior Research FellowCentral Asia and Caucasus InstituteJohns Hopkins UniversityApril 24, 2012

Talk by Laird Essay Competition WinnerMay 1, 2012

All CREES brownbags, book talks, and film series are FREE and OPEN to the public. If you would like to give a brownbag lecture or would like to recommend a movie for our film series, please contact:

Bart RedfordCREES Assistant Director

[email protected]

19SPRING 2012

BrownBag SEriES

318 BailEy, 12:00 pM

www.facebook.com/ku.crees

BesaSolemn Promise, 2009In Serbian with English subtitlesJanuary 27, 2012

A Bitter Taste of Freedom2011In Russian with English subtitlesFebruary 17, 2012

SennoscDrowsiness, 2008In Polish with English subtitlesJanuary 27, 2012

Pokolenie PGeneration P, 2011In Russian with English subtitlesApril 13, 2012

Piran - Pirano2010In Slovene, Serbo-Croatian, and Italian with English subtitlesApril 20, 2012

Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz Our Grand Despair, 2011In Turkish with English subtitlesFebruary 16, 2012

KosmosCosmos, 2010In Turkish with English subtitlesMarch 15, 2012

MutlulukBliss, 2007In Turkish with English subtitlesApril 19, 2012

Friday night at thE kino

turkSih

FilM SEriES

318 BailEy, 7:00 pM

BECOME A CREES DONOR TODAY!

Many of our activities are enhanced through private donations to the Center for Rus-sian, East European & Eurasian Studies.

Special events, guest lecturers, scholarships and study abroad op-portunities are just some of the ways your donation can help us ensure our Center’s vitality.

We hope that you will contribute gen-erously to strengthen the Center’s pro-grams by sending your gift today.

CREES General FundThe CREES General Fund supports a wide range of educational and outreach activities on campus and in the wider community. Among its dedicated sponsors are the Backus Memo-rial Fund which allows CREES to host the annual Backus Memorial Lecture, and the Bramlage Family Foundation Fund which provides scholarships to incoming KU REES MA students who have strong connections to the state of Kansas.

Maria Palij Memorial FundThe Maria Palij Fund suppports an annual visiting lecturerer specializing in Ukrainian studies. The fund also supports the Ukrainian Studies Prize for an outstanding student specializing in Ukrainian.

George C. Jerkovich FundThe mission of the Jerkovich Fund is threefold: 1) supports the development of KU’s South Slavic library collection; 2) provides awards to outstanding students who have demonstrated an interest in the study of Croatian or Serbian history, literature, folklore, or culture; 3) brings noted specialists in South Slavic studies to KU.

Roy & Betty Laird FundThis fund is named after the late Professor Roy D. Laird, a longtime member of the Russian and East European Studies (REES) and Political Science faculties, and Ms. Betty Laird, whose continued support of CREES activities includes sponsoring the annual Roy & Betty Laird Essay Contest. Mon-ies donated to support this fund will primarily contribute to the advancement of Russian Studies.

Norman E. Saul FundNamed after KU History Emeritus Professor Norman E. Saul, this fund supports REES MA students with travel grants to collections or to REES related conferences at which they will be presenting the results of their research.

Jarosewycz Family FundThe Jarosewycz Family Fund provides scholarships for graduate students who have shown commitment and scholarly interest in Ukraine and Ukrainian Studies.

GIVING OPPORTUNITIES

If you would like to make a donation by check or money order, please make your check payable to: KU CREES

Please mail your donations to:

University of KansasCenter for Russian, East European

& Eurasian StudiesBailey Hall

1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 320Lawrence, KS 66045-7574

Your gifts are tax deductible as allowed by law. Thank you for your support!

CREES is designated a National Resource Center for the study of Russia, Eastern Eu-rope and Eurasia by the US Department of Education, and receives Title VI funds for edu-cational and outreach activities. The center is a degree-granting program within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the Universi-ty of Kansas. For further information about CREES, please contact us at:

[email protected]

Or check out our website: www.crees.ku.edu