Events archive

Date: 16 October 2019

Venue: Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse

In brief: A series of short talks that explored culture and diplomacy in Britain and Russia during the reigns of Catherine the Great and George III. There were two opportunities to see medals presented to the University of Edinburgh by Dashkova on the occasion of her son Paul’s graduation from the university, on a tour at the university library's Special Collections. The talks were:

• 'Courtly dancing in 18th century Russia', Alena Shmakova
• 'Rediscovering Princess Dashkova', Georgina Barker and Ben Fletcher-Watson
• 'From a bonnie prince to a Russian princess', Dr Ailsa Hutton
• 'The Russian diaspora', Professor Lara Ryazanova-Clarke

Date: 11 September 2019

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speaker: Dr Dmitry Fedosov CorrFRSE (Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow)

In brief: A lecture by Dr Fedosov that discussed the life and times of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries, the most high-ranking and respected foreigner in Russia, who helped to reform her armed forces, and twice made decisive contributions to secure the throne for the young Tsar Peter. The talk was based off the General's diaries; these took Dr Fevosov more than 20 years to publish a full scholarly edition of this work, both in the original and Russian translation.

Date: 24 August 2019

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Featured guests: Dina Berdnikova (Arbuzz), Larissa Itina (ARCC: Anglo-Russian Culture Club), Alexandrina Markvo (Bird&Carrot), Katerina Nikitina (former Zima), Vladimir Ashurkov, Irina Ioannesyan, Alexander Kan (all BBC Russian Service)

Research project: Global Russians: Transnational Russophone Networks in the UK

In brief: A one-day workshop that brought together leaders of Russian-speaking cultural entrepreneurship in the UK, and featured two panel sessions.

This event was one of a series taking place in 2019 to celebrate the centenary of Hugh G. Brennan’s first lecture on a graduating course in Russian at the University of Edinburgh.

Date: 22 May 2019

Venue: 50 George Square

Featured guests: Caroline de Guitaut and Stephen Patterson (curators)

In brief: A talk as part of the first event of the exhibition, 'Russia: Art, Royalty and the Romanovs'. It was organised by the Royal Collection Trust and featured the two curators.

Date: 16 May 2019

Venue: 50 George Square

Speakers: Samuel Greene (King's College London) and Graeme Robertson (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

In brief: An in-conversation event between the two speakers where they discussed their recently-published book, 'Putin V. the People: The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia'.

This event was one of a series in 2019 celebrating 100 years of lectures in Russian Studies at Edinburgh.

Date: 25 April 2019

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speakers: Elena Bulakh and Antonio Eduardo Mendonca (University of Lisbon)

In brief: Two presentations by Elena and Antonio exploring the effects of immigration to Portugal in the 90s and 2000s, the largest wave being Russian-speaking migrants coming from the post-Soviet countries.

Date: 28 March 2019

Venue: 50 George Square

Speaker: Famil Ismailov (News Editor at BBC Russian Service)

In brief: A lecture that served as the keynote presentation of the ‘Transnational and Diasporic Russophone Media in the UK and Beyond’ international workshop. It concerned how future audiences navigate Russian-speaking transnational media.

This lecture was one of a series in 2019 celebrating 100 years of lectures in Russian Studies at Edinburgh.

Date: 28 February 2019

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

In brief: An international workshop summarised with a general discussion, chaired by Lara Ryazanova-Clarke (University of Edinburgh), and followed by a wine reception. The four talks featured at the workshop were:

• Urban multilingualism and the Russian language in Moscow - Julia Mazurova (Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences)
• The ‘Russian Word’: Power and Potentiality in Russian Language Provision in Dushanbe - Polina Kliuchnikova (University of Durham)
• Language Policy and language ideologies in the Russian Capital City - Denis Zubalov (Higher School of Economics, Moscow)
• Migrant children in the Moscow school: educational rights and everyday challenges - Marina Raskladkina (Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences)

This workshop was a collaboration between the ‘Multilingual Moscow’ project (Higher School of Economics), the OWRI ‘Cross-Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community’ Projects at the Universities of Edinburgh and Durham, and the Princess Dashkova Russian Centre (The University of Edinburgh).

