Report by Joseph Troncale, University of Richmond

Introduction and seminar rationale

On December 5, 2003, fifteen faculty members were selected out of more than 45 applicants to participate in the 2004 faculty development seminar in Russia. For personal reasons one faculty member was unable to join the group for the seminar. The faculty were from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (8 participants), Great Lakes Colleges Association (2 participants) and Associated Colleges of the South (5 participants). Their specialties included music, art and art history, classics, philosophy, international relations and political science, anthropology, English and economics. Four of the faculty members were also working artists. The seminar took place in St. Petersburg and Moscow with brief visits to Novgorod and Zagorsk. The focus of the seminar was the arts in Russia since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The seminar was intended to serve as a catalyst for the participants to begin to engage Russia in such a way that at some point in the near future they would be moved by an irrepressible growing interest and intellectual curiosity to more deeply engage and incorporate their experience and understanding into their research and teaching.

In view of this purpose the seminar was conceived in such a way as to give the participants an experience of Russia that would stimulate and pique this interest and desire to discover more. The seminar was largely experiential in nature; that is, it exposed the participants to a wide variety of experiences, both intellectual and emotional or aesthetic, that moved them in different ways. After their return home, the skullduggery of getting down to the business of just what the "experience" means to them is their responsibility. Throughout the trip there were opportunities for the faculty members to discuss with both the facilitator and specialists what they were experiencing and questions they had about those experiences. Prior to departure there were fundamental readings that provided a cultural and historical foundation for the seminar.

One of the goals of the seminar was to immerse the participants in the stream of historical cultural influences (intellectual, historical, political, social, artistic) that are directly related to the immediate character of the complex issues that the arts in Russia face since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The heart of the complex difficulties is as much cultural as it is economic, as much historical as it is contemporary, as much political as it is organizational, and as much personal as it is social. Without such an immersion, it is impossible to grasp the character of the situation of the arts or of any other aspect of Russian life today. This immersion was the driving impulse and the dynamic of every element included in the program of the seminar. The participants were exposed to a wide variety of influences that included the most mundane as well as the most extraordinary: from widely and wildly traveling the streets and the undergrounds of Moscow and Petersburg to sitting only inches away from one of the world's greatest pianists as he performed in the Mariinsky Theatre. Even only a cursory glance at the schedule of the seminar would immediately alert one to the logic of the seminar.

While the focus of the seminar was on the arts, there was no attempt to cover all the arts exhaustively, thus the experiential nature of the seminar. Some arts were engaged more than others and many different venues were explored. The participants' experience of Russia was primarily a visual experience. They lived and breathed the plastic evidence of the Russian experience. The cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow are architectural museums in themselves. They are cities to be walked and we did much of that in both cities. The participants visited major museums, palaces and churches; they attended concerts, ballets and dramatic theater; they met with experts in architecture, contemporary art, cinema, music, and contemporary society; they visited artists' studios and discussed the current art scene with artists in a roundtable format both in Moscow and in St. Petersburg; and they also had the opportunity to discuss pedagogy and the future of Russian art and to observe the final presentation and discussion of graduate paintings at Hertzen University in St. Petersburg.

Unlike earlier seminars in Russia, this seminar was not an opportunity to do scholarship. The emphasis of the seminar was largely "experiential" rather than scholarly, per se. Scholarly projects demand a greater amount of time, intensive focus, and specific support (financial, administrative, and logistical.) There was no formal project required, only readings and discussions of what the "experience" is in the context of that experience. The visual was the most important element; the "seeing" of the Russian self-expression, of the artifact, and the connections one can make to the sources of that expression, were our major concerns. Our time was focused on the group's effort of coming to terms conceptually and emotionally with the "experience" of Russia rather than on the pursuit of individual projects. Given the level of energy, stamina, and interest it required, I dare say that this seminar was more demanding than earlier seminars to Russia with no less equally rewarding results.

Pre-trip planning and orientation

Planning for the seminar began in the summer of 2003. The locations of Petersburg and Moscow were very obvious and logical choices. The natural base for the seminar in St. Petersburg was the Art and Cultural Center and the Museum of Non-Conformist Art, known as the historical "Puskinskaya 10" on Ligovsky Prospect. This well-known art and cultural center is under the direction of a long-time friend, Evgeny Orlov, who was an underground artist during the Soviet period and is one of the founders of the center. The center is the only one of its kind in Russia to appear and survive after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has no government support and yet thrives in an atmosphere of collegial respect. There are four museum spaces at the center, the largest of which is the Museum of Non-Conformist Art. Lectures and roundtable discussions occurred in this space; the participants were surrounded by Russian art as they invested themselves in deciphering the complexities of its production today. Other aspects of the seminar occurred in the center's exhibition space for experimental photography. The center is an anomaly in a rabid, but crippled, capitalist commercial environment. At the same time, it is a somewhat bizarre anachronism that lives and breathes on the compulsion to exhibit anything by practically anyone in a continued response to the residual memory of the no- longer-extant Soviet decrees to the contrary. The base for the seminar in Moscow was the Museum of Cinema and the Film Center of the Russian Federation under the direction of the widely renowned film scholar Naum Kleiman. Ironically, the Museum of Cinema is now under threat of being sold by the Oscar-winning Nikita Mikhalkov, the head of the Russian Union of Cinematographers, for use as a casino.

