RUSSELL LECTURES ABOUT ARMENIAN-SLAVIC FOLKLORE CONNECTIONS THURSDAY

Belmont Citizen-Herald
fun/entertainment/books/x802009282/Russell-lecture s-about-Armenian-Slavic-folklore-connections-Thurs day
Sept 9 2008
MA

Prof. James R. Russell, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at
Harvard University, will give the first lecture of NAASR’s fall
2008 series on Thursday, Sept. 11, at the National Association for
Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) Center, 395 Concord Ave. in
Belmont. Prof. Russell’s lecture will be entitled "The Rime of the
Book of the Dove: Zoroastrian Cosmology, Armenian Heresiology, and
the Russian Novel." The lecture will be a "Roman Jakobson Memorial
Lecture" in honor of the pioneering linguist, Slavicist, folklorist,
and one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century, NAASR Founding
Member Prof. Roman Jakobson (1896-1982).

The spiritual ballad or poem, or Coleridgean "rime," the "Book of
the Dove" (Rus. Golubinaia kniga, Stikh o golubinoi knige) exists in
a number of transcribed oral variants, most of which were collected
in northern and northwestern Russia — emanating most likely from
the region of Great Novgorod. The poem relates the deep secrets,
that is, the ones that concern cosmology. It has been called the
"pearl of the Russian mythological epic."

Russian Text with Armenian and Iranian Sources Many aspects of the
"Book of the Dove" suggest an Iranian source, and in the Byzantine
period the route of transmission would have been Armenia, most likely
via oral teachings transmitted by itinerant preachers and minstrels,
of the adherents of heterodox sects that flourished in Armenia at
that time.

In this lecture, Prof. Russell will take a subterranean (and, at
times, submarine) journey through the dark world of medieval Russian
folklore and Armenian and Iranian religion and spirituality, with
detours through the visionary poetry of Grigor Narekatsi and the
groundbreaking novels of Vladimir Nabokov.

Prof. James R. Russell has been the Mashtots Professor of Armenian
Studies at Harvard University since 1992. His books include "Bosphorus
Nights: The Complete Lyric Poems of Bedros Tourian," "Armenian and
Iranian Studies," "The Book of Flowers, An Armenian Epic: The Heroes
of Kasht, Zoroastrianism in Armenia," and "Hovhannes Tlkurantsi and
the Medieval Armenian Lyric Tradition."

Tribute to Roman Jakobson, a NAASR Founding Member With Prof. Russell’s
lecture — one of numerous examples of his explorations of Armenian
and Slavic linguistic, cultural, and literary connections — comes
an opportunity to pay tribute to a predecessor at Harvard who looked
at similar issues. Roman Jakobson is considered the father of modern
structural linguistics, the founder of phonology, and one of the
leading Slavi-cists of his time. A founder of the pre-revolution Moscow
Linguistic Circle and later the famed Prague School of Linguistics,
his work has been a profound influence on all who have followed him,
including Claude Levi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Paul Ricoeur, Gilles
Deleuze, and Jacques Lacan.

Among Jakobson’s interests, albeit not one for which he is well known,
was medieval Armenian literature and Armenian folklore. Jakobson
received his bachelor’s degree at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental
Languages in Moscow (established in the early 19th century by the
Armenian Lazarev/Lazarian family), where he learned Armenian and
became interested in Armenian affairs.

Jakobson was the Samuel Hazzard Cross Professor of Slavic Languages
and Literatures at Harvard when NAASR was developing in the 1950s
and NAASR Chairman Emeritus Manoog S. Young recalls meeting Jakobson
through Prof. Richard N. Frye, also a NAASR founding member. He took a
keen interest in NAASR’s early development and the growth of Armenian
Studies and participated in the first ever NAASR symposium in June
1955 on "Armenian Studies and Research — Problems and Needs." He also
spoke at NAASR’s second anniversary symposium in 1957, giving a talk
on "The Importance of Ancient and Medieval Armenian Liter-ature." In
1964, Prof. Jakobson gave a NAASR-sponsored lecture at Harvard on
"Slavic and Armenian Questions in the Middle Ages."

Admission to the event is free (donations appreciated). The NAASR
Center is located opposite the First Armenian Church and next to the
U.S. Post Office. Ample parking is available around the building and
in adjacent areas. The lecture will begin promptly at 8:00 p.m.

More information about the lecture is available by calling
617-489-1610, faxing 617-484-1759, e-mailing hq@naasr.org, or writing
to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.