SRF Events

Forthcoming events listed below. For details of past events see our Annual Reports in publications.  All welcome.  Times, venues and other details vary - please check carefully.

Summary of events 2009-10 here.

Friday 17 September - Travels with a Camera in North Russia

Elizabeth Warner has been documenting the people and traditional culture, spiritual and material, of North Russia for almost fifteen years. Since 1995 she has joined colleagues from St. Petersburg University on their annual fieldwork expeditions, concentrating on Vologda and Arkhangel’sk provinces. Over the past decade she has become acutely aware of the importance of the visual image, both video-film and photography, in fixing any culture, particularly one that is disappearing.
In spite of the many privations it has endured down the centuries the rural community in north Russia has managed to preserve something of its unique way of life and mentality, with its beliefs in a multi-layered fantastic world, both Christian and pagan. Professor Warner’s talk recounts her personal experiences of the daily life, memories and worldview of the country-people she has met, interwoven with the stories behind some of her photographs.
A graduate of Edinburgh University, Professor Warner has taught at the Universities of St. Andrews, Hull and Durham, where she was head of the Department of Russian for a number of years. Her main research has been in Russian folklore and ethnography, on which she has published widely. She has a particular interest in popular demonology, myth and funeral ritual. She has also studied photography and video-production.

7.30pm, Scotland-Russia Institute, 9 South College St, Edinburgh EH8 9AA
All welcome.  Donations £2 (SRF members), £5 (non-members) payable at the door.
NB Booking essential as space is limited: phone 0131 668 3635 or email info@scotlandrussiaforum.org

Thursday 30 September - Чай н Чат

11am, Scotland-Russia Institute, 9 South College St, Edinburgh EH8 9AA
All welcome for sparkling Russian conversation over tea and cakes. No charge but contributions of cakes / help with washing up welcome. Contact 0131 668 3635 for more information.

Thursday 30 September - Kanykey Jailobaeva : The current situation in Kyrgyzstan. 

On the 10th of June 2010 an “ethnic” conflict between Kyrgyz and Uzbek people broke out in the south of Kyrgyzstan. Unfortunately, this has resulted in widespread violence, looting, and destruction. Markets, hospitals, schools, shops, cafes, and other parts of the infrastructure in Osh and Jalalabat cities have been the key targets of destruction. According to official data, over 150 people died and around 2000 are wounded. Eyewitnesses say that the number of both dead and wounded is much higher.
Almost two months have passed since the conflict took place. The situation in the south of Kyrgyzstan is much calmer at the moment. However, it is very important to explore and reflect on what, how, and why happened in June. Kanykey Jailobaeva has spent two weeks in the south of Kyrgyzstan this summer and has had a number of conversations with a variety of people in search of answers to these questions. Her talk will present views of Kyrgyz and Uzbek people on the conflict. It will also provide possible facts and factors that have caused the conflict based on data from different interviews.

Mrs. Jailobaeva is doing her PhD in sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interest is the development of a non-governmental sector and other institutions of civil society in Kyrgyzstan. Currently, she is completing her dissertation.

7.30pm, Scotland-Russia Institute, 9 South College St, Edinburgh EH8 9AA
All welcome.  Donations £2 (SRF members), £5 (non-members) payable at the door.
NB Booking essential as space is limited: phone 0131 668 3635 or email info@scotlandrussiaforum.org

Friday 7 October - student reception

A chance for Russian-speaking and Russian-learning students to meet each other. No charge. If you are a student at any of the Edinburgh universities and are interested in Russia and her neighbours (whether or not you speak any Russian) we'd love to see you - please phone 0131 668 3635 or email info@scotlandrussiaforum.org for details.

Friday 15 October - Vasily Grossman: Journalist, Witness, Artist

A talk by Robert Chandler.
Vasily Grossman covered all the main battles of the Second World War, from the defence of Moscow to the vast tank battle of Kursk and the fall of Berlin. Only eighteen months before composing The Hell of Treblinka - one of the first published accounts of a Nazi death camp - he was filing reports from the ruins of Stalingrad.
Grossman's devotion to truth has sometimes led to him being seen merely as an unusually honest and courageous witness. And the epic quality of much of his writing has sometimes blinded critics to its delicacy. In this talk - which coincides with the publication by the MacLehose Press of a selection of Grossman's stories and articles entitled The Road - Robert Chandler will discuss the subtlety of many of Grossman's perceptions and the extent to which he is not only a heroic chronicler of his age but also a supreme artist. In particular, he will focus on Grossman's dialogue with two other great writers of short stories - Isaak Babel and Andrey Platonov.
Robert Chandler is the translator of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate and Everything Flows, as well as being a co-translator of many volumes of Andrey Platonov.

Reviews of Robert's recent translation of Everything Flows: Independent 19.7.10, Irish Times 19.7.10.  A video of his coversation with Grossman's daughter, Yekaterina Korotkova-Grossman at the World Literature Weekend in June 2010 is on the LRB website.

7.30pm, Scotland-Russia Institute, 9 South College St, Edinburgh EH8 9AA
All welcome.  Donations £2 (SRF members), £5 (non-members) payable at the door.
NB Booking essential as space is limited: phone 0131 668 3635 or email info@scotlandrussiaforum.org

Friday 12 November - Recent Changes in the Russian Penal System

A talk by Martin Dewhirst.
Martin Dewhirst is now an Honorary Research Fellow of Glasgow University. He is currently the only non-Russian member of a small charitable organisation working on a project in the Urals to improve conditions of "people deprived of liberty". He has visited a prison in Verkhneural'sk, two remand centres in Ekaterinburg (and one, Lefortovo, in Moscow), a women's corrective colony near Chelyabinsk and several other institutions run by the Russian Federal Service for the Implementation of Punishments (FSIN), now part of the Ministry of Justice. A new head was recently appointed to run FSIN, and he is beginning to make important changes in the drafting and application of new penal policies in the Russian Federation. Martin will speak about this movement away from the notorious GULag.

7.30pm, Scotland-Russia Institute, 9 South College St, Edinburgh EH8 9AA
All welcome.  Donations £2 (SRF members), £5 (non-members) payable at the door.
NB Booking essential as space is limited: phone 0131 668 3635 or email info@scotlandrussiaforum.org