Date: 7 February 2019

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speaker: Professor Irina Sandomirskaja (Södertörn University, Sweden)

In brief: A lecture by Professor Sandomirskaja which explored the cultural restoration of palaces in and around Leningrad after the Second World War, and the socio-cultural attitudes towards loss and remembering. The lecture also featured fragments from a Soviet film about a post-war woman conservator, and was followed by a wine reception.

Date: 29 November 2018

Venue: St Cecilia's Hall

In brief: An interactive event that featured costumed actors playing Princess Dashkova, Catherine the Great, Horace Walpole, Frederick the Great, Diderot, Voltaire, Garrick, Benjamin Franklin, William Robertson, Derzhavin, Alexander Herzen, modern-day poets Elena Shvarts and Novella Matveeva and many others. It was followed by a performance of one of Dashkova’s own compositions, performed on St Cecilia’s eighteenth-century organ, and a discussion over refreshments.

Date: 11 November 2018

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

In brief: Author Anastasia Strokina talked about the creative process, becoming an author, and using Northern and ecological themes in her writing, as well as awarding prizes to the winners of the knigu.ru book competition. This event was in Russian.

Date: 8 November 2018

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speaker: Dr Claire Shaw (University of Warwick)

In brief: A talk by Dr Shaw which explored the issue of miscommunication in Cold War politics by looking at Soviet participation in the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD), as well as the impact of the tense combination of internationalism and propaganda on both the unfolding of international deaf politics in the twentieth century, and for the way that the history of deaf identity has subsequently been told.

Date: 4 November 2018

Venue: 50 George Square

In brief: A Children's Book Club meeting in which participants discussed a book by award-winning author Anastasia Strokina - 'The Whale Swims North'.

Date: 18 October 2018

Venue: 50 George Square

Speaker: Dr Nina Scherbak (St. Petersburg State University)

In brief: A talk by Dr Schebak which concentrated on the possible ways of changing the literary tradition to adapt it to a wider audience. The talk discussed screen versions of Russian novels such as films based on Vladimir Nabokov’s novels, shorter adaptations of Ivan Bunin’s novellas and a documentary film about the poet Georgy Ivanov.

Date: 4 October 2018

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speaker: Victoria Fomina (Central European University, Budapest)

In brief: A talk about the cult of new martyr Evgenii Rodionov, a soldier who was killed in Chechnya, which explored how he has become a public symbol of patriotism and private moral exemplar in post-Soviet Russia.

Date: 15 June 2018

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speaker: Professor Ekaterina Protassova (University of Helsinki)

In brief: A keynote talk as part of a wider symposium. It was based off a study undertaken by Professor Protassova, along with Olga Kagan, Miriam Minkov and Mila Schwartz, in which they took about 60 bilinguals (heritage speakers of Russian) aged 15-18 in the US, Israel, Germany and Finland and asked them about their use of languages, networking, feelings of belonging and ties to the countries of origin of their parents.

Date: 5 June 2018

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speaker: Professor Alexander Etkind (European University Institute, Florence)

In brief: A presentation of Professor Etkind's most recent publication, 'Roads Not Taken: An Intellectual Biography of William C. Bullitt', the subject of which was William C. Bullitt, journalist, diplomat, and writer, and which was based on unpublished papers and diplomatic documents from the Russian archives.

Date: 17 April 2018

In brief: Award-winning author Shamil Idiatullin read from his book Brezhnev City and talked about contemporary Russian literature.

Date: 8 March 2018

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Guest speaker: Sheila Sim

In brief: An illustrated talk by translator and garden photographer, Sheila Sim, in collaboration with the Scotland-Russia Forum. Sheila discussed Russian garden history from the Middle Ages to the present day.

Date: 19 February 2018

In brief: Ivan Fomin, in Edinburgh as part of an Erasmus staff exchange delegation hosted by the Dashkova Centre, spoke about memes.

Date: 8 February 2018

Venue:  50 George Square

Guest speaker: Professor Peter France (former University of Edinburgh)

In brief: A talk by Professor Peter France to celebrate the launch of his latest publication, 'Writings from the Golden Age of Russian Poetry' (Columbia University Press). Professor France discussed one of the creators of modern Russian poetry, Konstantin Batyushkov, and illustrated his points by readings in Russian and English. The event was followed by an informal reception.

Date: 27 November 2015

In brief: Dmitry Krylov is an author, director, and host of the cycle of TV programmes on travel. In 1991 he visited the USA and Great Britain. He talked about his documentary TV series entitled ‘Neputevye Zametki’ describing the life of the citizens in the countries he visited.

