The Center announces inauguration of its Belarusian Studies Series (BSS) under the aegis of Southwestern College Press.
BSS has the two-fold goal of providing accurate and hitherto unavailable information for Belarusian readers in Belarus as well as scholarly works on Belarus intended for non-Belarusian readership and/or for Belarusians abroad.
Books will be published in either Belarusian or English or both. Occasionally, BSS may publish works on Belarus in third languages
The first monograph published in this series is:
“Belarusian Jewish Writers of the Nineteenth Century,” by professor Zina J. Gimpelevich
professor Zina J. Gimpelevich
Zina J. Gimpelevich is a Full Professor in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada. Born in Minsk, Belaruś, she came to Canada in 1979 with an MA in Russian Philology. She received her PhD in Slavic Studies from the University of Ottawa, Canada. In Ottawa, Dr. Gimpelevich worked for the Department of External Affairs and the University of Ottawa as an instructor of Russian language and culture.
She was one of the three founding members of the Canadian Relief Fund for the Children of Chernobyl in Belaruś (together with its first President, Mme Joanna Survilla (President of the Belarusian Government in Exile) and Pauline Smith-Paškievič). Dr. Gimpelevich is the President of Canadian Institute of Arts and Sciences (BINiM, 2002-); she is also the President of the Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS, 2008-2010).
Professor Gimpelevich’s research interests are Belarusian and Russian languages, literature, and twentieth-century culture. She has authored four books, five book chapters, and has written nearly forty articles dedicated to these two cultures.
professor Zina J. Gimpelevich book cover: The Belarusian Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century
Prof. Gimpelevich has co-authored one textbook and given over fifty presentations at professional conferences. Gimpelevich’s first English-language literary biography of the modern Belarusian classic Vasil Bykaǔ (McGill-Queen’s U. Press, 2005) will be translated into Russian-language and published in Moscow (2010). The present monograph, Belarusan Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century: Origin, History, and Discourse, discusses the unique relations between Christian and Jewish Belarusans.
Her research fully confirms Aleksander Stupnikov’s sentiments in his movie about the Jewish Partisan movement in Eastern Europe Outcasts (Izgoi, 2008/9), where Stupnikov concludes: “Belaruś was the only country among all the other countries of Eastern Europe, where the Nazi were impotent in forcing the locals to initiate or participate in Jewish Pogroms.”
This work will be followed by the publication of Valentin Innokent’evich Annenskii-Krivič’s literary album. Dr. Gimpelevich loves teaching and research and is active in North American Belarusian community life. One of her dreams is to see her native Belaruś democratic, prosperous, and free.
The second work to be published in the series is:
researcher and science editor Valery Pazdniakou, Ph.D.
“A Concise Encyclopedia of Belarusian History” by Ph.D. in History Valery Pazdniakou. Over 1988-1994, Valery worked as a senior academic worker at the Institute of History of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. In 1994-2007, he worked as a science editor at the publishing house ‘Belarusian Encyclopedia’ . Since 2007 he is the head of the department for the archeography of the Belarusian Scientific-Research Institute for the Record Management and Archiving.
Publication of this monograph is anticipated in the first quarter of 2009.
The BSS Editorial Board is chaired by the Center’s Associate Executive Director, Prof. James A. Sheppard. Please contact him for further information on the program.
