Some years ago, while pursuing folklore field work in eastern Canada, the author stumbled upon an active vampire cult. The interest aroused by this discovery led to a series of invited lectures and eventually the establishment of a college course called "Vampires of the Slavs." The questions asked by each new group of students resulted in the present monograph, a well-researched and carefully reasoned "All You Wanted to Know About Vampires but Were Afraid to Ask." Despite its scholarly rigor, The Darkling is intended not only for the specialist in folklore or literature, but also for the general reader, who should find it both informative and entertaining, since it is very amply illustrated with original vampire accounts translated into English from over twenty languages, many for the first time.

Chapter I considers the questions of whether Dracula was in fact a vampire, and shows that there is no historical evidence to support the idea. Its origins stem directly from Stoker's novel Dracula. However, the fictional character created by Stoker has migrated far beyond the pages of this novel and now plays an active role in Anglo-American folklore. This shift from history to fiction to folklore is shown to be parallel to the evolution of the Bishop of Myra to St. Nicholas to Santa Claus. Chapter II probes the clouded origins of the European vampire, both the word and the concept. Chapters III and IV sort out daemon contamination, which is so common in earlier vampire literature. Chapter IV begins with an answer to the question: are there any real vampires? It goes on to define the four basic vampire types and then to contrast them with two other daemons: the mora (= succuba) and the poltergeist. Chapter V, which is about 30% of the entire book, consists of an application of an analysis outline to fifteen representative Slavic folkloric vampire texts. Included among them is the transcript of an 18th-century vampire trial, crucial new evidence for a proper understanding of the Slavic folkloric vampire. Chapter VI traces the reflection of Slavic folkloric vampire beliefs in West European literature and film, especially English. In Chapter VII the psychological underpinnings of vampire beliefs and their mechanisms of transmission are discussed, including the nature of belief, the role of dreams, urban legends, and diseases. Finally, there is a comprehensive, multi-lingual bibliography.

"Perkowski has provided us with an extremely valuable, scholarly, and, to my mind, near-definitive study" (Journal of American Folklore) "He succeeds in making available, in a lively and accessible style, perceptions of Dracula, and related vampires, as found in our legends, witchcraft beliefs, popular literature and media. Specialists, together with general readers, will be enriched by a reading of this informative monograph." (Come-All-Ye)

Professor Townsend's book will be of interest not only to Bohemists, but also to students of Slavic linguistics and to sociolinguists, since spoken and written Czech are radically different and present an unusually interesting case of diglossia. The description of spoken Czech offered here stems first and foremost from detailed study of the speech of a large number of Prague speakers of various ages and backgrounds and from thorough questioning of many of them. A Description of Spoken Prague Czech is an effort to make accessible to researchers and students of Czech a language which is certainly a speech entity but which is very difficult to pinpoint and one which most Prague Bohemists refrain from defining, let alone describing. The relatively few existing studies of spoken Prague Czech, and the advice and comments of several Bohemists have been taken into account in the final version.

"an essential supplement for advanced courses in Czech and essential for anyone who aspires to converse in the language. In addition, Description is a valuable document for all linguists with an interest in diglossia." (MLJ)

"...not only a solid theoretical description of Common Czech, but above all a good language textbook ... a significant contribution...." (Czechoslovak and Central European Journal)

"The newcomer to the labyrinthine mysteries of Czech speech-ways will be grateful to Townsend for this expert introduction." (MLR)

"...a reliable reference guide and sourcebook..." (SEEJ).

Božidar Vidoeski (1920–1998) was the father of Modern Macedonian dialectology. Not only did he publish numerous studies of individual dialects but also broader syntheses that superseded all previous attempts and that remain to this day the foundations of Slavic dialectology on Macedonian linguistic territory. The present collection contains translations of eight of Vidoeski's most important general Macedonian dialectological works, as well as his complete bibliography. It can thus serve as a basic textbook for any course that deals with Macedonian dialects but is also a fund of information and analysis for any scholar interested in the Macedonian language. The articles translated for the present collection span the period from his classic article on Macedonian linguistic geography ("The Dialects of Macedonian in Light of Linguistic Geography", 1962) up to the fruits of a lifetime of studying and thinking about Macedonian dialects: a general overview of Macedonian dialectal differentiation ("The Dialectal Differentiation of the Macedonian Language", 1996) and a study of Macedonian vocalic systems ("The Vocalic Systems of Standard Macedonian and the Dialects of Macedonian", 1997). Taken together, these eight articles give a masterful overview of Macedonian dialectology by the master of the field.

A simple tailor, the protagonist of the great Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem’s last theatrical drama, suddenly becomes rich, but loses his money on account of an obscure cinema deal. The author’s son-in-law and assistant, Y.D. Berkowitz, insisted that the issue of moviemaking be removed from the plot. It seems he tried, among other things, to conceal his father-in-law’s “cinema obsession,” which played itself out between Moscow and New York during the final years of his short life. Until now this story of Sholem Aleichem’s “last love” remained virtually unknown because the majority of relevant documents, written in Yiddish, Russian, Hebrew, English, and other languages, as well as the author’s film scripts, have never been published. By reconstructing the picture of Sholem Aleichem’s extensive contacts with the world of cinema in Europe, Russia, and the US, this monograph throws new light on the famous writer’s life and work, on the background of the incipience of early Jewish cinematography.

"Rare is a book that reverses the laws of electronics, making a negative into a positive. Professor Ber Kotlerman of Bar-Ilan University treats the failed attempt by Sholem Aleichem to make a movie. But it is more than that. It is a study of Sholem Aleichem's relationship with Modernity, technology, and visual media. If he had lived long enough, Sholem Aleichem would have adopted other media in addition to fiction writing. This professional piece of writing should find its audience in students of Jewish literature and cinema."

-Brian Horowitz, Tulane University

"The Disenchanted Tailor is an enrapturing investigation of not only a virtually unknown moment in the career of the author commonly dubbed the 'father of modern Yiddish literature,' but a whole world of buried histories and startling associations. Ber Kotlerman's earlier In Search of Milk and Honey was a groundbreaking achievement of Yiddish arts history and critique. Here Kotlerman does it once again."

-Shelley Salamensky, University of California, Los Angeles

This collection of essays is offered with sincere gratitude and admiration to Donald Ostrowski, Instructor in Extension Studies at Harvard University and one of the most important scholars of Ukraine, Russia, and Eurasia in the last half century. This volume takes its name from the famous Latin phrase from Peter Abelard's Sic et Non: Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus; inquirendo veritatem percipimus-"By doubting, we come to question; by questioning, we perceive truth." It is a fitting and succinct description of Ostrowski's long and significant career because it captures what he has always done best: questioning our understanding of the essential primary source materials of Ukrainian, Russian, and Eurasian history; doubting received and traditional historical interpretations; and writing works that have drawn us much closer to the truth about East Slavic history and culture. The essays in the volume have been contributed by Ostrowski's many colleagues and students, and reflect his wide-ranging interests across a vast territorial and chronological space. Essays in this collection represent a variety of disciplinary approaches (history, language and literature, law, diplomacy, philology, and art history) and treat a range of issues as vast as Don's own interests. It is a collection that builds upon and sometimes challenges the works of previous historians (including earlier works of Ostrowski himself) by raising doubts and questionssomething Ostrowski has done in his own career and welcomes when he sees it in others.