“We envied the Russians their samizdat...and then we went a few steps further.”

– Adam Michnik

Duplicator Underground is the first comprehensive in-depth English-language discussion of Polish independent publishing in the 1970s and 1980s. This anthology provides wide-ranging analyses of uncensored publishing and printing in communist Poland between 1976 and 1989. It gives a broad overview, historical explanation, and assessment of the phenomenon of the Polish “second circulation,” including discussions of various aspects of underground printing, distribution, and circulation of independent publications. The documentary part of the book is comprised of contemporary narratives and testimonies of the participants, including editors, printers, and distributors of underground literature. The book argues that rather than being a form of samizdat, Polish underground printing reached a semi-industrial scale and was at the same time a significant social movement.

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.

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.

This is a revisionist study of Derzhavin's poetic art and his contribution to the emerging importance of the role of "leading poet" in Russian culture and throughout the Russian Empire. As such, it returns to the 18th century and endeavors to remove the long shadow Pushkin and Pushkin scholarship have cast over Derzhavin the artist and cultural phenomenon. Through internal analysis of the self-referential materials in many of Derzhavin's best known poems as well as his prose comments on the poet's calling, Professor Crone paints a new picture of what is meant by Derzhavin's "heavy lyre." She traces how the very modest conception of the poet's role he held in the 1770s was systematically rendered more authoritative, powerful, and independent. Derzhavin raised the status of poet, presuming to define Russianness and Russian values, coopting prerogatives formerly held in the political sphere, and was most instrumental in shaping poetry as "the scourge of Tsars," which he later bequested to Pushkin. Part 1, "An Independent Aesthetics," reconsiders Derzhavin as innovative verbal artist, placing his oeuvre squarely in the context of literary questions and debates over the literary language which were contemporary to his over fifty-year career. Part 2 shows how Derzhavin raised the leading poet to the status of national hero by tampering with the "sacred cow" genre of the court -- the panegyric ode. Crone examines Derzhavin's gradual abandonment of the impersonal "disembodied" odic voice, his injection of a personalized odist into the work and his consistent elevation of the position of the praiser vis à vis the praised, until the poet-praiser was himself an odic hero. As the poet in all Russian letters who held the most numerous and most powerful governmental positions (Governor, Minister of the Commercial Collegium, Minister of Justice, etc.), Derzhavin, a man of pervasive "ministerial" mentality, was able to suggest very convincingly that a great poet was an independent "monarch" or "minister" in his poetic domain and that the great poet's national service was every bit the equal to that of a statesman or a Field Marshal.

"…a sustained and well-handled presentation of an interesting thesis…contains extended analyses of many of Derzhavin's major poems and offers stimulating insights…It is good that the author's many years of study of Derzhavin…should now be crowned by a monograph that offers a welcome reassessment of Derzhavin's importance in the Russian poetic tradition and takes pleasure in the raw, immediate poetry through which Derzhavin celebrated his love of life and the ideals of his age." (MLR)

While the examples are taken from scientific texts, this dictionary will be of use to all students of Russian, and especially to all translators. "Omissions" are words or phrases that are not to be translated when turning a Russian text into English. Some examples are: dostatochno in "Ne predlozhen dostatochno ubeditel'noe ob''iasnenie" `A convincing explanation has not been offered'; nado skazat', chto in "Nado skazat', chto opisannyi metod iavlhetsia unikal'nym sposobom" `The method is unique'; davat' vozmozhnost' in "Sredstva, daiushchie vozmozhnost' izbezhat'..." `Methods of avoiding...' Knowing these phrases and techniques will greatly improve translations in any field, and will help students develop a better feeling for Russian style and a better understanding of Russian texts that they read. The book has short commentaries on general principles, and a bibliography, in the front and back of the book, but most of it is a listing, in alphabetical order, of items to be omitted, with at least one, and sometimes several examples for each item, and an English translation of each example. The head word or phrase to be omitted also has a literal English translation. Intermediate and advanced students of Russian will find this dictionary a great help in perfecting their knowledge of the language, as well as their ability to translate effectively into English.

"...Geld has made a significant contribution..." (Capital Translator)

"The Dictionary of Omissionsis therefore an invaluable aid to Russian-English translators, be they experienced or mere beginners." (SEER)

"The chief shortcoming of the Dictionary is, paradoxically, that it is so good that one wishes it were larger..." (MLR) "[this book] surely belongs on the shelf of any translator or student of translation." (SEEJ)

This monograph describes the South Slavic dialect of a village which is located about 6 km. south of the Greek-Yugoslav border and 10 km. from the town of Lerin (Florina). The author of this study, who is a professor of Slavic linguistics at the University of Hamburg, had the unique opportunity of living with speakers of the dialect for extended periods of time. This is the first exhaustive and authentic study of any microdialect in the Lerin region and is thus a major contribution to South Slavic dialectology. The book begins with a description of the locale, the circumstances of the work that led to the book, a discussion of the theoretical bases of the work, and some historical data. Following chapters cover phonology, stress, inflection and derivation, and syntax. The treatment of syntax, in particular, includes much more material than is usual in such studies. After this are four texts in transcription (mostly IPA) with interlinear translation, and then four letters written in Latin script by a native speaker who did not know Cyrillic. These letters are accompanied by interlinear transcription and translation. There is an 80-page lexicon with over 2200 items and an 8-page bibliography. Professor Hill's book offers a description of the micro-dialect of Gorno Kalenik as spoken in the middle of the twentieth century. The description is synchronic and structuralist, although sociolinguistic questions and variation theory have not been disregarded. The work on this micro-dialect has confirmed once again that Lyons and others are right to speak of `the fiction of homogeneity.' In addition to the study which forms the main part of the book, a brief classification of the Lerin dialect and its subdivisions is offered. Since dialectological and sociological work on Slavic is not permitted in the Greek part of Macedonia, little has been published on the dialect of Lerin, and what has been published often presents material of doubtful authenticity in a theoretically unsatisfactory framework. Professor Hill's book will be of interest not only to specialists in the South Slavic languages, but also to Slavists in general, as well as sociolinguists.

"...this is a rich book, packed with information and, on almost every page, things one wants to discuss. In itself it is outstandingly useful for its clarity and for the authenticity of its data." (MLR)

"To conclude, this book represents a solid contribution to the field of Slavic linguistics and Balkan Slavic dialectology. The data are also sufficient to serve as the basis for more extensive historical analysis. The presentation of the material is impeccable and the exposition is clear." (SEEJ)

"...a welcome attempt to shed new light on a problematic dialect area." (SEER)

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).

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)