SRG MEMBER DONNA ORWIN, Editor of Tolstoy Studies Journal, mounted an exhibit at the University of Toronto's Robarts Library under the title Tolstoy and the arts, which ran for two and a half months in the autumn of 2003.  On 2 November, in conjunction with this exhibit, a special celebration (organised by Dr Orwin) was held  featuring a talk by the director of the Tolstoy Estate Museum at Yasnaya Polyana, Vladimir Il'ich Tolstoy (great-great-grandson of the famous writer).  Also on the programme were a performance of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata and selections from Prokofiev's opera War and peace.  The celebration was attended by more than 300 people, including SRG Director Andrew Donskov (see picture, showing, left-to-right: Andrew Donskov, Vladimir Tolstoy, Donna Orwin).  [Sept. 2004]
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ON THURSDAY 20 MAY IGOR' SOLDATENKOV, a well-known Russian artist, launched a five-day exhibit of his works at a vernissage at Centre Jacques-Auger in Gatineau (Québec), part of the National Capital Region, and a week later another exhibit at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa.  Mr Soldatenkov came to Canada at the invitation of the Slavic Research Group, which sponsored the vernissage in conjunction with the university's Vice-Rector's office, the Russian Embassy and the Gatineau-based group Les Amis des culture slaves (under the direction of Marina Klioutchanskaia).
   Academician Igor Soldatenkov, born near Moscow in 1934, embodies the essence of traditional Russian art.  His first exhibit at the age of twelve was followed by many others, guaranteeing him a national reputation and a series of awards.  In 1962 he received a degree from the prestigious Surikov Fine-Arts Academy in Moscow, where he has been teaching since 1969.  He has participated in more than 200 regional, national and international exhibits.  His most valued works are included in the permanent collections of about twenty museums in Russia and abroad.  He has visited and painted in Canada on a number of occasions.  [Sept. 2004]
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THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR TO CANADA, Dr Georgiy Mamedov, gave a lecture at the University of Ottawa on Thursday 5 February 2004, sponsored jointly by the Slavic Research Group and the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures.  His topic, "Russian-Canadian relations", drew a capacity crowd of enthusiastic students, faculty and diplomatic representatives to the University's Senate Chamber.  Dr Mamedov holds the diplomatic rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.  A graduate of the Moscow State Institute for International Relations with a Ph.D. in History, he has been with the Russian diplomatic service since 1972.  In 1991 Dr Mamedov was appointed Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.  A reception was held following the lecture.   [Feb 2004]
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IN SEPTEMBER 2003 SRG Director Andrew Donskov accompanied the University of Ottawa's Vice-Rector Academic Dr Robert Major to Moscow and St-Petersburg for consultation with Russian scholars and to sign memoranda of agreement and co-operation with Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and the University of St-Petersburg's Canada College.  These are the latest in a series of joint memoranda concluded between the University of Ottawa and various Russian and Polish scholarly institutions (at the initiative of the SRG), which not only strengthen the university's profile as a Canadian leader in world Slavic Studies but also foster a better climate for mutual understanding between citizens of Canada and those of Slavic-speaking countries.
   At the invitation of Canada College and the Canadian Consul-General in St-Petersburg (Dr Anna Biolik, also an SRG member) Dr Major gave a talk at the University of St-Petersburg as part of the Canadian government-initiated Alexander Mackenzie Memorial Lecture Series, on the images of the St-Lawrence River in Canadian literature.  Dr Major notes that "the Russians are very, very fond of their rivers and their waterways, which have a strong presence in their literary works", which enabled him to draw some interesting parallels between Russian and Canadian literary culture.  An account of the University of Ottawa visit to Russia will be published in a forthcoming issue of the University of Ottawa Gazette..  [Nov. 2003]
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THREE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCESwere held in August and September 2003 (at Yasnaya Polyana, Tula and Moscow) to mark the 175th anniversary of the birth of writer Leo Tolstoy.  The event began with the "Third International Conference on Tolstoy and World Literature" at the Yasnaya Polyana Tolstoy Museum Estate (Muzej-usad'ba L.N. Tolstogo "Jasnaja Poljana"), which was co-organised by Yasnaya Polyana Museum Director Vladimir Tolstoy, Head of the Museum's Academic Research Division Galina Alexeeva and SRG external member Donna Orwin of the University of Toronto (and Editor of the Tolstoy Studies Journal).  Also representing the Slavic Research Group at this celebration was SRG Administrative Assistant and Research Associate John Woodsworth, who presented a paper (in Russian) on "Leo Tolstoy and Mary Baker Eddy: a comparative view" at the Yasnaya Polyana conference (to be published in the Conference Proceedings).  During the second conference at the Tolstoy University in Tula, Donna Orwin conducted a master class on "the realisation of Tolstoy's legacy in almanacs and journal narratives".  A full report on all three conferences in both Russian and English (together with illustrations) may be found at: http://jw.deepspace93.com/academic/aug2003engl.html (an abridged version has been published in the Doukhobor journal Iskra (NºNº 1949 & 1950).