Dates: 26 and 27 November 2015

Venue: The Princess Dashkova Russian Centre, 14 Buccleuch Place

Research strand: Global Russians: Transnational russophone networks in the UK

In brief: This workshop developed the ‘Global Russian’ research strand and is part of the research project ‘Travelling Cultures: Discourses of Russian Tourism in Scotland’. It brought together international scholars examining tourism from the linguistic, historical and cultural perspectives, and the practitioners who produce tourist discourses. The workshop explored tourist narratives as a product of cross-cultural interaction, and addressed the questions of how globalisation affects the narratives produced for and by Russian tourists, and what meanings are attached to the newly emerged phenomenon of the Russian globe-trotter.

It also featured an evening with Dmitry Krylov, a travel journalist and author of ‘Neputevye Zametki’, chaired by y Lara Ryazanova-Clarke and Vera Zvereva (University of Edinburgh).

Dates: 26 November 2015

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre, 14 Buccleuch Place

Research strand: Global Russians: Transnational russophone networks in the UK

Keynote speaker: Diane Koenker (University of Illinois)

In brief: Part of a two-day workshop entitled 'The Global Russian: International Travel as Cultural and Linguistic Practices', which itself is part of the research project ‘Travelling Cultures: Discourses of Russian Tourism in Scotland’ within the Global Russians research strand. This lecture was given by Professor Diane Koenker, who was at the time Professor of History at the University of Illinois, specialising in modern Russian and Soviet history.

Date: 12 November 2015

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speaker: Dr Vadim Golubev (St Petersburg State University)

Title: British and Russian Media Language: Cultural and Linguistic Aspects of English-Russian Translation

In brief: A lecture which discussed the Russian translations of British newspaper articles published on the inoSMI.ru website (inoSMI standing for “foreign mass media in Russian”). Dr Golubev explored translation approaches used by the website including abridged translation, translation summary and other choices motivated by a political agenda.

Date: 6 November 2015

Venue: Chrystal Macmillan Building

Speaker: Professor Mark Beissinger (Princeton University)

In brief: A seminar in which Professor Beissinger explored the changing character of revolution as a mode of regime-change using a new dataset on revolutionary episodes from 1900 to 2014.

Date: 5 November 2015

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speaker: Dr Margaret Beissinger (Princeton University)

In brief: A talk which explored a trend among some Romani professional traditional musicians (lăutari, sg. lăutar) to adopt the Pentecostal faith, a transformation that radically alters their lives, and how that adoption affects their families and incomes.

Date: 29 October 2015

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Speaker: Peter France (Honorary Fellow, French and Francophone Studies, LLC)

In brief: A book launch event in celebration of Peter France's most recent publication as translator, 'Yevgeny Baratynsky. Half-Light and Other Poems'. The event featured poetry readings and an introduction by Peter.

Date: 20 October 2015

Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop

Speaker: Professor Derek Offord (University of Bristol)

In brief: A book launch event for Professor Offord's recently-published two-volumed 'French and Russian in Imperial Russia'. The book explored the profound impact of the French language and culture on Russian high society and consciousness in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Date: 1 October 2015

In brief: Dr Diana Izmailyan is a Lecturer at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow. In her seminar, Dr Izmailyan explored ideologies and politics of discursive representations of the Russian economy in the British printed media.

Date: 22 September 2015

In brief: The roundtable discussion explored the continued influence of one of the greatest world’s novelists of all time, and discussed the new visions of Tolstoy for the 21st Century. The discussion was moderated by Dr Sarah Hudspith (University of Leeds). The leading speakers were Pavel Basinskiy (writer, literary critic, Moscow) and Andrey Baldin (essayist, Moscow).

Date: 18 September 2015

In brief: In this Russian-language event, Lev Lurie presented his guidebook of the city. He is one of the best-known St. Petersburg journalists, and, since he is a fourth generation Petersburger, that city figures heavily in his work.

He is editor-in-chief of Kvartalny Nadziratel magazine, a journalist and host of various broadcast programs, including on Echo Moskvy radio in St. Petersburg, NTV and TVT's television channels.

Date: 11 September 2015

In brief: David MacFadyen is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles. In his talk, Professor MacFadyen offered a quick guide to the Russian web, in terms of song and music.

