Senior Scholars
ANDREW KAHN
University of Oxford
Professor of Russian Literature/ Keynote Speaker
Conference Topic: Alexander Radishchev [1749-1802] and Enlightenment
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
If not yourself, who would you be: Charles Darwin
Your favorite heroes in fiction: Pierre Bezukhov, Fabrizio (La Chartreuse de Parme), Mr Cogito (Z. Herbert)
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with: Music
Your favorite motto:
- Mind your own business
- Manners makyth the man
DANIEL BUNCIC
University of Cologne
Professor of Slavic linguistics
Conference Topic: Jan Hus and the Czech orthography: East-western inspirations and influences
Research Area: verbal semantics, linguistics of writing, sociolinguistics
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
What is your current state of mind: as usual, unsuccessfully trying to cope with multi-tasking
Who are your favorite writers: Umberto Eco, Nikolaj Gogol’, Douglas Adams
Which living person do you most admire: Andrej Anatol’evič Zaliznjak
What is your motto:
- Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
(John Lennon, “Beautiful Boy”)
RITA GIULIANI
La Sapienza, Rom
Professor for Russian Language and Literature
Professor Giuliani focuses her research on Russo-Italian cultural and literary relations and published several books and essays on this topic. She is member of the board of Russica Romana and Russkaia Pochta and was awarded the Gogol prize by the Boris Eltsin Foundation in 2009 following her work on Nikolai Gogol.
She likes to read Anna Karenina, The Master & Margarita, Brothers Karamazov, Cechov´s Short Stories, Leopardi´s poems, Macbeth, Faust and Maupassant´s 'A life'. Her favourite places to be are Kolomenskoje in Moscow, the irish west coast, Venice & Rome. She listens to classical music, sixties pop and her favourite singer is Lucio Battisti. Her favourite film is 'To be or not to be' and her favourite actor is Marcello Mastroianni.
Conference's topic:
DRAGANA GRBIČ
University of Belgrade
Scientific researcher, 18th century scholar
Conference Topic: Enlightened Pathways of a Homo Viator. Dositej Obradović between the Balkans and Western Europe
Research Area: Cultural history; Literature; Enlightenment
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
If not yourself, who would you be: Koala bear
Your favorite heroes in fiction: Gilgamesh, Daedalus, Telemachus
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with: Flying; Polyglottism
Your favorite motto:
- The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.(Lao Tzu)
KORNELIJA ICIN
University of Belgrade
Professor of Russian Literature
Conference Topic: Варварогений между Востоком и Западом: «Зенит» и русский авангард
Research Area: Avant-garde
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
If not yourself, who would you be:
Your favorite heroes in fiction:
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with:
Your favorite motto:
YULIA IVANOVA
HSE, Moskow
Researcher fellow
Conference Topic:
Research Area: Italian Renaissance, history of biblical exegesis; history of philology and historical sciences
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
If not yourself, who would you be:
Your favorite heroes in fiction:
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with:
Your favorite motto:
MARIANNA KOLIOVÁ
University of Cologne
Lecturer of Slovak language
Conference Topic: The Mission of the Saints Cyril and Methodius and Its Impact on Slovak Culture
Research Area: Slovak literature (travelogues of the 19th century)
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
If not yourself, who would you be: just someone else
Your favorite heroes in fiction: Gregor Samsa (The Metamorphosis from Franz Kafka), Esther Greenwood (The Bell Jar from Sylvia Plath), Jozef Mak (Jozef Mak from Jozef Cíger Hronský), Arkady Ivanovich Svidrigailov (Crime and Punishment from Fyodor M. Dostoevsky), Hauke Haien (The Rider on the White Horse from Theodor Storm)
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with: musical talent
Your favorite motto: - I haven't found it yet
ELENA PENSKAYA
HSE, Moscow
Professor at the Faculty of Humanities
Conference Topic: Mondialiazation of Culture and overcoming of the boundaries in German, Polish and Soviet travelogues before the Second World War
Research Area: History of Russian literature; Western literature; Russian theatre; Europena theatre
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
Your chief characteristic:
Your favorite heroes in fiction:
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with:
Your favorite motto:
IRINA SAVELIEVA
HSE, Moscow
Professor at the Faculty of Humanities
Conference Topic: Sociological classics in contemporary historical research: blind spots or instruments
Research Area: theory of history, history of ideas, sociology of knowledge
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
Your chief characteristic: Sense of harmony
Your favorite heroes in fiction: Bret Ashley
Natural talent I'd like to be gifted with: Ballet dancer.
