Russian Language & Area Studies at St. Olaf

News

  • J-Term Course Proposal

    The Russian Language and Area Studies Department J-term course proposal is officially under consideration. Fingers crossed — будем держать кулачки!

    We’re so grateful for all the input and support we’ve received from Theresa Heath, Director of the Smith Center for Global Engagement, and Alyssa Melby, Director of Svoboda Center for Civic Engagement.

    In the meantime, we can announce the tentative course title and description:

    Civic Engagement in Riga, Latvia: History, Culture, and Politics at a European Crossroads

    In this course, students will spend one month in the scenic, historic, and exciting capital of Latvia, Riga. They will divide their time between civic engagement projects with local NGOs on one hand, and on the other, lectures, discussions and excursions that will address the pressing issues of immigration, displacement, diaspora, and language politics in Latvia and Eastern Europe more generally.

    The course centers community engagement: students will choose to collaborate with a local community partner based on their personal and academic interests. Local partners include organizations for youth community building, LGBTQ+ support, exiled writers and journalists, and environmental sustainability.

  • Russian Language & Area Studies Department Radio Program

    Prof. Morse and Paul Murphy are hosting “Office Hours” (приемные часы) weekly on KSTO radio. The program draws together eclectic global pop selections (w/ a Central and East European emphasis) around a weekly theme. Played in sets accompanied by limited commentary.

  • Inaugural Pickle Fest at St. Olaf

    This October, students from the Russian Language Learning Community (RLC) and Russian Language and Area Studies Club organized the first annual St. Olaf Pickle Fest (Пикльфест), which was held at the Flaten Art Barn on Tuesday, October 7. Congratulations to our student-organizers for putting on such a memorable event — вы молодцы!

    Photos will be uploaded presently.

  • Riga Site Visit & Research in Helsinki

    This summer, Profs. Dossi and Morse traveled to Riga, Latvia and Tallinn, Estonia to conduct a site visit for an exciting new J-Term course. They also conducted research at the National Library in Helsinki, Finland.

    Our visit to Riga was engaging, informative, and fun. SRAS’s Baltics Program Manager, Katya, organized our itinerary and put us in touch with potential community partners for our program. We’re so grateful for her guidance and look forward to working together in the future.

    In Tallinn, Prof. Morse attended a mass at the Transfiguration cathedral, which houses an exquisite early 18th c. baroque iconostasis. Profs. Dossi and Morse also enjoyed exploring the old town and the Maritime Museum with their children.

    Finally, in Helsinki, Profs. Dossi and Morse worked in the National Library. Prof. Dossi examined the extensive collection of nineteenth-century Russian medical journals in the Slavonic Library, while Prof. Morse examined texts from the private libraries of three influential courtiers at the court of Peter I (r. 1682-1725) held in special collections.

    Rainy Riga Old Town
    Tallinn, Old Town
    St. Olaf’s Church, Tallinn

  • Congratulations, Honors Students!

    We congratulate our honors students, Sydney Niehaus, Neil Stewart, and Aidan Warrington on being initiated into Dobro Slovo, the National Slavic Honors Society.

    Dobro Slovo National Slavic Honors Society, established in 1926 at the University of California at Berkeley, serves as the leading national Slavic honors society for students of Slavic languages in the United States. Dobro Slovo recognizes the hard work and dedication of students, faculty, and universities aimed at the study of Slavic languages and cultures and currently boasts a membership of 6000 members across over 130 universities.

    Congratulations Sydney, Neil, and Aidan!

  • Sickle at Theater Novi Most

    On Friday, May 2, St. Olaf students joined Professor Dossi for the premier of “Sickle” at Novi Most / New Bridge Theater in Minneapolis. Abbey Fenbert’s “Sickle” tells the story of four women as they struggle to survive the genocidal Soviet-engineered famine in Ukraine (Ukr. Holodomor, Rus. Golodomor) in the 1930s. The show is hauntingly beautiful and left a long-lasting impression on everyone.

    The St. Olaf Russian Language and Area Studies department stands with Ukraine in the Russo-Ukrainian war. We also unequivocally condemn the genocidal policies of the Russian Federation in the occupied territories of Ukraine. Please support Ukraine at Stand with Ukraine Minnesota.

  • Ryan Moore presents at Undergraduate Conference at Macalaster College

    Ryan Moore presented a paper at the undergraduate conference called “Encounters and Entanglements in Eurasia and Beyond” that took place at Macalaster College on April 26th, 2025.

    Ryan’s paper combined nineteenth-century Russian literature and philosophy, using concepts originally introduced by Hegel and further elucidated in Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony to explore the opposition between Western and “Eastern” (or Russian) values in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s early work White Nights.


    The departments of Russian Studies and Asian Languages and Cultures at Macalaster worked together to create an amazing undergraduate conference. Students from Macalester as well as Carleton, Claremont McKenna, Grinnell, Gustavus Adolphus, and St. Olaf shared their intellectual discoveries with one
    another.


    Everyone enjoyed the thought-provoking scholarly panels, a stimulating keynote talk titled “Finding the Universal: Modernism and Cultural Encounters” by Dr. Jinyi Chu of Yale University, and a beautiful musical performance featuring Miles Rakov on violin and Wendy Zheng on yangqin. After the panels, participants gathered at the Chinese House for tea and pastries from Kramarczuk’s East European deli.


    The organizers of the conference —Xin Yang, Masha Fedorova, and Julia Chadaga— are extraordinarily grateful to our presenters, attendees, the Community Engagement Center, the Kofi Annan Institute of Global Citizenship, the residents of the Chinese House and the Russian House, and all of the people who helped make our event a success: Alan Barenberg, Martha Davis, Karen Flannery, Dean Hu, Simon Koebbe, Lilly Lu, Liz Matlin, Anna Moan, Miles Rakov, Chuen-Fung Wong, Kun You, and Wendy Zheng. You can find the full program here.

    Congratulations, Ryan!

  • Summer 2025

    This summer, Profs. Dossi and Morse will travel to Latvia, Estonia, and Finland to conduct site visits for an exciting new Russian Studies J-term program, and conduct research at the Helsinki Slavonic Library at the University of Helsinki.

    At the Slavonic Library, Prof. Dossi will examine the extensive collection of nineteenth-century Russian medical journals kept in their archives. Prof. Morse will examine documents from the personal libraries of courtiers at the Petrine Court.

    The site visit portion of the trip is funded through the Smith Center for Global Engagement and the research portion through the Professional Development fund at St. Olaf.

     

    House of the Brotherhood of the Blackheads, Riga
    Tallinn, Shoreline
    Helsinki Cathedral

     

  • Dr. Andrey Ivanov Visits St. Olaf

    In mid-March, the Russian Studies Department invited Dr. Andrey V. Ivanov to St. Olaf to give a public lecture on his recent book, A Spiritual Revolution: The Impact of Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia, 1700–1825. Dr. Ivanov’s lecture was followed by a reception and exhibition of 17-18th c. Protestant theological works drawn from Rolvaag Special Collections and curated by Jillian Sparks.

    Dr. Ivanov also gave a guest lecture on Russia’s Orthodox Enlightenment in Prof. Morse’s course, “Mystics & Madmen: An Introduction to Russian Intellectual History.”

    Support for Dr. Ivanov’s visit was provided by the Leraas Fund and the Lutheran Center.