Susan Hickman
Ten years ago, Professor Andrew Donskov recognized that he and some of his colleagues in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures could accomplish a great deal more in their field as an established group. Since that time, the Slavic Research Group (SRG) at the University of Ottawa has evolved into a dedicated independent research unit within the Faculty of Arts, earning a solid international reputation in Slavic studies for the University.
Over the past decade, the SRG has published 26 books, mainly in the Russian and Polish fields, and has established important links with Slavic embassies and signed numerous memorandums of agreement.
“I recognized early on the need for collaborative work with other countries,” says Donskov, a world-renowned Tolstoy expert. “We have a tremendously good rapport with the Tolstoy State Museum, for example. And they have given us the exclusive rights to the translation and publication in English of valuable Tolstoy-related materials (some as yet unpublished in the original), especially works by Tolstoy’s wife, Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya.”
Under Donskov’s editorship and with the help of group members John Woodsworth and Arkadi Klioutchanski, they are working on the translation of Tolstaya’s unpublished 1500-page autobiographical memoir entitled My Life. Scheduled for release in August 2009, the book will be published by the University of Ottawa Press.
Donskov recently received the Pushkin Medal from former Russian president Vladimir Putin. This prize was created in 1999 to mark the 200th anniversary of the great Russian poet. Donskov is only one of two Canadians to receive the award. He was also the first Canadian to be granted the MAPRJaL Pushkin award in 1997 for scholarly achievements in Russian literature, and the only foreign scholar appointed to the editorial board of the new 100-volume edition of Tolstoy’s works, currently being published by the Russian Academy of Sciences.