   Prior to the conferences John Woodsworth conducted a seminar on Russian-English poetry translation at the Institute of Journalism & Creative Writing in Moscow (Institut zhurnalistiki i literaturnogo tvorchestva), at the invitation of the institute's Head of Foreign Languages Anna Plisetskaya.  [Nov. 2003]
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AS A FOLLOW-UP TO THE SUCCESSFUL Doukhobor Centenary Conference in October 1999, organised by the Slavic Research Group in co-operation with the Institute of Canadian Studies (ICS) at the University of Ottawa, the ICS and its Director, SRG member Chad Gaffield, asked SRG Administrative Assistant John Woodsworth to prepare a set of information pages on the Canadian Doukhobors for inclusion on its website.  This project is now complete, and the resulting pages -- a detailed description of nearly 250 websites on the Doukhobors -- may be found on the ICS site at <http://www.canada.uottawa.ca/doukhobor.htm> under the title: Canadian Doukhobors on the web: an annotated guide. We are grateful to Angela Mattiaci, Co-ordinator of Information Technologies for ICS and her assistant Karl for their technical expertise in getting these pages on-line.  [Aug. 2002]
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IN LATE MAY 2002 SRG Director Andrew Donskov along with Administrative Assistant John Woodsworth, External member Donna Orwin of the University of Toronto (and Editor of the Tolstoy Studies Journal) and Associate Researcher Arkadi Klioutchanski represented the Slavic Research Group at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS), held at the University of Toronto.  On Tuesday 28 May Andrew Donskov chaired a panel on Tolstoy organised by Dr Orwin, who also served as commentator.  One of the presentations was given by Arkadi Klioutchanski on "Tolstoy and contemporary science"; the other participants were Jeff Love (Clemson University) and Paul Haddock (Univ. of Toronto).  (See CAS programme site for details: scroll 3/4 way down to Panel 9.2). 
   Earlier (Sunday 26 May) John Woodsworth presented a paper on "The Portrayal of the Canadian Doukhobors on the World Wide Web" (Panel 4.3); on Monday 27 May he served as commentator for a panel session on the Doukhobors & the Sons of Freedom sect as part of the parallel Annual Meeting of the Canadian History Association (CHA); here the panellists were Carl Tracie of Trinity Western University and Greg Cran and Larry Hannant of the University of Victoria. 
   A year earlier, at the CAS meeting at Université Laval in Québec City (25-27 May 2001), SRG member Günter Schaarschmidt presented a paper entitled: "The Religious factor in language maintenance: Catholic Sorbian and Doukhobor Russian".  In April 2002 Prof. Schaarschmidt spoke on "Canadian Doukhobor Russian: losses and influences" at the 47th Annual Conference of the International Linguistic Association at York University in Toronto.  [July 2002]
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SRG MEMBER J. LAWRENCE BLACK, Director of Carleton University's Centre for Research on Canadian-Russian Relations (CRCR), was recently appointed to the Editorial Board of a committee representing the Canadian and Russian Ministries of Foreign Affairs, charged with the task of preparing a two-volume collection of archival documents on Canadian-Russian relations.  [July 2002]
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IN MARCH 2002 two SRG members gave talks (in French) at the National Gallery of Canada, at the invitation of Les Amis canadiens de l'Ermitage [Canadian Friends of the Hermitage].  On 16 March J. Douglas Clayton spoke on Pushkin's relationship to St-Petersburg, and on 23 March John Woodsworth gave an illustrated causerie entitled "Visitez Saint-Pétersbourg... sans quitter Ottawa".  The latter also presented a paper in mid-February at the Fifth Interdisciplinary Conference sponsored by the Graduate Students Association of the University of Ottawa, entitled "Meaning & musicality: striking a balance in poetry translation".  [Click here for an audio-recording of this paper on John Woodsworth's webpage]  [July 2002]
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A FESTSCHRIFT FÜR WALTER E. RIEDEL, entitled Alle Werke sind Weg was published by the Department of German and Russian Studies at the University of Victoria in September 2001, edited by Angelika Arend and Rodney Symington.  It included an article on the topic: "Time and discourse structure in 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich'" (pp. 169-178) by SRG member Günter Schaarschmidt, revised and adapted especially for this volume.  The article was originally presented as a paper at a Tolstoy symposium organised by Andrew Donskov at the University of Victoria in 1978 and then published in a special issue of Canadian Slavonic Papers (1979) devoted to the symposium. 
