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61/1972

THE AUSTRALIAN NATICNAL UNIVERSITY

List of. Staff

Professor:

Senior lecturers:

Terrporary Senior Tutor:

Secretary:

FACULTY OF ARI'S

DEPARI'MENT OF RUSSIAN

ANNUAL REPORI' 197,i

R.G.A. de Bray, B.A., Ph.D. (Lond)

P.R. Ireland, M.A. (Cantab)

Margaret Travers, M.A. (! .elb) Dip. Slav. Studies (Oxon)

Svetlana Dyer, B.A.' (ANU) , M. S. (Georgetc:wn)

Kathleen North

Introduction

The Russian Departrrent, which has hitherto been a Section within the responsibility of the Professor of French, attained full status as an independent Deparbnent with the arrival in Octcber of Professor R.G.D. de Bray to take up the Chair.

Courses in the Departnent have been designed to develop in students skill in the use of the Russian language, both spoken and written, and to give them an appreciation of the main works of Russian literature, training in the rrethods of literary criticism, and an understanding of the history of Russian literature and of the develo:pnent of Russian society and thought. It will now be possible to extend the study of the history of the Russian language in the Departrrent and to offer courses in the crnparative philology of the Slavonic languages.

The present research interests of rrenbers of the Departnent are in the develoµnent of rrodem Russian literature and rrodem Russian rcorphology and syntax.

Professor de Bray will be engaged in preparing the third edition of his Guide to the Slavonic Languages.

-Staff rroverrents and changes

61/1972 2

Dr I. Masing-Delic, lecturer in the Department since 1967, left at the end of first tenn folla.ving her marriage. She had successfully defended her doctoral thesis on the poetry of Alexander Blok at the University of Stockholiri ·in December.

Mrs o. Hassanoff, terrporary senior tutor, left at the end of seoond tenn to begin a Ph.D. course in rrodem Russian literature at the University of Alberta.

Both had been valued and popular rrerrbers of the Depart:.rrent and their oontribution to the teaching of language and literature and to the activities of the Department will be missed.

Mrs s. Dyer joined the Deparbrent as terrporary senior tutor in second tenn. She leaves at the end of third tenn to join the Depa.rt:rrent of Chinese .

Staff activities

Miss M.B. Travers visited the University of Queensland in June and gave a lecture to the Russian Departrrent on the teaching of Russian intonation.

Mr P.R. Ireland has been Acting Chairman of the Russian Syllabus and Examination Carmittees of the New South Wales Board of Senior School Studies during 1971.

Visitors

No Visiting lecturer was seconded by M:>sca.v State University in 1971 .

In order to canpensate to sare extent for the absence of a Visiting lecturer, the Department arranged to invite a number of native speakers to lecture to senior students in Russian on literary topics. The following accepted invitations:

Mrs N .-M.- -Christesen, of Melbourne University, who spoke on Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn.

Mr I. 1-Ezhakoff-Korjakin, of Melbourne University, who lectured on Akhmatova and Yevtushenko.

Mrs H. Jakus zew, of the University of New South Wales, who lectured on Chekhov's short stories.

Post-2:aduate students and the post-9::aduate exchange scherre

with M:>sca.v University

Mrs N. Staples was awarded the M.A. degree for her thesis: 'A widening world; a discussion of the social attitudes and social problems of young people in Soviet literature, 1957-63'.

Mr R. Jones, Ph.D. scholar, spent six rronths as an exchange scholar at Mosca.v University and subsequently three months in Helsinki working in the Russian collection of the Helsinki university library. Ha has na.v returned to Australia to continue work on his thesis on Turgenev.

• - 61/1972 3

Mr R. Wocxlliouse spent five months at MJscCM University under the exchange agreerrent and Miss A. Saunders has left to spend eight months there . Both are M.A. scholars in the Depa.rtnent.

On 30 April there were one Ph.D. student and four M.A. students enrolled in the Department.

Under9:raduate courses

The follCMing courses were offered in 1971:

Russian I Russian II P and H Russian III H Science Russian

EnroJments were lCMer than in any year since 1967. A very small enrolment in Russian I, the lCMest in terms of students taking the examination since 1955, was largely responsible for this, and may be explained by the opening of a first-year Russian course at the College of Advanced Education. Notable also was the lCM proportion of pass students to honours students enrolled in second and third year - 6 against 13.

For the second year running, honours students had very good results. The three students awarded High Distinctions in Russian II in 1970 maintained their high standard of work this year and the Departrrent considers itself bound to repeat the awards this year, placing all three equal.

Student F'.3:rtiCiEation

M=etings of the staff and student representatives have been held at monthly intervals throughout the year.

Schemes of assessrrent for second and third year were worked out at these rreetings and accepted by the Department~ Once again, the main subjects of discussion were the aims of the Depa.rtnent, the content of courses, and teaching rrethods . The students were at all tirres responsible in discussions and in their suggestions, and the close contact and understanding established between staff and students helped to minimise the difficulties caused by staff changes during the year.

On the initiative of the students, a week-end session of intensive Russian was held, in a ronference centre at Tathra. Miss A M=tcalf, a second-year student, undertook the organisation. Thirteen staff and students attended and oral examinations held irrmediately afte:r:wards indicated that most students obtained great benefit from the session.

'Iwo other student requests which were successfully acted upon during the year deserve mention. A number of second- and third-year students rret for reading classes during February. The second-year students found this beginning to the year most helpful. Second- and third-year students sat their annual written examinations

- 61/1972 4

in the Departrrent and thus were spared sooe of the tension associated with the examination process.

Once again, it is hoped that contact will be maintained with student rrernbers of the carrnittee during the long vacation.

Publications

Hassanoff, Olga - The Keeper of Antiquities. To appear in .Melbourne Slavonic Studies 5, University of .Melbourne, 197J.

Travers, Margaret - The First Twenty-five Years. To appear in .Melbourne Slavonic Studies 5, University of .Melbourne, 1971

Subject Enrolled or unit as at

30.4.71 %

I 11 (100)

IIP 5

IIH 8

III l*

IIIH 5

·THE 'AUSTRALIAN' NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

DEPARI'MENI' OF RUSSIAN ANALYSIS OF STUDENI' PERFDRMANCE

Sitting Wastage Failure Sitting High Distinction Distinction

% % % % % ' %

7 (64) 4 (36) 2 (18) 7 (100) 1 (14) 2 (29)

3 2 0 3 0 0

6 2 1 6 1 2

5 0 0 5 3 1

* Took course for Russian II(H)

Credit l?ass Pass Fail with

'' ·% -~rit % '% %

1 (14) 0 (O) 1 (14) 2 (29)

. 2 0 1 0

2 0 0 1

1 0 0 0