Dead Poets Society, Russian Style
Before the semester started, I was told that I could teach one course on anything I wanted to. Although the possibility to teach "anything" seems nice at first glance, the vagueness really wasn't helpful in narrowing down ideas, and I was glad to get advice from other teachers during our Moscow conference on what topic might be a winner. My fellow Fulbrighter Stephen gave me the great idea of modeling my class after The Dead Poets Society, a thought-provoking film in which a teacher played by Robin Williams inspires his students to push past rigid analysis to find the heartbeat of literature while encouraging them to question convention and think for themselves. The film gets its name from an old school tradition that the students resurrect in which they sneak off to a cave in the woods to read poetry.
The class has been both exciting and challenging for me as a teacher. Each week, we read either a short story or poem that is connected to a broad theme, such as "Suffering" with W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts," then discuss the piece of literature, its themes, and its implications for our lives. I have really been impressed by this group of students' desire to discuss these big issues and their ability to express complex thought in a second, or for many who speak Tatar, a third language. My fifth year students are about my age and for the most part have read more American literature than I have, which was intimidating at first, but I have to remind myself that a good teacher should have the attitude of a learner, and I really have learned so much from my students 🙂
The second Americano cameo in this post goes to my beloved neighbor in Naberezhniye Chelny, Hanna, who gave me the idea of hosting a poetry reading at my dorm, which totally fits into this Dead Poets Society frame. I haven't had students over before, because I don't have a kitchen or really very many chairs, but, excuses, excuses…how could I not do this? It was the best idea ever.
So, I invited my students over for banana-chocolate chip pancakes fried on my hot plate (which were devoured in minutes) and asked them to each bring a poem, in Russian, English, or Tatar, that they would like to share with the group.
First, a few girls shared some spoken word poetry by Neil Hilborn from the Button Poetry Project, which I had never heard of. It made me want to try my hand at some spoken word.
Most people drank tea out of glasses or used jam jars because I only own 3 mugs.
Next, students shared their favorite Russian poetry, both classic and modern. Some were familiar to me, like Pasternak, Yesenin and Brodsky, but I learned of some new poets such as Severyanin and Poloskova. Although my conversational Russian is pretty good, it was really hard to catch the meaning of most of the Russian poems that were read. One of my students shared some poetry that she had written, and I also shared a few of my poems.
My favorite one of the night was a piece by Boris Pasternak called "February," which makes an appearance in a few lines of one of my favorite Regina Spektor songs "Apres Moi." The first verse of the poem has been the perfect soundtrack to the slushy, wet introduction to the Russian spring.
Here is the first verse with a translation:
Февраль. Достать чернил и плакать!
Писать о феврале навзрыд,
Пока грохочащая слякоть
Весною черною горит.
February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring. (http://www.kulichki.com/poems/Poets/bp/Rus/bp_3.html)
Sveta and her jam-jar mug.
Прекрасный вечер с прекрасными людьми 🙂
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Spring's Not Green Here, But…
Spring's not green here, but for now, the melting will do.
And though some might consider the in-between a muddy mess, littered, mushy,
I'll compare it to Oreo pie, confettied, since it means that green exists,
I've walked
and walked
in steps of fear
strong,
and today is the 3 month mark,
June is closer than I ever thought possible,
haven't I always lived here?
Haven't I always lived here, or is time just not as linear as I thought?
Learning Tatar
Although Tatarstan is politically a part of the Russian Federation, I am constantly reminded that at the same time, it is a country and culture all its own. Beautiful mosques share the scene with Orthodox churches, Tatar delicacies such as chak-chak and mantiy are served just as often as borsch and kasha, and most exciting for a language lover, the beautiful yet still-unintelligible sounds of Tatar can be heard alongside Russian on the street, on the radio, and (yikes) even in my classroom.
The Flag of Tatarstan*The green represents Islam, the red, Russia, and the white line, the peace between the Muslim Tatar majority and the Russian minority.
Over half of the population did not learn Russian as their first language, but rather acquired it in their early years at school while continuing to speak Tatar at home. This bilingual balancing act, although the norm for many teachers and students I've talked to, has made a huge impression on me. I find it amazing to watch those at my university speed through a phone conversation in Tatar, answer someone in Russian, then address me in English. When I found out I would be living in Tatarstan for 9 months, I made it my goal to at least learn the basics of Tatar while I was here, and I've finally had the time to devote to the study of this difficult yet fascinating language.
Altay-what?