   In August 2001 a paper by Dr Schaarschmidt, entitled "Trilingual dictionaries: the case for and against", was featured at the Second International Congress of ASIALEX at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, discussing the role of trilingual dictionaries in multilingual situations, particularly with regard to Fachterminologie (terminology for specific purposes); one example included was dictionaries of Sorbian, German and English in Germany.  This paper was among twelve of sixty conference papers selected for republication as an article in the journal Studies in Lexicography (vol. 11, no 1, 2001, pp. 37-47).  [July 2002]
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THE SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP is pleased to announce its initiative of a Cultural Dictionary of Canada in Russian (CDCR), which will comprise the first volume of a series of encyclopedic dictionaries of Canadian culture in a variety of target languages.  The CDC Series will be under the overall purview of the Institute of Canadian Studies (ICS) at the University of Ottawa, which for each dictionary in the series will collaborate with appropriate institutions in Canada and abroad.  This series will break entirely new ground.
   The whole venture began with a proposal put forward by the Slavic Research Group in response to a growing interest in Canada today on the part of Russian citizens in particular.  (Such interest was highlighted by Team Canada's recent visit to Russia, which this time emphasised cultural as well as trade issues.)  The proposal was then expanded, at the suggestion of ICS Director Chad Gaffield, to include the creation of a series database on Canadian culture that could be applied to similar projects in other languages, and the concept of a 'Cultural Dictionary of Canada' Series was born.
   Much more than an occasional-reference work, the CDCR (as the series' pilot project) will constitute a vehicle for serious study as an actual text on Canadian history and civilisation and their historical and current relationship to the Russian people.  It will be a valuable asset in the continuing development of relations between Russia and Canada in the fields of commercial trade, academia, scientific research, culture, sports, and tourism.  It should prove useful for Canadian business concerns, for example, in their efforts to establish or maintain joint ventures with their Russian counterparts.  It will be of significant help in assisting the ever-growing number of Russian-speaking New Canadians in adapting to their new cultural environment.  In addition, it will benefit Canadian students of Russian wishing to better describe their own country to their new Russian acquaintances.
   In certain respects the CDCR will draw upon the model of previous cultural dictionaries undertaken by Russian scholars ó of Britain (1978), America (1996) and particularly France (Frantsija: lingvostranovedcheskij slovar' / La France : dictionnaire de civilisation), published in 1997, edited by Liudmila Vedenina.   Unlike these, however, the CDCR will be a primarily Canadian initiative, with approximately 80% of its entries contributed by Canadian scholars.
   The project has already drawn a most positive response from both Russian and Canadian scholars and administrators.  On the Canadian side the project is being most favourably endorsed by senior scholars and administration officials at the University of Ottawa as well as by the Royal Society of Canada.  The Russian Ambassador to Canada, Vitaly Churkin, has also given it his enthusiastic support and recently made mention of the initiative in an interview with the Russian news agency Itar-TASS.  A letter of endorsement has also been received from Canada's Ambassador to Moscow, Rodney Irwin.
   Canadian organising institutions will comprise the Slavic Research Group and the Institute of Canadian Studies at the University of Ottawa, with the participation of the Centre for Research on Canadian-Russian Relations (CRCR) at Carleton University.  Russian organising institutions will be drawn from appropriate institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
   A joint Editorial Advisory Board has been established to oversee the whole project and be responsible for its financing and overall production.  Its Canadian members at the University of Ottawa will include Robert Major (Vice-Rector Academic and specialist in French-Canadian culture), David Staines (Dean, Faculty of Arts and specialist in English-Canadian literature), Chad Gaffield (Director, Institute of Canadian Studies and Professor of Canadian History), Andrew Donskov (Director, Slavic Research Group and Professor of Russian Studies), Cornelius Jaenen (Professor and specialist in Canadian aboriginal history), Jean-Marc Barrette (specialist in Québecois literature) and Linda Cardinal (Professor of Political Science), as well as J. Lawrence Black from Carleton University (Director of CRCR and specialist in Canadian-Russian relations).
