NEWSLETTER
of the Slavic Interest Group


20 July, AS XXXI (1996)


From the Nachalnik

Greetings all!

First of all, a big thank you to all who have contributed material for the Newsletter and the Bibliography during the past year. Most particularly, I want to thank Kolozsvari Arpad and Kythe Szubielka for their massive contributions in Hungarian and Polish sources respectively. Still, many of you have given me material over the year and I want to encourage all of you to keep it coming.

It's been almost a year since this group was founded at Pennsic. It has grown steadily since then, not in an extreme fashion, but still steadily. Keeping it alive relies very much on your help. I am always looking for material (printed or electronic resources, upcoming events, etc). If you are going to be at Pennsic, please bring me any new resources you have collected during the past year.

Since the last newsletter, we got a very nice boost by being listed on the SCA Home Page. This led a number of people to our group and has helped to boost our membership over 40. As we grow, so does the expense of doing mailings. I do not want to charge for the newsletter or the bibliography, but if you would like to contribute to the cause, I am now willing to accept voluntary contributions.

After Pennsic, I will probably put out another issue of the newsletter around October 1st. I will also have a revised Bibliography available on request (just drop me a note). For those of you with web access, remember that the most up-to-date versions of the Bibliography and other SIG products are always available at our Home Page ( vms.www.uwplatt.edu/~goldschmidt/slavic.html).


Annual Meeting

For those of you going to Pennsic, please be sure to come to our second annual meeting. We are scheduled for A&S Tent I at 11am on Tuesday, August 13th. Officially, our "class" is called "Researching Things Slavic." Please brings sources, ideas, and general contributions. If you can't make it to the class but are at the War, please be sure to come by Herald's Point and just say hi.


New Folklore Group

For those of you with a serious interest in folklore, a new professional academic group is forming called The Slavic and East European Folklore Association (SEEFA). SEEFA is dedicated to promoting the study of folklore originating from these cultural areas. "People with an interest in folklore and with a speciality in fields such as anthropology, history, linguistics, literature, musicology, or sociology are invited to become members and to participate." The person to contact is the Secretary- Treasurer of SEEFA, Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby, Russian and Eastern Studies, 1055 Patterson Office Tower, University of Kentucky, Lexington KY 40506, 606-299- 5713, e-mail: jruewilo@ukcc.uky.edu.


Upcoming Events of Interest

  • October 4-6, 1996 -- The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, will hold a conference entitled "Private Life in Russia: Medieval Times to the Present." I do not know how much of the conference will cover our period, but you can get more information by contacting Margaret Foley, Department of History, 3609 Haven Hall, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 48109, 313-663-1391 (fax: 313-747-4881) or e-mail mef@umich.edu.


    Printed Resources

  • M.E. Sharpe will be releasing a new book next year called Women in Russian History from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century, coedited by Natal'ia Pushkareva and Eve Levin. Pushkareva has also recently edited an entire issue of Rodina (#3, 1996) devoted entirely to the subject of women over the past ten centuries.

  • A fabulous source for people with Cossack or Ukrainian personas is Forum: A Ukrainian Review, a quarterly magazine put out by the Ukrainian Fraternal Association. A recent issue was devoted to "Hetman of Ukraine: Bohdan Khmelnytsky." A year's subscription costs $12 US/year in the United States and Canada. Subscriptions can be sent to Forum Subscriptions, P.O. Box 350, Scranton PA 18501- 0350.

  • The Romanian Review (##10-11-12, 1995) featured a special issue entitled "Dracula Versus Vlad the Impaler." The issue features a number of articles about the history of Vlad the Impaler and the various legends about him. The issue is devoted to debunking various fictions about the bloodthirsty one.

  • For those of you who need a really BIG Polish dictionary, Hippocrene Books has just put out a two- volume hard-cover Polish-English Unabridged Dictionary (ISBN 0-7818-0441-8) by Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski. It is 3500 pages and has over 250,000 entries. You can order it direct from the publisher for $150 (plus $7 shipping & handling): Hippocrene Books, 171 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016. Or by credit card at 718-454-2366.

  • Scarecrow Press recently announced a new series of historical dictionaries for Central and Eastern Europe. These are not cheap, but you may want to look for them at a local academic library:

    Historical Dictionary of Bulgaria, by Raymond Detrez (ISBN 0-8108-3177-5; $75.00 -- Available November 1996)
    Historical Dictionary of Albania, by Raymond Hutchings (ISBN 0-8108-3107-4; $56.00 -- Available September 1996)
    Historical Dictionary of Romania, by Kurt W. Treptow and Marcel Popa (ISBN 0-8108-3179-1; $62.00)
    Historical Dictionary of Slovenia, by Leopoldina Plut- Pregelj and Carole Rogel (ISBN 0-8108-3113-9; $67.00)
    Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Croatia, by Robert Stallaerts and Jeannine Laurens (ISBN 0-8108-2999-1; $45.00)
    Historical Dictionary of Poland, by George Sanford and Adriana Gozdecka-Sanford (ISBN 0-8108-2818-9; $47.50)

    Each volume covers (to some extent) period history and includes a comprehensive bibliography (some of these bibliographies are as long as 100 pages!). Those of you with cash to burn can order from the publisher: Scarecrow Press, 4720 Boston Way, Lanham MD 20706, 800-462- 6420 (fax: 301-459-2118).


    Electronic Resources

  • If you have not visited it in awhile, you should come back to the SIG Home Page ( vms.www.uwplatt.edu/~goldschmidt/slavic.html). It has been steadily growing and is now linked from the SCA's Home Page (www.sca.org).


  • Harry Leich of the European Division of the Library of Congress has offered to make himself available to members of the SCA for bibliographic inquiries. Mr. Leich is the LC's leading (and probably only) expert on Medieval Russia and sits on one of the world's greatest collections of Slavica. He can also answer questions about non-Russia Slavic issues. He can be reached directly by e-mail at leich@mail.loc.gov. If you do not have access to e-mail, contact me for information about reaching him by regular mail or phone.

  • Kythe Szubielka reports that Dr. Daniel J. Kij IV can help people with Polish names. His e-mail is TGHD67A@prodigy.com, or contact Kythe for more information.


    *************************************************************************

    Standard Disclaimer Stuff: Most of us are members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc (SCA) but our Interest Group and its newsletter are not officially affiliated with the SCA. Naturally, then, this Newsletter does not have even the faintest intentional resemblance to anything that the SCA officially endorses. Any resemblance is, in fact, coincidental.

    The publisher and editor is Paul Wickenden of Thanet (Paul Goldschmidt), 675 Staley Ave, Platteville WI 53818, 608-348-6209, e-mail: goldschmidt@uwplatt.edu.