Recently, I had a chance to chat with one of Russia’s renowned academic authorities on international relations and studies, Dr. Anna Pavlovskaya, about the culture and history of the relationship between America and Russia. Professor Pavlovskaya, regularly teaches a course called “Russia and the West: The Problems of Perception and Communication of Cultures” and is the Director of MSU’s Centre of Cross-Cultural Studies. She’s also the author of over one hundred publications including: Russia and the USA: the Problem of Interaction of Cultures, How to Deal with Russians, Education in Russia: History and Traditions, Moscow State University, Cultureshock! Russia: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette, and The Russkii Mir: The Russian World.
RS: "Dr. Pavlovskaya, thank you for taking the time to talk. What motivated you, as a Russian and a woman, to become an historian?"
AP: "I come from an academic Moscow University family: my mother is a very well-known linguist and my father was a distinguished literary critic. In my youth I had no doubts that my future is in philology. I grew up surrounded by books, our guests were mostly my parents’ students or colleagues, and all talks in the family were about university life or various scholarly subjects. Therefore, when it was time to enter the University I applied for the Department of Philology at Moscow State University. Then I suddenly realized that it seems as if I had already spent all my life there, I knew everybody and everything there. Though I decided that the nearest subject to my interests is history and it is something new and intriguing to me. So I sent my papers several floors down to the Department of History. It was in 1980 and at that time history was very popular in the Soviet Union, I had to go through a competition with 10 candidates per one vacancy"
"You must remember that the whole notion of 'history' in Russia was (and still is) different from that in the USA. For us it was mostly old history so to say: for most devoted and serious students it was archeology or Ancient Greece and Rome, contemporary XXth century history was only for those who were interested rather in making a career than in a scholarly research. My choice was XIXth century Russian history which was a little bit too close to the present to be considered as genuinely serious historical subject. I slightly exaggerate but the truth is close to this. I have never regretted my choice and my philological background helped me a lot with my research, it has widened my horizons enormously. For me the main problem of history today or, to be correct, of historians, is their narrow-mindedness and kind of professional snobbery, they prefer to live in an exclusive world of the intellectual élite, isolated from other branches of knowledge".
A Writer Is A Pisatel' Nitsa
RS: "What has been the reception your periodicals and tomes have received in Russia and abroad?"
AP: "It is easier to say about 'abroad', where mostly my small and popular, books about Russia were published and some articles. I keep receiving letters from people who thank me for my practical guidelines and recommendations about visiting Russia. At home it is important that I am the head of the Centre of Cross-Cultural Studies and the Department of Regional Studies at Moscow State University and all my works are connected with the activities of these organizations. I initiated a new research idea which may be called cultural ‘regional studies’. It is very modern and in many aspects intersects with the problems of intercultural communication. The point is to develop some aspects that enable to understand different regions/areas/nations of the world, help to determine the behavior towards these regions and nations and future interrelations with them. Naturally, my books are in great demand among students of the Department".
RS: "You must have felt honored that How to Deal with Russians was an award winning volume, garnering a Gold Medal at the All-Russian Exhibition Centre?"
AP: "The story behind this book is rather funny. It was the end of 1990s; I had just finished my Doctorate Dissertation about Russian-American relations and felt rather tired of serious academic works. One day at an international conference I met my British colleague who made an interesting proposal: to write a book about Russian customs and etiquette. It was supposed to be short and easy-reading, full of anecdotes, examples from modern Russian life, facts and figures. It was something new for me then and I gladly agreed. It took me less than a month to finish it and I was lucky to find an excellent translator, Amanda Calvert, who is my mother’s and my friend, who agreed to help me with translation. So I send the text to my British colleague who answered that the project had failed and he can’t help me. Rather disappointed, I turned to Moscow University publishing house and they printed it in Russian and in English"
"Since then this book haunts me, it became some kind of nightmare for me. It was translated by the initiative of different people and organizations into French, Spanish and Polish, and soon will be ready versions in Dutch, Korean and Chinese. Some people saw it published in Italian and Indian but not under my name. During last 15 years I wrote 8-9 books that I consider serious and important, including 1200 pages of The Russian World which became the result of twenty years of lecturing, reading, thinking. But I am known as an author of this small, not very serious and slightly outdated (it was first published in 1998) book. It is probably time for small and simple books not for big volumes. That is why I am dreaming about splitting my The Russian World into small books with bright illustrations".