    Liudmila Vedenina (Professor of French/Québecois civilisation at the Moscow State Institute  International Relations [MGIMO]) will serve as Russian consultant for the CDCR.  SRG Administrative Assistant John Woodsworth will be co-editor along with a French-speaking editor still to be appointed, under the overall directorship of Andrew Donskov.
   We are currently seeking multi-year funding for the project, which has an anticipated publication date in in 2007.  [Apr. 2002]
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IN APRIL 2002 SRG Administrative Assistant John Woodsworth was invited to join the Editorial Board (redkollegija) of the historico-cultural almanac Razmyshlenija o Kanade (Reflections on Canada/Réflexions sur le Canada), published by the Canadian History Group of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of General History (Institut vseobshchej istorii), under the editorship of Vadim Koleneko.  The almanac publishes articles, prose and poetry in Russian, English and French contributed by both Russian and Canadian authors.  Its second issue (Moscow, 1999), included articles on Canadian history and contemporary life (one of them co-written by SRG external member J. Lawrence Black), cultural identity, poetry and literature, documentary publications, as well as perceptions of Canada from old Russian historical records.  Razmyshlenija o Kanade complements a sister publication, Kanadskij ezhegodnik [Canadian Yearbook], published annually by the Russian Association for Canadian Studies (Rossijskaja assotsiatsija izuchenija Kanady [RAIK]).[Apr. 2002]

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IN MAY 2001 a delegation of four, headed by Robert Major, then Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Arts (now Vice-Rector Academic, University of Ottawa), travelled to Russia to sign, on behalf of the University of Ottawa and its Slavic Research Group, agreements of academic co-operation with a number of Russian scholarly institutions, including the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Russian Literature (IRLI) in St-Petersburg and Institute of World Literature (IMLI) in Moscow, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), as well as the L.N. Tolstoy Museum in Moscow and the Museum-Estate of Leo Tolstoy in Yasnaya Polyana (Muzej-usad'ba L.N. Tolstogo "Jasnaja Poljana"). A reception for senior scholars from these and other institutions was held at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow during the SRG visit.   These agreements are opening new opportunities for co-operation between our Russian liaison partners and the SRG (along with other departments at our university) for research into and publication of valuable archival documents.  (They complement similar memoranda of co-operation signed in 2000 with academic institutions in Poland, including the Catholic University of Lublin, the Jagiellonian University in Cracow and Warsaw University.)  In conjunction with their visit to Moscow, Robert Major and Andrew Donskov presented lectures on French-Canadian literature and Tolstoy & the Doukhobors, respectively. Marie-Claire Guindon of Université du Québec à Hull, who was with the delegation, also gave a talk on the teaching of French to adults in Canada.  [Sept. 2001]

ON 28 March 2001 the Russian Embassy in Canada, with the collaboration of the SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA, hosted the second annual Ambassadorís Book Prize awards for students at the University of Ottawa who have shown exceptional progress in their study of the Russian language.  This year's recipients were Corinne Ruchet and Mireille Savard, both students in Prof. Vera Adamantova's second-year Russian class.  The reception was attended by current and former University of Ottawa students (including last year's award recipients Lindsay Kent and Jacqueline Bélisle), representatives from the university's Faculty of Arts (Dean David Staines and Associate Dean of Research Robert Major), the Slavic Research Group (Director Andrew Donskov and Adm. Assistant John Woodsworth) and the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures (SRG members Richard Sokoloski, Chair, and J. Douglas Clayton), along with Embassy personnel (notably Ambassador Vitalij Churkin and First Secretary Valerij Nazarenko).
