International Workshop : "A short history of epistolary emotions in Russia" (Paris)
Sorbonne University, Paris, June 12th-13th 2019
June 12th
Centre d'études slaves, 9, rue Michelet, 75004 Paris
PROGRAMME
14:00. Welcoming words: Luba Jurgenson (Sorbonne University)
14:10-14:30. :Rodolphe Baudin (Sorbonne University), Introduction: Studying Russian letters, from literary and social practices to the history of emotions ».
14:30-15:00. Victoria Frede (UC Berkeley), « Sympathy in the Russian sentimental letter of the 1770s ».
15:00-15:30. Aleksandr Ivinskii (Lomonosov University, Moscow), « Pis’ma M. N. Murav’eva k otsu i sestre: mezhdu sentimental’nost’iu i ostroumiem ».
Tea break
16:00-16:30. Sara Dickinson (Università di Genova), « The performance of maternal sentiment in the letters of Ekaterina Dashkova ».
16:30-17:00. Rodolphe Baudin (Sorbonne University), « Guilty letters or letters on guilt? Demonstrating guilt in Radischev’s letters to Count Vorontsov ».
17:00-17:30. Ilya Vinitsky (Princeton University), « The death of a Baron: emotional value of suicide in the late 18th and early 19th century ».
June 13th
Centre d'études slaves, 9, rue Michelet, 75004 Paris
9:00-9:30. Maya Lavrinovich (HSE, Moscow), « Ot ‘liubvi' k razocharovaniiu: vyrazhenie chuvstv kak sredstvo kommunikacii mezhdu N. P. Sheremetevym i A. F. Malinovskim (1800-ye gody)".
9:30-10:00. Stefano Aloe (Università di Verona), “Vina i gordost’ v epistoliarnom diskurse dekabristov”.
10:00-10.30. Claire Delaunay (Sorbonne University), « Pafos otvrashcheniia v epistoliarnom nasledii Tolstogo kak iavlenie kul’turnoi istorii emocii ».
Coffee break
11:00-11.30. Alexey Tikhomirov (Bielefeld University), « Speaking female: emotions, languages and epistolary selves in women’s letters to Soviet leaders ».
11:30-12:00. Emilia Koustova (University of Strasbourg), « Connections under constraint: emotions and solidarities in letters to and from Soviet deportees (USSR, 1940s-1950s) ».
12:00-12:30. Conclusions and end of the workshop.
organized by Rodolphe Baudin (Sorbonne University / Eur'ORBEM)
PRESENTATION
The last decades have produced several important works on Letter-writing in Russia. These works, both Russian and Western, have focused on various aspects of Russian epistolary culture, such as its Western origins, its theoretical set of rules, its rhetorical and literary models, its use of diglossia, its class and gender uses, or its political dimension.
The present conference, by bringing together research from two different fields – epistolary studies and the cultural history of emotions – offers to revisit correspondences as a catalogue of emotions and a set of examples on how to express them and respond to them.
What were the principal emotions which could be expressed in correspondences, both private and public, in the Russian cultural space, from the 18th to the 20th century? How were these emotions mediated? Were some of them more relevant than others? Were some forbidden? And if so, was the expression of forbidden emotions allowed in other, contiguous types of ego-documents? Were authorized emotions made available to epistolary writers by sets of models from both private and public culture? Did the set of authorised/forbidden emotions evolve in epistolary culture independently from the overall evolution of social norms outside of the epistolary sphere? And if so, did this evolution follow the same pace as in other types of ego-documents?
These are some of the questions which the conference offers to address, in an effort to raise a wider question: was/is there any specific epistolary self in Russian epistolary culture?