To give you an idea of just how different Tatar is from English, take a look at this wonderful little tree diagram of the world's language families. Although the Foreign Service Institute ranks Russian as of higher difficulty to learn for an English speaker than the Romance languages, what many people don't realize is that English and Russian are actually in the same language family, Indo-European. Although there are significant linguistic differences between the two, there are actually more similarities than you might think. But Tatar, oh Tatar…Tatar isn't even in the same language family as English. At the bottom of the diagram, you'll see a tiny little branch reaching to the left: this represents the Altaic family, of which the most familiar language is Turkish.
Photo Credit: http://bashapedia.pbworks.com/w/page/13960889/Language%20Families
Chart Credit: http://bashapedia.pbworks.com/w/page/13960889/Language%20Families
What this means for the language learner beginning from an Indo-European frame of reference is that he has to open his mind to a extremely different way of processing language both grammatically and phonetically. A difficult task, but so far it's been as fun as it has been frustrating.
Take out that IPA chart and get cracking!
The sounds of Tatar have been more difficult to produce than I expected, since when I first arrived and I was taught how to count to 5, I was praised on how good my accent was. This was due to a few phonemes that exist both in English and Tatar that are not found in Russian, such as [ae], the vowel sound found in "bad," "cat," etc. Note, this [ae] sound is written as ә, which was confusing at first.
But as I've analyzed the phonemic inventory more closely, it's become clear that Tatar has sounds I've never attempted to make before, except perhaps in Dr. Bird's phonetics class 🙂 The language is written in Cyrillic, but because there are sounds that do not occur in Russian, there are the added letters:
һ (close to an English h.)
ө (close to the vowel sound in the British "bird," "word.")
ә (a as in "back," "cat,")
ү (an "oo" sound pronounced further back than the English version.)
ң (ng as in "sing.")
җ (in between j in "Johnson" and zh in "rouge.")
These extra letters though, do not represent all of the different sounds. For example, what is written in Cyrillic as г (g) can be pronounced two different ways. Most difficult for me so far has been producing a sound that is close to the English k, but is pronounced further back. In linguistic terms, English the English k ([k])requires you to touch your velum with the back of your tongue, but in Tatar, the k, realized as [q] is often produced by touching the back of your tongue to the uvula. When I hear native speakers do it, it sounds like a k with a popping noise. And that is just one sound out of many; I won't even get started on vowel harmony.
Let's Agglutinate!
Although the phonetics of Tatar are difficult, the core of the difficulty for a speaker of an Indo-European language comes in making the mental transition from an inflected grammatical system to a system of agglutination. In college, we learned the definition of agglutinative by remembering that in these languages, grammatical components and words were glued together (And if I remember correctly, both "glue" and "agglutinative" share the same root.) Both inflected and agglutinative languages use affixes to express grammar, but agglutinative languages are different in that you take a root word and keep stacking suffixes on the end until the word is about a page long. An exaggeration, of course, but that's what it seems like to a beginner. Prefixes and prepositions do not exist in an agglutinative languages, but their functions are rather expressed in suffixes that must be added in a specific order. One nice thing about agglutinative languages though, is that a morpheme codes for just one meaning, rather than many, like in Russian. For example, in Tatar, the suffix -ка always denotes that a noun is the direct object, whereas the Russian -у can denote masculine dative case, feminine accusative case, or even prepositional case.
Here's an example of this agglutinative magic:
English: In my books
Russian: В моих книгах
Tatar: book: китап (kitap), plural morpheme: лар (lar), possessive morpheme: ым (iym), time/locational case: да (da)
Order of agglutination: root+plural morpheme+possessive morpheme+case morpheme=
китабларымда (kitablariymda)= in my books
As you can see, what is expressed by three words in both English and Russian is expressed in Tatar in one long, complex word. The system of verbs is similarly complicated, and I've only begun to scratch the surface of understanding Tatar grammar. However, I am happy to say that I have learned quite a few new words and phrases to balance out the intensity of learning grammar. My strategy has been similar to it was when I started Russian, in a word: songs. When I decided I wanted to speak Russia, I printed out song lyrics, translated them, then listened to the songs and practiced them over and over. This was great for pronunciation, memorization, and was much more enjoyable than slaving over a textbook. In addition to learning some basic phrases, such as "исәнмесез" (isanmesez, hello), "рәхмәт" (rakhmat, thank you), and "әйдә" (ayda), I've been listening to and translating a simple song with to broaden my vocabulary and become familiar with the phraseology and grammar. It's already working: today I found this Tatar music video and I was able to pick out the phrases: "You are my love," and "you are my destiny." Give it a listen if you're curious as to how Tatar sounds. Well, that's it for now! Сау булыгыз! (sau bulighiz, goodbye!)