Your favorite motto: - Никогда и ничего не просите! Никогда и ничего, и в особенности у тех, кто сильнее вас. (Михаил Булгаков. Мастеp и Маpгаpита)
Never ever ask for favours. Especially from people stronger than you. (The Master & Margarita, Michail Bulgakov)
PAVEL SOKOLOV
HSE, Moscow
Scientific researcher
Conference Topic: Fas et Nefas of a Scientific Text in Premodern Europe
Research Area: Scholastic philosophy; Biblical hermeneutics; Political Thought in the Early Modern Period
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
Your chief characteristic:
Your favorite heroes in fiction:
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with:
Your favorite motto:
GRAZYNA JURKOWLANIEC
University of Warsaw
Art historian, Assistant professor
Confrence Topic: Between Rome and Muscovy. Images of the Virgin Mary in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Research Area: Early modern art history
OLEG LEKMANOV
HSE, Moscow
Professor at the Faculty of Humanities
Conference Topic: East and West in the Work of Ivan Bunin
Research Area: 20th-century Russian literature; History of film; Sociology of literature
Professor Lekmanov taught in Moscow. Mostly at the Faculty of Journalism (Moscow State) and Philology (School of Economics). He also taught in Tartu, Oxford, Edinburgh and Sheffield.
4 Questions From Marcel Proust
Your chief characteristic: dillignet, tenacious, cheerful
Your favorite heroes in fiction: Berti Buster
Natural talent I'd like to be gifted with: innate goodness
Your favorite motto: Do not judge if you do not want to be judged yourself.
BENJAMIN REEVE
University of Cologne
Scientistic researcher; Assistant Professor
Conference Topic: Dialogue of Law: Cardinal directions of the reception of the philosophy of law
Research Area: Eastern European & International Law
4 Questions From Marcel Proust
Who would you want to be: You
Your favorite heroes in fiction: Ivan Petrovic Vojnickij (Djadja Vanja)
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with: Good faith
Your favorite motto: Imagination is a form of courage
JÖRG SCHULTE
University of Cologne
Professor of Slavic literature
Conference Topic: Sergei Averintsev, Intermediary between East and West
Research Area: Russian literature, Serbian literature, Polish literature, Cultural and Intellectual History, Reception of Classical Antiquity, Hebrew literature in Central and Eastern Europe
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
What is your current state of mind: Erat hora
Who are your favorite writers: Elias Canetti, Vladimir Nabokov, Saul Tchernichowsky, L.N. Tolstoi, William Shakespeare, Desiderius Erasmus
Which living person do you most admire: Barack Obama
What is your motto:
- Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt
KAMELIA SPASSOVA
University of Cologne
Scientific researcher
Conference Topic: East and West Semiosis in Lotman and Kristeva
Research Area: Kamelia Spassova is a senior assistant professor in Comparative Literature in the Department of Theory and History of Literature atSofia University. Recently she published a book, based on her PhD dissertation: Event and Example in Plato and Aristotle, 2012 , which deals with the tension between literary examples and exemplarity work in philosophical and theoretical research.
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
If not yourself, who would you be:
Your favorite heroes in fiction:
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with:
Your favorite motto:
PAWEL STEPIEN
University of Warsaw
Philologist, literary scholar, professor at the University of Warsaw
Conference Topic: Traditions of meditation on the Christ’s Passion in the 15th, 16th and 17th century (the late Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation)
Research Area: Christ’s Passion – Theology – Devotion – Prayers and devotions – Devotional literature (Latin, Polish, German) – the late Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation.
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
Your favorite writers: Szymon Zimorowic, Jan Andrzej Morsztyn, Józef Czechowicz
Which historical figure do you most identify with:
In some respects – Carl Lotus Becker (1873-1945)
Your greatest achievement: A critical edition (2009) of The Holy Cross Sermons (ca 1300), the oldest extant sermons in the Polish language
Your favorite motto: - In animo vera libertas.
JOLANTA SUJECKA
University of Warsaw
Historian of Literature
Conference Topic: Humanists from East and West in Sremski Karlovci
Research Area: Slavia Orthodoxa in the Balkans (and its Cultural Base) from 18th to 21st Century
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
Your favorite writers: It is a very difficult question… I like world writers like Amos Oz, but from the other side I like very much writers from so called minor literatures, like the Serbian writer Danilo Kiš, or Macedonian writer Živko Čingo, or Bulgarian poet Konstantin Pavlov.
Which historical figure do you most identify with: I do not Identify with historical figures…
Your greatest achievement: …to organize series of book Colloquia Balkanica in DiG Publishing House in Warsaw, we published four volumes in this series, and the fifth volume will be dedicated to Serbian literary and historian discourse about Goli otok, the Author of this book is my former PhD. Student, and the book is her PhD.
Your favorite motto:
- Do your best even in bad circumstances!
MALGORZATA WOJTYNIAK
University of Warsaw
Scientific researcher
Conference Topic: Between East and West: Diego Saavedra y Fajardo and his Empresas politicas in XVIIcentury Poland
Research Area:
4 Questions From Marcel Proust:
Your favorite writers:
Which historical figure do you most identify with:
Your greatest achievement:
Your favorite motto:
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