Date: 11 June 2015

Venue: 50 George Square

Speaker: Jack Matlock (US Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1987-1991))

Title: The Ukrainian Crisis: Reflections on Power in Today's World

In brief: The Fulbright Lecture in 2015 was given by Ambassador Matlock, US Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1987-1991), Special Assistant to the President for National Security (1983-1986), and Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1981-1983). He was also an Honorary Member of the Dashkova Centre.

Date: 21 May 2015

In brief: Michael Gorham is an Associate Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Florida, and Associate Editor of Russian Review and Russian Language. He researches internet regulations and attempts of Russian authorities to bring the internet under State control.

Date: 14 May 2015

In brief: Dr Kalinin is Associate Professor at the Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Smolny College) at St- Petersburg State University. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal Neprikosnovennyi Zapas: Debaty o politike i kul'ture (NZ: Debates on Politics and Culture).

In this talk, Dr Kalinin analysed one of the most important tropes in Soviet culture - outer space. He argued that it constituted a complex topological arena in which the technological conquest of nature acquired a new dimension of meaning.

Date: 7 May 2015

In brief: Jan Levtchenko is a Professor of Arts and Visual Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia). His presentation aimed to retrace both theoretic and poetic paths in literature that Victor Shklovsky, the famous Russian literary theorist, and the founder of Russian Formalist School, was able to pioneer thanks to his war experience.

Date: 19 March 2015

Venue: Old College

Speaker: Charles Hendry MP

In brief: A lecture given by then-current Member of Parliament for Wealden, Charles Hendry. Charles was also Trade Envoy to Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and had also been appointed as Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh, associated with both the Business School and the Academy of Government.

Date: 11 February 2015

Venue: 50 George Square

Featured guest: Dr Avril Pyman (University of Durham)

In brief: A premiere screening of a documentary about the artist Kirill Sokolov (1930 - 2004) directed by Benjamin Sadd, which explored the life and work of the major contemporary Russian artist. The screening was then followed by a lecture from leading translator of Russian poetry into English, Dr Avril Pyman, titled 'The Concept of Tragedy in Russian Silver Age Thought'.

Date: 5 February 2015

Speaker: Dr Rose France (University of Edinburgh)

In brief: Dr Rose France is a Tutor in Russian language and literature at the University of Edinburgh and a freelance interpreter and translator. Her research interests include the works of Mikhail Zoshchenko, literary translation and 19th and 20th century Russian literature.

This talk was an attempt at an ‘Aesopian’ interpretation of generally neglected work by the writer Mikhail Zoshchenko, a fictional Civil War memoir, 'Retribution'.

Dates: 12 and 13 December 2014

Venue: 50 George Square

Keynote speaker: Professor Stephen Hutchings (Manchester University)

In brief: This conference set out to explore practices of cross-cultural communication between Russia and Britain in the 21st century. It focused on the forms and systems of meaning making in a variety of cultural fields in dialogue.

It featured five panels, two roundtables, the keynote lecture, an exhibition, a journal presentation, and was preceded by a concert called 'Russian Choral Music with a Christmas Flavour', performed by Russkaya Cappella.

Dates: 25 and 26 October 2013

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Keynote speaker: Helena Goscilo (Ohio State University)

In brief: A two-day international conference aimed to facilitate an interdisciplinary investigation of the linguistic and cultural forms, codes and practices associated with the Russian ‘creative’/‘middle class’. It featured a keynote talk, five panels, and a forum presentation.

Date: 27 November 2014

Speaker: Svetlana Adonieva

In brief: Svetlana Adonieva is a Folklorist and Anthropologist, Professor at the Department of the History of Russian Literature of Saint Petersburg State University. In her talk, Professor Adonieva discussed the act of remembering the dead as one of the main rituals that creates social cohesion in the rural community.

Date: 18 November 2014

In brief: Diana Arbenina is a singer, musician, writer, and leader of the band “The Night Snipers”. This evening of reading and discussion was dedicated to her latest book ‘The Sprinter’, a collection of poetry and prose.

Dates: 3 and 4 September 2013

Organisers: UCRS, Centre for Baltic and Eastern European Studies at Södertörn University (Sweden), The Princess Dashkova Russian Centre, the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures of Stockholm University, with participation of colleagues from St. Petersburg University and Queen Mary University of London

In brief: This two-day international workshop took place in Stockholm with the purpose of initiating a broader multidisciplinary international network to study new aspects in the relations between language and power in the USSR and Russia. It featured eight talks from academics.

