The Mary Zirin Prize for Outstanding Scholarship

The new Mary Zirin Prize was instituted in 1998 to honor Independent Scholars who have made outstanding contributions to and is named for its first laureate, Mary Fleming Zirin. Independent scholars in the field often carry on their work in a material reality that often involves considerable disadvantage -- a lack of many kinds of institutional support, financial discrimination from granting agencies, and isolation from others in the profession. Nonetheless, some of the most significant and imaginative work in Slavic women's studies has been done by Independent Scholars. The Mary Zirin Award will recognize both individual scholarly works and the aggregate achievements of a scholar's career, including service to the field, breadth of imagination, and a significant role in mentoring junior scholars. Mary Fleming Zirin is the author of meticulous and lively translations, of substantial, well-researched and thought-provoking introductions, and of original scholarly work that has in many ways mapped out the directions for development of women's studies in Slavics, particularly the study of women's writing in Russia in the 19th century. Her scholarship is both an exemplary part of the field of literary study, and solidly grounded in awareness of other disciplines. Mary has already won the AWSS Lifetime Achievement Award as co-editor of the monumental Dictionary of Russian Women Writers (1994), a fundamental reference work that was also unusually wide-ranging in its inclusion of contributors. She has written many articles on Russian writers for reference works on world or European women's literature, presenting Russian women writers to a broad audience in comparative literary studies and the in Humanities in general. Besides sparking her colleagues' scholarly interest in new projects and topics, Mary offers advice and support to other scholars in the field, shaping it with her support and valuable criticism: in this way many of us have been her students.

Outstanding and productive scholarly activity is only part of the reason for the institution of this award in Mary Zirin's honor. She is a founding mother of the Association for Women in Slavic Studies, and for many years the pivotal editor of its newsletter, Women East-West, maintainer of the bibliography in Slavic and East European women's studies, and a crucial contact person for information from all over the globe, especially from Eastern Europe. Women East-West brought many of us out of disciplinary isolation and provincialism, building and strengthening bridges of communication and information that were not limited to scholarly concerns alone. In a field sometimes distinguished by a conspiratorial blandness, Mary has always been ready with a more pungent expression, willing to speak the truth, and unwilling to skirt awkward but centrally important questions. Mary Zirin is one of the most widely-known and most appreciated scholars in our field today, across disciplinary, geographical and generational boundaries.

Outstanding Achievement in Slavic Women's Studies:

Patricia Herlihy (Brown University).

Pat Herlihy is one of the women pioneers in the Slavic field. Having received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963, Pat has taught at a number of universities including Berkeley, Wisconsin, and Brown where she now teaches. Her scholarship has dealt with economic and social issues in late imperial Russian history. In 1986 she published Odessa: A History, 1794-1914, and she is currently working on a history of the temperance movement in Russia. In recent years, Pat has served on the AAASS Committee on the Status of Women and the AWSS Nominating Committee. But, perhaps most important, Pat has generously mentored younger women scholars, sharing with us her wisdom and her wit. It is for all of these reasons that we honor her today.

Best Book in Slavic Women's Studies

Gail Kligman. The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Reproduction in Ceaucescu's Romania. (University of California Press, 1998).

Gail Kligman has written an important and powerful book analyzing Ceaucescu's pronatalist policies. As she so eloquently states, the sad photos of Romanian orphans infected with AIDS which flitted across our television screens a few years ago were just one painful result of Ceaucescu's attempts at "family planning." With meticulous research and good writing, Kligman demonstrates the profound impact the state's duplicitous attempts to control reproduction had on virtually every Romanian who lived during those difficult years.

Best Book by a Woman in Slavic Studies

Irina Paperno. Suicide as a Cultural Institution in Dostoevsky's Russia. (Cornell University Press, 1997).

Irina Paperno's pathbreaking book explains the phenomenon of suicide in Russian culture. Utilizing an impressive array of philosophical, religious, legal, medical, and literary sources, Paperno places Russian views toward suicide in the European context and then shows how Russian attitudes, as expressed through the writings of Dostoevsky, influenced later Western philosophers and writers. Quite simply, Paperno's book is cultural history at its very best.

Anastasia N. Karakasidou. Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990. (University of Chicago Press, 1997).

Anastasia Karakasidou has written an exciting and nuanced account of the cultural diversity which constitutes modern-day Macedonia. Balancing historical research with field work, Karakasidou traces the evolution of nationalism in the Balkans by examining the impact of Greek, Slavic, and Turkish cultures and politics in Macedonia. This courageous book adds significantly to our understanding of the history of that troubled region.

Best Article in Slavic Women's Studies

Susan E. Reid. "All Stalin's Women: Gender and Power in Soviet Art of the 1930's." Slavic Review, 57, 1 (Spring 1998).

This article examines the role of gender in the arts under Stalin. Based on archival research as well as an excellent command of Soviet and Western secondary sources, Reid presents original, nuanced, and illuminating arguments for the complex role gender played both in the lives of women artists and in Stalinist iconography.

Best Translation in Slavic Women's Studies

Louise McReynolds, trans. and ed. The Wrath of Dionysus, authored by Evdokia Nagrodskaia. (Indiana University Press, 1997). 

Louise McReynolds has done a superb job in bringing to life for English readers a runaway bestseller from Russia's Silver Age. In her thorough and illuminating introduction, she explains the importance of Nagrodskaia's book for understanding Russian literary culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. And, in her translation of the text, McReynolds gives the flavor of Nagrodskaia's prose, which was essential to the popularity of the novel.

Sona Hoisington, trans. A Revolution of Their Own: Voices of Women in Soviet History, eds. Barbara Alpern Engel and Anastasia Posadskaia-Vanderbeck. (Westview Press, 1998).

Sona Hoisington precisely and beautifully renders transcriptions of eight interviews, recorded by Posadskaia-Vanderbeck and subsequently edited by her and Engel. Hoisington gives special attention to each interviewee's speech patterns and idiosyncrasies as well as bringing to life the dynamic between interviewer and interviewee. These eight autobiographies help enrich our understanding of Soviet history.