A School Day Is A Shkola Den'
RS: "I’d like to address your own American experience. What was it like for you to be a visiting lecturer at Amherst College and the University of Colorado?"
AP: "Both of my visits to America became turning points in my life. I came to Denver in 1991 together with my husband (who is a professor of Russian history as well) and a two-year-old son. For all of us it was the first acquaintance with a foreign world in general and a western world in particular. It was as an opening of a completely new world which turned out to be, in many aspects, both better and worse than we expected, and it was very different from our world. Even amongst students, I found that Russian students are more creative and daring while American students are much more responsible, better motivated and well organized (sometimes I think that some of my Russian students go to the University only as a great favor for their parents or their teachers and not because they really want to get knowledge). But what was more interesting and very unexpected – it helped us to understand Russia and Russian character much better than before. The roots of many future works of mine, my husband’s and even those of the department’s that I am heading now, are in our first American visit"
Next year we returned home and started many new things: the International Conference Russia and the West: the Dialogue of Cultures (next year will be XVth!), the Centre of Cross-Cultural Studies, the Department of Inter-Cultural Communication, Russian studies at our Department. Of course, the rapidly changing situation in Russia played its role as well, but our real interconnection with different cultures was extremely important. In Denver, I started interviewing people on their perception of Russia (later on, back home I continued doing this with the Russian audience as well), I had been doing this research for more than 10 years and it gave me some great material for my research of national stereotypes. And my Russian World course, which I regard as the most important in my lecturing and research life, started at the University of Colorado, where it was called 'A Course of Russian Culture and Civilization'"
"As for Amherst, it is due to my visit there that I had a chance to write my Doctorate Dissertation. You know that we have two higher degrees – Candidate (which is more or less American PhD) and Doctorate which is far too rare and difficult (among other things it must be not less than 500 pages and must introduce some new materials). I was 32 then, mother of a 6 year old son, very busy with my University work, at the same time occupied with earning money (it was the middle of 1990s, not an easy time for my country, putting it mildly) and surviving. In this changing ‘perestroika’ period the situation with scientific research in Russia has deteriorated - many libraries were closed, as well as archives, it was impossible to copy materials, there were even shortages of stationery. Then all of a sudden I got this offer from Amherst College to do research as a Copeland Fellow. It was like a miracle so I left everything behind, abandoned my beloved family and flew to the USA. It was like getting into researchers’ paradise"
"I was met and patronized by a well-known American historian Peter Czap, who let me have his office in the Amherst College library. It was unbelievable! First time I just spent time wandering among bookshelf, taking books out, turning pages over. In Russia you are never allowed to take books yourself in a library, you must first queue, then wait for a librarian to help you, hoping that she is in a good mood, otherwise it may be useless to expect that you’ll get what you need. Ladies working in Russian libraries are often very unhappy about what they have to do and see you only as an obstacle in their work. In Amherst Library everybody looked happy when I turned to them with my questions (or at least pretend to be happy which is fine with me). There were more miracles: Xerox-machines at every corner, possibility to order any book or newspaper (or their copies) from any American library"
"Even stationery was included in this scholarship so I happily bought beautiful writing cards of different sizes, plastic envelopes and boxes to keep them, various colorful files and folders. I lived in a beautiful big colonial-style house with two other Fellows. Together we represented quite a variety of civilizations: the American-British one – by a very nice historian (he was British who lived and worked in the USA), the Chinese one – by an industrious scientist and the Russian one – by myself. The most hard-working was our Chinese neighbor: normally I woke up from the sound of the bang of the door – he was leaving for his laboratory, and late at night, already in bed with my book I heard him returning home. Together with my British colleague we allowed ourselves to enjoy ourselves a little and to travel around Amherst"
"Everybody in the College was very well-wishing and helpful, although some clashes of cultures were inevitable, like, for example, a welcoming party in our house that was supposed to be “between 5 and 7” as it was written in invitations. Imagine my surprise when by 7 o’clock all the guests disappeared, and it was just when we all began feeling more relaxed and all the fun just started. But most of my time was spent in the Libraries collecting unique materials on the history of Russian-American relations. I tried to collect almost all possible information about Russia that was printed in the USA between 1850-1885 including newspapers, travelers’ diaries and letters, children’s literature, guidebooks etc., all the sources that reflected and at the same time formed the American image of Russia. The result was my book and my Doctorate dissertation that I defended three years later".
Rick Stelnick - Rick Stelnick is a superannuated political scientist, crime historian and historical detective.