   On this occasion our 2nd- and 3rd-year Russian students were invited by the Embassy to offer a brief programme of readings from Russian literature, as well as Russian folk-songs, for those assembled.  The programme featured works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy and Blok -- read in Russian, some of them with the students' own translations -- along with the folk songs Tonkaja rjabina [The Slender Rowan] and Ochi chernye [Dark Eyes].  Three of the students (Marlene Sylvest and Sasha Mucha, along with the programme's host Trevor Bremner) described in Russian what the study of the Russian language meant to them personally.   [Apr. 2001]
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SRG ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT John Woodsworth is not only a translator of prose and poetry, but has also been writing his own poems in Russian over the past ten years.  In the mid-1990s selections of his poetry appeared in several publications in Russia and Canada.  Since 1998 he has had seven poems published in the Doukhobor journal ISKRA (some accompanied by a verse translation in English), and over the past year another seven poems have been posted online in the literary section (biblioteka) of the Russian website Moskva neofitsial'naja.  A selection of his poems and his English translations of Russian folk songs will be included in Volume 6 (2001) of the yearbook Kanadskij ezhegodnik, published by the Russian Association for Canadian Studies  (Rossijskaja assotsiatsija izuchenija Kanady [RAIK]).  (See also Other Pushkin events below.)  [Revised Apr. 2002]
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ON 29 FEBRUARY 2000 a five-year memorandum of understanding was signed between the Universities of Ottawa and Toronto, agreeing to launch a joint project aimed at strengtheneing and enhancing Russian Studies in Canada, under the title Rethinking the Russian idea.
   The project was initiated by Professor Donna Orwin of the University of Toronto's Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures and Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES); the terms were worked out with SRG Direcctor Andrew Donskov.
   The immediate goal is to raise money to bring distinguished visitors from Russia to present lectures at both universities as well as scholars o give courses and seminars.  The ultimate aim is to set up an endowment fund for long-term funding of the project.  It is hoped that the project will result in new opportunities for research in Russian Studies on the part of faculty and students, which may be shared between the two insitutions and published either jointly or individually.
   Participating bodies will be the SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUPAT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures as well as CREES at the University of Toronto.  For the University of Ottawa the agreement was signed by Dean of Arts David Staines and Associate Dean of Research of the Faculty of Arts Robert Major.  [Apr. 2000]
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ON 27 JANUARY 2000 a vernissage was held in the university's Simard Hall to mark the opening of a ten-day exhibit of books, documents and paintings connected with Russia's national poet, Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin.  Co-sponsored by the Russian Embassy in Canada, this was yet another contribution by the SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP toward the celebration of the bicentenary of Pushkin's birth.  Students, faculty, diplomatic personnel and members of the community at large were in attendance.
   Dean of Ars David Staines spoke of the importance of fostering a better understanding of Russian literature in Canada through initiatives such as this.  Russian ambassador Vitalij Churkin, assisted by cultural attaché Valerij Nazarenko, then presented special book prizes to two University of Ottawa students ó Lindsay Kent and Jacqueline Bélisle ó who have also served as assistants at various SRG functions.
   The ceremony closed with a special presentation on Pushkin's life and poetry by the second-year students of Prof. Vera Adamantova of the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures.
   The vernissage was subsequently broadcast (almost in its entirety) on the Ottawa Russian-language cable television programme Russian Mosaic, which also featured interviews with a number of the participants.  [Apr. 2000]
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THE YEAR 1999 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Russia's national poet Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin.  In addition to the exhibit described above, the poet and his work have been celebrated in several ways by the SRG.
   On the actual anniversary of his birth, 6 June 1999, the SRG co-sponsored, along with the Sasquatch Writers Performance Series (a local Ottawa poetry society founded in 1980), a special Pushkin Evening at the National Library of Canada, featuring a documentary film on the poet's life and readings of his poems in both the original and in English translation.  Several officials of the Russian Embassy in Canada were in attendance, including then Deputy Ambassador Mikhail Lysenko.  (Earlier in the day an SRG representative participated in a similar programme for members of Ottawa's Russian-speaking community at a local Russian cultural centre.)
   The Ottawa Citizen's Weekly of Sunday, 6 June 1999, featured a brief article on Pushkin by SRG's Administrative Assistant John Woodsworth along with his English translations of several Pushkin poems.  Some of these were later posted (along with the translator's own poetic tribute to Pushkin, in both Russian and English), on the website of the Russian Embassy in Canada, where they remained for more than two years.
   On 2 November 1999, the SRG sponsored a lecture on "Pushkin i russkaja literatura" [Pushkin and Russian literature] by visiting scholar Lidia Gromova- Opul'skaja of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of World Literature in Moscow.  (Dr Gromova was also a participant at the Doukhobor Centenary Conference held in October 1999 at the University of Ottawa.)
   In November 2000 the SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP published a volume of articles on the Russian national poet by SRG member J. Douglas Clayton, under the title Wave and Stone: Essays on the poetry and prose of Alexander Pushkin (x + 164 pp.), which traces the evolution of the poet's muse from his Lyceum days to 1830 (please click on the link for further information).