*Flag of Tatarstan credit: http://kazantimes.com/politics/tatarstan-may-finally-get-lyrics-for-its-anthem/
Unless a Kernel of Wheat
"Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12:24
These are the words of Jesus that Dostoevsky chose to open The Brothers Karamazov with, words that are now etched as the epitaph on his gravestone. I want to know what he was feeling when he chose that verse; take away all your critical essays and footnotes and academic speculations, and just let me see that man's heart before his God.
Was he feeling what I feel today?
These are the words of Jesus that have been on meditative repeat all day long, washing away the fear that dirties my eyes and clogs my ears.
The fear has lied to me for years, spouting its logic that such a sacrifice is not meant for me, but for another follower. "You," the fear whispers, "must make your primary goal self-protection, you must do everything to prevent yourself from this daily death. You are fragile, brittle, weak, and the grand paradox must be experienced from a safe distance, in the acknowledgement of the One who set the precedent and in the reading of stories of followers who were so much stronger than you. Don't think you need to follow in their footsteps; it is your spiritual mission to achieve a peaceful control. Control over anxiety, depression, and your unpredictable emotions is what will make you most useful to Him. For what good is a desperate child, weeping, fumbling through the day without finesse or passion or plan? Only when you feel confident and competent will you understand what it means to live victoriously."
The death is meant for me too, though, I realize as I walk along icy streets awaiting spring's breath. Safety doesn't equal freedom in His kingdom, and it is beauty, not shame, to be in the place where I have to cry every morning "your grace is sufficient for me, for your power is made perfect in my weakness."
This death is meant for me, and the words of Christ nudge me to stop and consider if the goals I've subconsciously set for July and beyond really align with his calling. Five months of living in chaos external and internal has tempted me to exchange the word adventure for comfort, a concession I never thought I would make. Yet here I am, tricking myself into the smallness of stability.
"He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal." John 12:25
Jesus' next words defy logic, proclaiming a paradox that I have been so scared to embrace. I love my life too much, and in trying to barricade it against harm, I suffocate and starve it.
I may never get control of my "issues." Depression and anxiety may very well make regular appearances throughout my life. And I may not ever feel like I have it all together. But the words of Christ make me realize that gaining control of my emotions, my relationships, and my vocation shouldn't be my goal. My goal, however unsafe and unfair and impossible it seems, should be to embody John 12:24-25. In each feeble step forward to breathe "He must become greater, I must become less." To reclaim adventure by embracing this paradox of life through death.
Russia in Color
Russia is often wrongly stereotyped as a depressing land devoid of color and life. Although the Russian winter is long and there are definitely periods where the dominant colors are white, brown, and grey, I have found Russia to possess an understated beauty that continues to stun me when I least expect it. I've selected fourteen of my favorite photos I have taken since I arrived in September, and if you have never been to Russia, I hope that they will give you a broader picture of the beauty and character this country has to offer! Note: many of these photos have been filtered, i.e. Instagram, but I really haven't altered them that significantly.
1. Moscow night, September 2013.
I took this photo from the corner of Red Square to capture the contrast of the jewel-toned sky and church. The building to the far left with the red star on top is the Kremlin.
2. Feeding swans in Gorkiy Park, Moscow. September 2013.
3. View from my dormitory porch, Elabuga. October 2013.
4. Wisdom from a Student, Elabuga. October 2013.
I asked my students to write an essay about the differences between higher education in the United States and in Russia. After praising the United States' use of syllabuses (which my students had never heard of), she contrasted it to the Russian system with the following statement that sums up my 10 year history with this place:
5. Elabuga Institute, Fall 2013.
Built in 1903 complete with a nifty onion dome, this building is arguably one of the coolest looking places to work on earth.
6. Sunset on Kazanskaya Street, Elabuga. Fall 2013.
7. Children playing by the Marina Tsvetaeva monument, Elabuga. Winter 2013.
I took this picture on the morning after one of the first snows, and I loved the excitement and energy that these children exuded.
8. Jumbo snowman outside my dorm, Elabuga. Winter 2013.
9. The Irony of Fate, Elabuga. Winter 2013.
The sign reads "The pharmacy is temporarily closed due to one of the employees being sick."
10. Winter sunset, Elabuga, 2013.
11. Caviar and Tea, Naberezhniye Chelny. Winter 2014.
12. View from Pushkin Park, Vladimir. Winter 2014.
13. Shooting the breeze, Elabuga. February 2014.
14. "Nyet," Naberezhniye Chelny. February 2014.
I saw a little boy scribble нет on the frosty window of the bus from Elabuga to Naberezhniye Chelny.
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