The initial agreements with firm commitments from all of the lecturers in both Petersburg and Moscow and with "Puskinskaya 10" were made during the summer of 2003. A warm hand was kept on all preparations through e-mail and phone calls. Upon my return to Russia in May of 2004, those commitments were re-confirmed and additional commitments with other lecturers were made as the schedule for the seminar was expanded and completed. All along the way the ACM office, with Dan Sack at the helm, was supportive in every way. It cannot be emphasized enough that a major part of the success of the seminar was due to the reliability of the contacts and friends I have made over the years. On the other hand, the minimum difficulties that did arise resulted from the necessity of having to use companies or third parties for some arrangements.

In April of 2004, the select group of faculty met in Chicago for a one-day orientation. The orientation was an opportunity for everyone to get to know each other and to gain some sense of just what lay ahead for them. Since most of the participants had never been to Russia there was a brief review of Russia's cultural and political history. We previewed the yet unfinished schedule for the seminar and discussed the logic of the seminar's conceptualization and its goals. There were also many practical travel questions that required attention. The participants also viewed a documentary on the 900-day siege of Leningrad during World War II. The film was made up entirely of historical footage from that period. The rationale for presenting this film at the orientation was to establish the historical reality of what the Soviet Union endured during the war and, particularly, to establish the theme of "Russia under siege", which is critical to understanding the position that Russia has found herself in historically many times, and which is crucial to understanding what is happening in Russian culture today under the influences of globalization. As Fanon said, "The condition of the native is a nervous condition."

St. Petersburg (15 days - June 16 - June 30)

In Petersburg, Teresa Hudson, Natasha Sigaeva and Tom Farrell were each indispensable in executing plans for logistics and meals. Natasha also served as the interpreter and local professional guide for the group. For nine days, the participants lived in the Oktyabrskaya Hotel, located just a ten minutes walk away from "Pushkinskaya 10". Though their last five days in Petersburg were spent in another hotel located across the Neva River, the group remained highly mobile and active using the metro and other means of public transportation on their own when necessary. In both Moscow and Petersburg, we relied heavily on the underground to avoid the long delays of endless traffic jams. In all respects, though more demanding physically, it was safer and cheaper. One wallet was lost, one camera was stolen, and one bag was slashed (but repaired) - not bad for a group of 16 people moving together through the two major cities of Russia for 19 days on packed public transportation and crowded streets.

The highlights of the time spent at "Pushkinskaya 10" included talks on the current scene of the arts by the director of the Museum of Non-Conformist Art; a roundtable discussion, in which six artists participated; a presentation on the history of St. Petersburg's architecture; a lecture on the history of Russian cinema; the viewing and discussion of a recent Russian film; a talk on the financing of museums, particularly the State Hermitage Museum; a visit to two artists' studios in the center; a visit with a composer; a talk by a 12-year veteran deputy of the Russian Parliament; and a presentation on the writings of foreigners visiting Russia. The four artists in our group also had the opportunity to show examples of their work to the director of the museum for future consideration of an exhibition there in St. Petersburg in the center's main exhibition hall. For the specifics of the Petersburg leg of the seminar please see the attached schedule.

The seminar was scheduled for the specific period of the "Festival of the White Nights" so that the participants would be in Petersburg when the city's cultural energies are at a very high level and when the unique location of the city, created out of Peter the Great's imagination, can be felt most dramatically.

Moscow (5 days - June 30 - July 6)

In Moscow, Teresa Hudson and Olga Panfilovna heroically handled the range of logistical issues that necessarily arise when living in and moving through a city of ten million-plus people. Olga is a close friend and a photographer who works as the liaison for visitors to the International Roerich Center, located next to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts; she is a real pro. She was the advance person, who made certain that the arrangements for the museums, including the Moscow Kremlin, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Roerich Center and the Pushkin, as well as Sergiev-Posad, the center of Russian Orthodoxy, were in place. The group stayed at the Rossiya Hotel, the monstrous, old flagship of Soviet hotels, due to be demolished in 2006. There were some typical complications with reservations, but they were handled with aplomb by Teresa. Minor issues with telephones, etc., were bravely handled by individual participants.

Our host at the Museum of Cinema was Naum Kleiman, one of Russia's most widely known and respected cinema specialists. Over the past twenty-four years, Naum has always been a close friend and an invaluable scholar. Along with all of my friends, who contributed to making the seminar what it was, Naum was honored and excited by the strong demonstration of interest by American professors in Russian culture. I recall that in our conversations last summer (2003) he was hardly able to contain his excitement as he considered over a dozen possibilities he could offer them. The seminar could have gone on for weeks in Moscow alone! The participants spent almost five hours at the museum with Naum, who discussed contemporary Russian cinema, and two other guest speakers, a culturologist and a composer of new music. While in Moscow, the participants also had the opportunity to meet with a group of Moscow artists in their studios. For specifics, please see the attached schedule.

In conclusion, it must be said that the group of participants melded together unusually well. There was always a high level of intellectual curiosity, collegial interaction and human camaraderie that enabled free and productive discussions of complex issues and ideas. Everyone was perplexed, but sensitivity to that perplexity and the willingness to openly entertain it allowed the honest pursuit of a deeper understanding of Russian culture.

Budget

The seminar remained within the confines of the planned budget. Some projected items were shifted around to accommodate more immediate needs and to respond to the on-the-scene evolving nature of the seminar. In Russia, the ability to pull anything off and to remain within a budget depends on a trust between individuals almost to the entire exclusion of third parties. If I were to organize another seminar of this type, I would also put lodging for the entire trip directly into the hands of my friends here in Russia rather than using an agent in the states.

Results