   In April 2001 one Ottawa high-school English teacher decided to include Pushkin in her celebration of National Poetry Month; at her invitation a member of the Slavic Research Group showed a video on Pushkin and read some several Pushkin poems in both Russian and an English translation.  [Sep. 1999; updated May 2001]
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FOR THE PAST THREE YEARS the SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP at the University of Ottawa has been represented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS), held in conjunction with the Congress of Social Sciences and the Humanities, at the Universities of Ottawa (1998), Sherbrooke (1999) and Alberta (2000).
   In June 1998 SRG member Richard Sokoloski, who is also Chairman of the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures, served as host-institution organiser, while Andrew Donskov, John Woodsworth and external SRG member J. Larry Black of Carleton University helped organise and participated in a special session on the Doukhobors.  (At the same Humanities Congress, Mr Woodsworth also gave a paper on the Doukhobors at the Annual Meeting of the Folklore Studies Association of Canada.)
   At the Sherbrooke meeting in June 1999 John Woodsworth joined archivist George Bolotenko of the National Archives of Canada in giving a paper on the publishing of Russian archival documents.
   At the 2000 Canadian Slavists' conference at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, the SRG's Administrative Assistant gave a report on the Group's activities at the annual business meeting of the CAS; he also presented a paper at the conference entitled: "Aspects of socio-semiotic translation" -- outlining the specific problems of dealing with extra-textual features of rhyme, metre etc. in Russian-English poetry translation.  [Sep. 1999; updated Mar. 2001]
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IN OCTOBER 1999 at a formal banquet on Parliament Hill which brought the University of Ottawa's Doukhobor Centenary Conference to a close, a special honour was bestowed on the Director of the SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP Andrew Donskov, namely the Aleksandr Pushkin Medal of the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language & Literature (MAPRJaL), in recognition of Professor Donskov's outstanding contribution to worldwide scholarship in Russian language and culture.  The medal was presented to the SRG Director by Russia's ambassador to Canada, Vitalij Churkin.  [Mar. 2001]
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THE SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP has joined forces with the Centre for Research on Canadian-Russian Relations (CRCR) at Carleton University to launch a new Canada-Russia Series on topics of interest to both countries, under the general editorship of CRCR Director (and SRG member) J. Larry Black and SRG Director Andrew Donskov.  Volume I of the series, published in the spring of 1999 by Penumbra Press, is entitled: Russian roots & Canadian wings: Russian archival documents on the Doukhobor emigration to Canada (xxii + 232 pp.)
These documents -- compiled, translated into English and annotated by SRG's Administrative Assistant John Woodsworth -- were selected from his earlier catalogue: The Doukhobors: 1895-1949 (CRCR, 2nd ed., 1997), which lists, with summaries and cross-references, more than 1,600 pages of documents acquired by George Bolotenko, archivist of the National Archives of Canada seconded to the CRCR, from the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF).  The book includes a Foreword written by Vladimir Tolstoy, great-great-grandson of Leo Tolstoy and the Director of the Tolstoys' Yasnaya Polyana estate.  (For further details on the book please click on either of the links above.)
   A paper based on this volume, entitled "Novye perspektivy na istoriju dukhobortsev/New perspectives on the history of the Doukhobors", was delivered by its author at a conference celebrating the Centenary of the Doukhobor emigration to Canada, held in Grand Forks and Castlegar (B.C.) in May 1999.  The paper was subsequently published, first in Russian and later in an English translation, in the Doukhobor journal Iskra (N^o 1878 of 15/9/99 and N^o 1879 of 29/9/99).
   At this conference, as well as at a similar conference the preceding year, the SRG was represented by both its Administrative Assistant and by its Director, Andrew Donskov.  [Sep. 1999]
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AT A CONFERENCE held at the Museum-Estate of Leo Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana (Muzej-usad'ba L.N. Tolstogo "Jasnaja Poljana") in September-October 1998 to commemorate the 170th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy's birth, the SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP was represented by two of its members -- Donna Orwin (of the University of Toronto), who spoke on "Otzvuki F. M. Dostoevskogo v «Anne Kareninoj»" [Dostoevsky echoes in Anna Karenina], and John Woodsworth (Adm. Assistant of the SRG), whose paper was entitled: "Kanadskie issledovanija o dukhobortsakh i o soprovzhdajushchikh ikh v Kanadu" [Canadian research on the Doukhobors and those who accompanied them to Canada].  This paper was subsequently published (in both the Russian original and an English translation) in the Doukhobor journal Iskra.  [Sep. 1999; updated March 2001]
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