Finally I’ve updated my bibliography on Tolkien. You can download its full text here.
Category: News
GOST R 7.0.100-2018, “Bibliographic entry”
Published an official text of the new Russian bibliographical standard, GOST R_7.0.100-2018, “Bibliographic entry”, issued in late 2018, in force since 1 July. It replaced an older standard, GOST 7.1-2003. Both standards are developed mostly for library catalogues, so in academic publications in Russian, one should still follow GOST R 7.0.5-2008, “Bibliographic citation”, designed as an addition to GOST 7.1-2003. It will probably be replaced with a new standard later.
See also Russian Bibliography Standards.
Goodbye, Kubinka?
The Tank Museum in Kubinka, Moscow Oblast, doesn’t exist any more. Officially it’s called now ‘museum space no. 2 of the Patriot Park’, and almost all the most interesting exhibits have been transferred somewhere to the central part of the park itself (kilometres away), including almost entire collection of German World War II tanks and self-propelled guns (although several exhibits still remain on their places, the collection is therefore divided into parts), almost all the Soviet Second World War tanks, at least part of Western World War II tanks and even the English tank of the First World War. What still remains are mostly the Soviet Cold War tanks, self-propelled guns and armoured personnel carriers, including a lot of experimental ones, and also a collection of English and American Cold War tanks. It’s interesting, too, but mostly for area specialists.
They have just plundered the museum. Someone may think it’s patriotism, but for me it seems much more like the Nazy invasion. Kubinka used to be the biggest, and probably the best, tank museum in the world. Now I have to write about it in the past tense…
And Once More about the Geography of Middle-Earth
About a month ago I received a surprising invitation to give a lecture on Limmud Moscow 2018 conference about… the geography and cartography of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth 😉 So this Saturday, from 11:30 to 12:30 PM, I’ll be talking about Tolkien’s own maps, and about how well the inhabitants of Middle-earth knew the geography of their own world, and how researchers and artists tried to imagine the Middle-earth as a whole (not only the Western Lands, a well-known map of which can be found almost in every publication of The Lord of the Rings), and finally, how the geography of the East and the South of Middle-earth could ‘really’ look like, according to available texts. Hope it’ll be interesting 🙂
Moscow, Election Ward 2733
This was my second experience of observation of the elections after the spring of 2012; this year the number of observers was much smaller. I was to work at Election Ward 2733, in my neighbourhood, just fifteen minutes on foot from my home, that was very convenient as in 2012, I worked in another part of Moscow and had to spend the night at another observer’s place because the metro was already closed when we finished the vote counting. The voting premises were organized at a school, the election commission consisted mostly of the teachers from that school. The chairman was appointed in the beginning of this year, one could see that she did not know the rules too well yet. There were three more observers besides me, but one of them was observing the elections for the first time and did not know well the procedure and two others were from the Civic Chamber and were rather passive. The members of the election commission behaved very politely and kindly with the observers—it was quite the opposite to what I saw in 2012. Besides the commission and observers, one more woman was present at the voting premises almost all the time, the members of the commission said she was from the local administration; but she didn’t try to interfere with their activities.
A kind of street parties was organised outdoors, as the authorities tried to catch a voter and to provide a high enough election turnout. A ‘social centre’ was established in the entrance hall of the school, but I couldn’t understand what it was. They also brought a laptop with external speakers to the voting premises and played again and again the same songs about Moscow that was a bit strange because it was the elections of the President, not of the Moscow mayor. The songs were mostly Soviet, but of different styles, probably in order to capture the attention of various groups of people.
There were quite a lot of people, especially between twelve and three o’clock—up to 250 persons an hour. The voting premises were provided with electronic ballot-boxes, so the observers didn’t have to count the voters manually, we just wrote out the figures from the displays every half an hour. Only nineteen persons voted at home, without any incident. It was one more good news; previously, voting at home was used by the election commissions as one more opportunity for falsifications.
