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| Small group of Studium participants, 2014, in front of St. Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Church |
The Studium Carpato-Ruthenorum announces its sixth annual International
Summer School for Rusyn Language and Culture: Sunday, June 7-Saturday, June 27!
After a successful session in June 2014, the Studium will
again be hosted this coming June 2015 in Prešov, sponsored by the Institute for
Rusyn Language and Culture at Prešov University. Many of the details around the
three-week session are the same as described in texts located here at this blog
and posted last year—with a few changes.
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| A folk ensemble at the Svidnik Folk Festival |
The Studium will continue to provide parallel lectures in
history in English by Professor Paul Robert Magocsi, reknown scholar of
Carpatho-Rusyn Studies from the University of Toronto, and in Rusyn by Valerii
Padiak from Uzhhorod, who is an instructor in the Institute for Rusyn Language
and Culture at Prešov University. The Prešov-Region Rusyn language is taught at
its higher level by Kveta Koporova, linguist and faculty member at Prešov
University.
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| Enjoying scrumptious langoshi |
A major new element: Marek Gaj, a young man who teaches
Rusyn in the public schools in the Prešov Region, joined the Studium faculty
last summer for the first time and will return to again work with the beginning
language students. I assisted him in his teaching, helping with some
translation, and also learning from him. He is a friendly and energetic guy
with a good sense of humor, and brings with him a special love of Rusyn
folksongs. After the first week, every class session ended with us learning new
songs and repeating old ones with Marek playing a synthesizer keyboard. Marek
introduced to our American participants the Cyrillic alphabet, some very basic
grammar, and a raft of simple words and phrases, so that by the end of the
three-week session we were all managing to introduce ourselves comfortably and
to communicate lots of information about ourselves and our families, etc. No
Slavic language can be mastered in three weeks, but our participants got a feel
for the language and left with some basic conversational skills.
A new and wonderful element this summer: Professor Elena
Boudovskaia, Russian-language faculty at Georgetown University, will be working
along with Marek to aid in the teaching of Rusyn and will also provide lectures
in Carpatho-Rusyn folklore and folk life in English. Just this fall, Elena gave
a talk to the New Jersey Chapter of the C-RS on the practices and beliefs of
Carpatho-Rusyns in small villages in Transcarpathia where she has done
extensive linguistic research. She also has experience teaching folklore, and
is weaving her interests together to offer participants a truly fascinating
journey into Carpatho-Rusyn culture today as it still retains vestiges of a
distant past.
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| Loom weaving at the Rusyn Museum, Presov |
Among the excursions planned will be a repeat visit to Prešov
University Emeritus Professor Mykola Mushynka’s native village of Kurov where in the past couple of summer sessions
Studium participants were greeted warmly with performances by the Kurov Folk
Ensemble and fabulous Rusyn food and drink. Last summer, our American
participants were embraced by the Kurov young folks, danced and sang with
them—and it was very difficult to part at the end of the evening!
An excursion to a number of historical Carpathian wooden
churches is on the docket, as is a day trip to Krynica, Poland and a visit with
famous Lemko-Rusyn poet Petro Trokhanovskij who will give a tour of the museum
and monument dedicated to Nikifor Drovn’ak, the unique Lemko-Rusyn artist whose
work is a stellar example of “Naïve” or “Primitive” Art and “Outsider Art.”
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| Bronze sculpture of Andy Warhol, Medzilaborce |
Back in Prešov, food in the cafeteria at the university
continues to improve. Last summer, we enjoyed delicious dinner salads every
evening, if we chose that option, and the soups at lunch are always superb.
Breakfasts are nutritious, as well, with delicious yogurts, granola cereals,
cheese and ham, fresh bread and rolls, and hot coffee. Ice cream from the
little shop “Croatia” on Florianova Street in Old Town Prešov, a leisurely
15-minute walk from the dorm, is probably the best in the world (I think I
raved about this in last year’s blog text…), and Studium participants once
again thoroughly enjoyed dropping across the street from the dorm into the cozy
Ballada, a coffee shop run by Carpatho-Rusyns and providing your favorite teas
and coffee drinks, as well as beer and wine, to warm the heart and to make you
feel completely at home.
Perhaps there is something to be said for tours which take
you from place to place in the course of a week or ten days, but there is
nothing quite like remaining in one central location (with excursions, of
course) and immersing in a genuine learning experience. You will come away with
a new appreciation for the land of your grandparents and great-grandparents, as
well as with new friends and an open invitation to return again. In addition, every
year of experience seems to enhance the Studium’s operations, making it the
best deal possible for those who wish to spend that longer time immersed in
learning about Carpatho-Rusyn history and culture in its native environment
rather than simply passing through as a tourist.
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| Prof. Mushynka with Studium participants |
College students are especially warmly invited as you will
mix with students from Prešov University and Transcarpathia who are involved in
the Rusyn Institute. If you wish, the Institute will provide you with a
document stating the number of hours of history, language study, and
folklore/cultural studies you had. As with a number of other study abroad
programs, you may then take this document to your home college or university,
and your institution will decide on the number of semester or quarter-hour
credits you will be awarded. Credit amount depends not on Prešov University,
but on your home institution. Just know that it is possible to get credits, if
you wish. If you want to do this, please inform the organizers when you arrive
to the Studium.
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| Poster outside the Institute of Rusyn Language & Culture |
The application and information about this year’s Studium is
posted at the Carpatho-Rusyn Society website. While the official deadline for
sending in the simple online application is March 1, 2015, that date is
somewhat flexible. If you need a couple extra weeks to make plans, please let
me know. I’m sure that that will be fine. You can contact me, Pat Krafcik (in
Olympia, Washington state), at patkrafcik@gmail.com
with any questions you might have. I’m happy to talk with you and/or to put you
in contact with alumni from the past couple of sessions. Please note that
although the official information sheet says that payment (initial down payment
and remainder) may be paid by bank check, I just now heard from the organizers
that applicants should follow the instructions on the information sheet to
conduct a bank transfer instead.
Maybe this is your year to give the Studium a try!
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| Delicious spread at the final banquet and certificate ceremony for the Studium 2014 |
