Campus & Community

Davis Center names awardees for 2002-03

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The Davis Center for Russian Studies has announced the recipients of its fellowship, dissertation, and research travel awards for 2002-03.

Postdoctoral and regional fellowships have been awarded for research at Harvard in the humanities and social sciences on Russia and the Soviet successor states. Recipients of postdoctoral fellowships and their research topics include David Brandenberger, a history concentrator, for “The Propaganda State and the Fate of Communist Idealism, 1928-1953”; and Oxana Shevel, a government concentrator, for “Refugee Policies in Post-Communist Europe: A Comparative Study of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Poland, 1990-2000.”

Regional fellowships have been awarded to Oleg Kharkhordin (University of California, Berkeley), for “The Soviet Union as an Aristotelian Project”; Georgij Levinton (Institute of Slavistics, Moscow), for “Collected Writings on Folklore and Mythology,” by Roman Jakobson (compiled, edited, translated, and annotated in Russian); and Vera J. Proskurina (Moscow State University), for “Imperial Challenges of Catherine the Great: Gender and Power in 18th-Century Russia.”

Recipients of the Fainsod Prize, awarded to incoming graduate students in the field of Russian, Soviet, or post-Soviet studies, include Daniel Hopkins (government), who plans to study the comparative politics of the former Soviet Union and Latin America; and Anna Mikoucheva (economics), whose research will address the transition to market economies and the optimal design of auctions in the first and second stages of privatization.

Dissertation completion grants have been awarded to Slavic concentrators Julia Vaingurt, “Wonderlands of the Russian avant-garde: Technology and Art in the 1920s;” and Kylie Skewes Richardson, “Case Endings in Adjectives, Participles, and Nouns in Russian.”

Abby and George O’Neill Graduate Research Travel Grants have been awarded to 24 students. The recipients, including their departments or schools, research topics, and destinations are as follows:

Susan Barba (comparative literature): “Relations between Russia and Armenia in the 1930s through the lens of poets Osip Mandelstam and Eghishe Charents,” Moscow, St. Petersburg.

Stefani Bell (REECA): “Deterioration of democracy in Russia as evidenced by NGO funding difficulties,” Moscow.

Natalia Bobrova (School of Public Health): “Prevention of mother to child HIV transmission in the Russian Federation,” Moscow, Kazan, Nizhnii Novgorod.

Jacob Emery (Slavic): “Archival research on Nabokov and on conceptions of hereditary identity in early 20th century Russia,” Moscow, St. Petersburg.

George Fitzherbert (Inner Asian and Altaic Studies): “Investigation into housing issues in Kyrgyzstan and Western Xinjiang as part of a comparative study of Soviet and Chinese nationality policies,” Kyrgyzstan, Western Xinjiang.

Anna Gessen (Slavic): “Serbian and Croatian language study in Zagreb; Art and culture of Russian monasteries in the Russian north.”

Amanda Gibson (REECA): “Interviews with women activists involved in the work and development of NGOs and local social welfare organizations in Kazakhstan,” Kazakhstan.

Melissa Griggs (REECA): “Drug trafficking and border controls in Baku,” Baku, Azerbaijan.

Alexandra Kirilcuk (Slavic): “Russian émigré poets in Prague, 1922-1939,” Prague.

John Ondrovcik (history): “Language and culture studies; comparative study of Russia and Germany, 1933-45,” St. Petersburg.

Bartosz Ostrowski (REECA): “The rupture of the EU’s ‘Rhetorical Entrapment’ and the challenges of the European Union’s enlargement to the East,” Kaliningrad, Vilnius, Warsaw.

Rachel Slayman Platonov (Slavic): “The KGB and KSP: Research in KGB archives on KSP and ‘avtorskaia pesnia,’” St. Petersburg, Moscow.

Cristian Pop-Eleches (economics): “The relationship between the availability of fertility control and various health, social, and economic outcomes in Romania.”

Mikhail Pryadilnikov (government): “Comparative strategies of state building in the post-communist context,” Russia, Poland, Czech Republic.

Kylie Skewes Richardson (Slavic): “The interaction of aspect on case marking of adjectives, participles and nouns in Russian,” St. Petersburg, Moscow, Saratov.

Giovanna Siedina (Slavic): “The reception of Horace in the courses of poetics at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy in the 17th and 18th centuries,” Kiev.

Kemal Seitveliyev (REECA): “The effect of perceived threats to Ukrainian energy security and large-scale energy infrastructure building on the dynamics of regional integration and state-building,” Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia.

Alex Spektor (Slavic): “The relationship between scientific and humanistic thought in 19th century Russia and Ukraine.”

Matthew Stern (REECA): “The search for national identity in Russia and the development of a new ‘Russian Idea,’” Moscow, St. Petersburg.

Benjamin Tromley (history): “Party mobilization in Krushchev’s USSR,” Moscow.

Julia Vaingurt (Slavic): “Wonderlands of the Russian avant-garde: technology and art in the 1920s,” Moscow, St. Petersburg.

Christina Vatulescu (comparative literature): “Police aesthetics from secret police files and films,” Bucharest, Budapest.

Alicia Walker (history of art): “Comparative study on middle Byzantine secular art,” St. Petersburg, Siberia.

Bryan Wockley (REECA): “NGOs and human rights in Serbia in the 1990s,” Belgrade.

Three Harvard undergraduates were awarded Goldman Undergraduate Summer Travel Grants to carry out thesis research during the summer. They are:

Jessica Gordon ’02 (history and science): “Estonia’s employment of biotechnology for national economic development,” Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia.

Elizabeth H. Hagan ’02 (religion): “Exploring the relationship between religion and democracy in Uzbekistan,” Tashkent.

Anna K. Weiss ’03 (history and literature): “Critical reception of Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina,’” St. Petersburg, Moscow.