Electronic ballot-boxes were used for the first time at that election ward, so people responded to them as to a strange marvel, but with a good sense of humour: some people couldn’t understand how to cast vote into the urn correctly, many took photos near the ballot box, or captured on video the process of ‘absorption’ of the ballot paper by the scanner. Some people answered to the scanner when it said, ‘Thank you. You have polled your vote.’
It often seemed to me that no secrecy of ballot existed for many people at all. Many voters were carrying their ballot papers from the polling booth to the ballot box openly, so that others could see their marks on the paper. They just didn’t guess that they had a right not to show their ballot to everybody around.
The commission didn’t follow the rules properly, but the violations were not serious and were caused more by some piece of inaccuracy or by insufficient knowledge of the laws and instructions than by a fraudulent intent. This was also quite different from what I saw in 2012 when a much more experienced chairman of an election commission was violating the regulations almost defiantly. The behaviour of the election commission members, at least in Moscow, seems to have notably changed during these six years.
The general result: 1,905 persons took part in the voting of 3,259 voters registered at the electoral district, or 62 per cent. Putin took premier place (that was not a surprise, unfortunately), this time with 1,335 votes, or 70 per cent. With such a high level of national craziness no falsifications are necessary at all. The Communist candidate, Pavel Grudinin, was the second one, but he got only 257 votes (13.5 per cent). Grigory Yavlinsky, the main liberal candidate, got 58 votes and took the fourth place (nationwide, he took only the fifth place). Fifty two persons voted against all the candidates, either taking their ballot papers home, or putting several marks instead of one so that the electronic ballot-box counted the paper as invalid.
It’s interesting to compare these results to the unofficial results of 2012 presidential elections. According to independent calculations, the real election turnout was then 50 per cent, and 50 per cent of them voted for Putin. It means the number of active Putin supporters was some 25 per cent of the total adult population, while another 25 per cent voted against Putin and 50 per cent didn’t take part in the voting. This year, at least in ‘my’ electoral district, active supporters of Putin make some 44 per cent of total adult population, while only 19 per cent voted for his rivals. Whether it was due to a ‘voter’s strike’ announced by Aleksei Navalny is a question that needs further investigation. Anyway, 38 per cent of the voters preferred to stay at home or to go elsewhere; if they came to the election ward, the results of the voting could have been completely different…
Thanks to electronic ballot-boxes, I already came back home at half past eleven; if the commission had to count the ballot papers manually, it could have taken several hours.
As to my general mood now, it can be well described by a joke I heard right on the polling day. Two friends are talking about each one’s news, and one of them says, ‘You see, I try to keep a healthy lifestyle recently, I don’t smoke any more, I drink no more alcohol, and I even began to go to a fitness-club. I want very much to live up to Russia without Putin.’ I can understand him, really 😉
New Literature on Tolkien Studies
One more update for my bibliography on Tolkien studies:
- Астрединова И. Ю. Культ дерева в произведениях Дж. Р. Р. Толкина // Афанасьевский сборник. Воронеж, 2012. Вып. 12. С. 254–261.
- Браун В. Б. Аспекты средневековой философии в творчестве Дж. Р. Р. Толкина: проблема света // Вестник Ленинградского государственного университета. Сер.: Филология. 2015. № 2, т. 1. С. 87–96. Философские проблемы бытия и их художественное выражение в творчестве Толкина.
- Горбунова Я. Я. Система художественных образов в романе Дж. Р. Р. Толкина «Властелин колец» // Русский язык и классическая литература в поликультурной среде. Якутск, 2013. С. 131–135.
- Нестерова Е. А. Возвышенность как место реализации сакрального сюжета во «Властелине колец» Дж. Р. Р. Толкиена // Сюжетология и сюжетография. Новосибирск, 2015. № 2. С. 62–68.