Date: September 2014

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre 

In brief: An interview with Maria Rybakova, recorded before presentation of her latest works 'Gnedich' (2011) and 'First Draft of a Human Being' (2014) in the Dashkova Centre.

Date: 13 November 2014

In brief: Varia Christie was awarded a doctoral degree from Edinburgh University in 2013. In her talk on the legislative attempts to control the use of obscenities in works of literature she discussed the most recent set of amendments to the Law on State Language in Russia.

Date: 30 October 2014

In brief: In this talk, Robert Saunders, Professor in the Department of History and Political Science at State University of New York-Farmingdale, discussed a part of his new research project ‘Laughable Nations: Parodying the Post-Soviet Republics’.

Date: 16 October 2014

In brief: In this talk, Denis Akhapkin, Associate Professor and Deputy Dean of Academics at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of Saint Petersburg State University (Smolny College), discussed ‘Ambiguity as a rhetorical device in literary and political discourse’.

Date: 26 April 2013

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Organisers: The Princess Dashkova Russian Centre, University of Glasgow, and the Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies

In brief: This one-day conference explored Russia's contemporary politics through the lens of civil society and various 'bottom-up' social movements and organisations. It featured four panels.

Date: 14 March 2013

In brief: This one-day conference featured contributions from Roman Leibov (Tartu University), Lara Ryazanova-Clarke (University of Edinburgh), Mikhail Epstein (Durham and Emory Universities), Tine Roesen (Aarhus University), Maxim Krongauz (Russian State Humanitarian University), and Rose France (University of Edinburgh).

Dates: 24 and 25 January 2013

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Keynote speaker: Vladimir Alpatov (Russian Academy of Sciences)

In brief: A two-day symposium with the objective to contextualise the Russian language within the new and rapidly developing field of sociolinguistics of globalisation and to provide collectively a critical reflection on the theoretical challenges posed by Russian as a global language. It featured a keynote talk, four panels, and a brainstorming roundtable.

Date: 13 March 2013

In brief: Russian writer, poet and journalist Dmitry Bykov read selections of his poetry at this event, which was held in Russian.

Date: 7 February 2013

In brief: In this talk, Alexander Etkind, Professor of Russian Literature and Cultural History at the University of Cambridge, discussed the themes of his new book, "Internal Colonization: Russia's Imperial Experience".

Date: 22 October 2012

In brief: Victor Shnirelman is of Russia's leading anthropologists, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Moscow Academy of Sciences. In this talk he discussed 'The Politics of a Name: Between Consolidation and Separation in the Northern Caucasus'.

Date: 5 October 2012

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Keynote speaker: Professor Stephen Hutchings (University of Manchester)

In brief: This one-day interdisciplinary conference examined ideological production in Russian language and culture through the multiple tools of inclusion and exclusion. By bringing together scholars from diverse backgrounds within the broad field of Russian studies, it explored different disciplinary perspectives on practices of inclusion and exclusion.

Dates: 31 August to 1 September 2012

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

Keynote speaker: Professor Anthony Cross (Cambridge University)

In brief: In partnership with the 2012 Catherine the Great Exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland, which features exhibits from the collection of Russia's State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, this 3-day conference revolved around the socio-cultural shifts in the Russian language brought about by exposure to Enlightenment thinking. It featured a keynote lecture, three panels and a roundtable discussion.

Date: 15 March 2012

Venue: Princess Dashkova Russian Centre

In brief: With invited speakers from Belarus, the US and Scotland, this one-day conference examined the parallels in attitudes and policies towards language management in Belarus and Scotland. The conference featured two panels and a roundtable discussion and was followed by a reception and dinner in the Elder Room at Old College.

In brief: Dr Petre Petrov, of Princeton University, examined "gnomic expressions", statements that convey the kind of "timeless wisdom" often found in proverbs, which acquired a salient presence in Stalinist political discourse of the 1930s, and showed how their semantic peculiarities illuminate the character of early Soviet ideology.

Date: 2012

In brief: Chaired by the Dashkova Centre's Deputy Director, Dr Luke March, this event examined different themes surrounding the 2012 Russian elections.