The Mary Zirin Prize for Outstanding Scholarship

Judith Vowles

We award this prize to Judith Vowles, an independent scholar who has worked steadily in the field of Russian literature, particularly Russian women's studies, since the 1980s. Educated at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London, Judith received her Bachelor’s degree with First Class Honors and then continued her education at Yale's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. Specializing in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Russian literature and especially on the roles and images of women writers of that period, she has authored a number of articles on this topic, including two essays written with Stephanie Sandler.

Judith has developed an important reputation as an editor and translator, editing two collections of essays, Sexuality and the Body in Russian Culture (1993), and Russia Through Women's Eyes (1996), and translating, among others, Mariia Joffe's One Night, and Sophia Dubnow- Erlich's biography of her father, The Life and Work of S. M. Dubnow. Stephanie Sandler, in her nomination letter, notes that: "Judy's intellectual profile, in many ways is like that of Mary Zirin herself, indeed Judy is one of many Slavists who have been inspired by Mary's work....Judy is the kind of scholar who wants to dig down to the bottom of something and who enjoys the scholarly search for material as much as the process of writing about it." It is with great pleasure and recognition of her achievements that we award this prize to Judith Vowles.

Outstanding Achievement in Slavic Women's Studies:

Janet Rabinowitch (Indiana University Press)

The winner of this year's award has published scholarly monographs and anthologies on Russian history, literary translations, Russian women's and gender studies, Slavic cultural studies, and anthologies and criticism of Russian and other Slavic literatures -- many of which have been honored by AWSS, but never in her name: Dr. Janet Rabinowitch of Indiana University Press.

As the colleague who nominated her pointed out, "Although Janet Rabinowitch has not authored feminist or gender-focused scholarship within Slavic Studies, no other specialist has PUBLISHED so many works in the field as has Janet during her twenty-two years with Indiana UP. Janet's Ph.D. in Russian Studies (Georgetown University, 1965) and her wide-ranging activities within the Association of American University Presses (in addition, of course, to her own taste and intelligence) make her an outstanding critical reader of the manuscripts she receives, sends out for review, and sees through production. 

Janet has been called 'the premier editor in our field' and has played a pioneering role in gender studies, starting with Barbara Heldt's The Terrible Perfection, published in 1987. Janet was willing to take risks with submissions focused on women when other editors still shrank from doing so, and her energetic dedication to precisely those issues and qualities that the Association for Women in Slavic Studies represents in a sense qualify her as one of the most notable members of the organization. The list of Slavic gender and feminist publications she has sponsored is formidable and certainly unequalled among university press editors. For her long-standing commitment to scholarship on Slavic womanhood she has earned a unique place among us, and this award acknowledges just how valuable that place is to all of us."

This award carries a Life Membership in AWSS, an expression of our esteem and our enthusiastic support for Dr. Rabinowitch's continuing work in the field.

Best Book in Slavic Women's Studies

Rebecca Kay. Russian Women and Their Organizations: Gender, Discrimination and Grassroots Women’s Organizations, 1991-96. (St. Martin’s Press, 2000).

Rebecca Kay’s book deals with the contemporary women’s movement that emerged in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Utilizing a number of methodologies, Kay analyzes the birth of a complex social movement. Paying close attention to the “gender climate,” Kay charts the unique features of the Russian women’s movement. In particular, she writes about regional organizations and their complex relationship with Moscow as well as the role of Western women in the Russian women’s movement. She deals with all of these subjects with great sensitivity and analytical skill. This book is essential reading for those who want to understand contemporary Russian society.

Best Book by a Woman in Slavic Studies

Nadieszda Kizenko. A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People. (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000).

Nadieszda Kizenko’s biography of Father John and her analysis of popular religious beliefs among orthodox Russians is a masterpiece of research, narration, and analysis. Father John and Leo Tolstoy were the two most popular figures in late imperial Russia, but until now only Tolstoy has received scholarly attention. Kizenko presents Father John as a charismatic leader, someone who shared many of the same life experiences as his parishioners but managed to transcend them through his religious faith. Like all leaders, Father John played an important but contradictory role in fin-de-siecle Russia. Kizenko carefully and convincingly explicates his complex contribution to the country and faith that he loved so much. A Prodigal Saint demonstrates that a well-researched and beautifully written biography can provide important insights not only into the lives of individuals, but also into the societies in which they lived.

Best Article by a Woman

Susan Larsen. “Melodramatic Masculinity, National Identity, and the Stalinist Past in Postsoviet Cinema,” Studies in 20th Century Literature: Russian Culture of the 1990s, 24, 1 (Winter 2000): 85-120.

Susan Larsen’s fascinating and beautifully argued article deals with the emergence of melodrama as one of the most popular forms of cinematic expression in postsoviet Russia. According to Larsen, the conventions of melodrama allow filmmakers and audiences to critique and praise Stalinist society at the same time. This is done through a reworking of national, historical and sexual identities as film directors collapse feminine and Stalinist nature together, and men become the beleaguered heroes of these melodramas. Larsen has given us a compelling piece of interdisciplinary scholarship that demonstrates the power of gender to shape both past and present.

Best Translation in Slavic Women's Studies

John Crowfoot, Marjorie Farquharson, Catriona Kelly, Sally Laird, Cathy Porter, and Zaraya Vesyolaya, trans. Till My Tale is Told: Women’s Memoirs of the Gulag, edited by Simon Vilensky, ed., (Indiana University Press, 1999).

This book was first published in Russia in 1989. Ten years later it has been beautifully translated into English so that it can achieve the wide audience it deserves. Sixteen women tell the story of how they ended up in Stalin’s gulags. Thanks to the great care of the translating team, each woman emerges as a unique witness to that time. The personal histories are rendered into beautiful English which conveys all the pathos and horror of life in the gulags. And at the same time, the stories reveal the resiliency of the human spirit. We are deeply indebted to the women who wrote their memoirs and the men and women who translated them.

Graduate Essay Prize

Ksenya Kiebuzinski (Brandeis University)

Ms. Kiebuzinski submitted a chapter of her dissertation on fictions of Ukraine in the nineteenth-century French culture, "A Ukrainian Joan of Arc: P.-J. Hetzel's Adaptation of 'Marousia." She examines the appropriation of a Ukrainian literary heroine, Marko Vovcok's Maroussia. Her chapter embodies an extraordinary amount and range of research, the overall argument is presented clearly and persuasively, and along the way Ms. Kiebuzinski also confronts and resolves a number of questions with solid research and skill.

The award committee, too literary scholars and a historian, was impressed by Ms. Kiebuzinski's interdisciplinary approach. She contextualized her subject well and connected her argument effectively to current historiographical discussions on republicanism and nationalism in both the Second Empire and the Third Republic. The chapter deals in a substantive, effective way with French-Ukrainian literary relations and, most basically, the interplay between literature and politics.