- Нестерова Е. А. «Емкость» и «Вместилище» как семантическое поле, организующее образ главного героя Дж. Р. Р. Толкиена // Вестник университета Российской академии образования. 2015. № 3. С. 117–119. Анализ образов главных героев «Хоббита» и ВК.
- Нестерова Е. А. Специфика сюжетного параллелизма в творчестве Дж. Р. Р. Толкиена // Сюжетология и сюжетография. Новосибирск, 2014. № 2. С. 29–36.
- Перцева В. Г. Роль словарей языка писателей в переводе художественных произведений (на материале имен собственных в трилогии Дж. Р. Р. Толкиена “The Lord of the rings”) // Художественная литература в пространстве перевода. М., 2015. С. 164–167.
- Пологова И. Д. Соотношение образов главного героя и злодея в жанре фэнтези // Язык и репрезентация культурных кодов: V Международная научная конференция молодых ученых (Самара, 15–16 мая 2015 г.). Самара, 2014 (печ. 2015). С. 168–170.
- Поринец Ю. Ю. Изображение добра и зла во «Властелине колец» Д. Р. Р. Толкина и «Волшебнике Земноморья» У. Ле Гуин // Научная дискуссия: вопросы филологии, искусствоведения и культурологии. 2013. № 12(19). С. 92–96.
- Поринец Ю. Ю. Изображение «иного мира» в англоязычной фантастике середины XX века в произведениях Д. Р. Р. Толкина и К. С. Льюиса // Диалог и взаимовлияние в межлитературном процессе. СПб., 2015. Вып. 19: Единство и национальное своеобразие в мировом литературном процессе. С. 169–170.
- Симанова Д. Е. К вопросу перевода имен и названий в произведениях Дж. Р. Р. Толкина // Актуальные вопросы зарубежной филологии, лингвокультурологии, межкультурной коммуникации, методики преподавания иностранных языков. Кострома, 2015. С. 23–31.
- Темиргазина З. К., Абрамова А. Некоторые примеры создания Дж. Р. Р. Толкиеном окказиональных слов на основе заимствований // Славянские чтения — 10. Омск, 2015. С. 101–106.
- Четова Н. Й. Роль авторских интенций в формировании концептуального пространства воображаемого в произведениях Дж. Р. Р. Толкиена // Филологические науки в МГИМО. 2013. № 52(67). С. 164–169.
- Шустова Э. В. Особенности и этапы исследования творчества Дж. Р. Р. Толкина в российском литературоведении // Филологические науки: вопросы теории и практики. Тамбов, 2015. № 8, ч. 1. С. 210–213.
Download the bibliography (PDF, 147 Kb, in Russian).
Quod erat demonstrandum: INION Is to Move To the VINITI Building
The situation around my Institute became relatively clear on yesterday afternoon. At two o’clock our acting director Ilia Zaitsev and our ex-director Yuri Pivovarov were called to the FANO where they were told the INION was to move to the building of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI) in Usievicha Street near the Sokol metro station. The FANO has already tried to force us to do so last year, but we refused. First, at the same time it was talked a lot about the perspectives of our merger with the VINITI that is completely unacceptable for us as our institutes are quite different and, taking into account the today’s conditions in Russia, such a merger will the most probably cause nothing except further shortage of funding. Second, the VINITI is placed in the opposite part of Moscow, and we still use our old building in Profsoiuznaia Street and have one more small office in Dmitriia Ul’ianova Street, so it won’t be suitable for us at all if some of our departments are placed so far away. Third, Zaitsev visited the VINITI building last year and says the rooms that are proposed to us are in a poor condition. In winter time, for instance, we’ll have to work like in a fridge because windows need a repair.
It seems that this time people at the FANO have taken into account their last year’s unsuccessful experience and decided first to use Aleksei Pavlov and his enterprise in order to frighten us so that later they could play a role of our ‘saviours’. At the same time, however, they say they have no money for our move, nor for a repair in the VINITI building. Our Institute has no money for that either. No more information is available now, I’ll write again when I find out anything else.
News from INION
…are more and more like war communiques. The ‘repair’ is going on; the colleagues who are in the building say they have called the police. The workers are meanwhile tearing out the parquet in the conference hall where our tomorrow staff meeting is to take place and are taking the chairs out. The company that is managing the building is acting like bandits.
The expulsion of the INION, latest news
The message that our academic secretary sent to the internal mailing list on Saturday evening is worth to be quoted word for word:
Dear colleagues!
For those who was not [in our building] in Krzhizhanovskogo Street, I can report that they are setting us at naught meanly. It is not a matter of harmless rhythmic knocking that is bringing headache. The workers are tearing off the parquet in respirators. The air is full of dust. And our employees have no respirators.
Some part of the first floor is covered with sand now. The same thing will soon happen with fourth and fifth floors as well.
The administration of the Institute asks everyone who will physically be able to come to the staff meeting on Tuesday at twelve not to fail to come.
When this ‘repair’ was just beginning on Thursday, we thought it was an attempt to put a scare into us. But probably things are much more serious, and they are trying to produce unbearable conditions for us in order to paralyze our work and thus to force us physically out of the building. I wonder what will happen next week…
Is INION to Move Again?
I wanted to write finally something positive about my Institute, but the only really positive news is still that we still continue working, despite all the difficulties, and our work is surprisingly successful. However, even this is in question since yesterday.
First, when we came to work in the morning, we saw strange workers in our building ‘repairing’ the floor. The results of their work look like this:
This was only the beginning. At about one o’clock, our acting director Ilia Zaitsev received an official paper with a claim that we are to ‘vacate’ the building in seven business days. No other housing was proposed instead. This requires some additional explanation.
Our main building in Nakhimovskii Prospect was destroyed by a heavy fire in January 2015. The construction of a new building is only to begin next year. Several weeks after the fire, we were given four floors in another building in Krzhizhanovskogo Street as a temporary housing and were proposed we would be given the other two floors as well later. Formally, our Institute is a part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but during its infamous ‘reform’ in 2013, all its institutes were subordinated to the newly established Federal Agency of Scientific Organizations (FANO). The building in Krzhizhanovskogo Street belongs to the Academy of Sciences, but is managed by a state enterprise that is also subordinated to the FANO. D’you think it is to provide us the best working conditions?—Not at all. Its director Aleksei Pavlov has tried to force us out of the building since the very first month after we settled in here, and the FANO has been pretending not to be able to do anything with it all this time. By the moment, he only managed to force us off the ground floor that is now rented to a dental clinic, a shop of paints and lacquers, and a hookah lounge. It’s by him that the yesterday’s paper is sighed.
He argues the building is in a critical condition. But as far as we know, none of the commercial organizations on the ground floor is required to move away, in spite of that ‘critical condition’ of the building. Moreover, Pavlov signed an agreement with our Institute only a short time ago that allows us to use the building at least until 31 December. He didn’t probably know anything about the ‘critical condition’ of the building while signing that agreement. And three days ago, the acting President of the Academy of Sciences Valerii Kozlov proposed to unite our Institute with the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (VINITI). It’s an old idea, first proposed a year ago. And it’s completely unacceptable for us because our Institute and the VINITI do quite a different work, and an attempt to make our Institute a part of the VINITI will most probably mean the liquidation of our Institute. So it seems that the yesterday’s events were not an initiative of Pavlov, but something much more serious.
Our nearest plan is to organize a staff meeting on Tuesday. We also hope to receive an official explanations from the FANO by that time. They were pretending not to know anything almost all the day yesterday, but in the evening they had to give some comments to the journalists after we published the news about our expulsion in mass media. Now they are lying through the teeth that they have brought to our notice that this building is only a temporary housing and that they have already proposed us several variants of new housing. Our own administration doesn’t know anything about those ‘proposals’. I’ll write more as soon as I get any more information.