HOW THE END OF HISTORY FOR RUSSIAN STUDIES BECAME THE
BEGINNING FOR RUSSIAN STUDENTS
By Harlow Robinson
Russia and I go way back. But after glasnost, the collapse of Communism,
the reduction of the once-mighty USSR to an assortment of struggling pseudocapitalist
oligarchies, and now Boris Yeltsin's theatrical New Year's Eve resignation,
I'm not exactly sure where we stand.
I was still a teenager when I made my first trip to the Soviet Union,
back in the good-old-bad-old days of Leonid Brezhnev, the Cold War, James
Bond, and the space race. Actually, the Russia bug first bit me-hard-when
my parents took me to see David Lean's just-released film version of Boris
Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago. I couldn't resist the explosive mix of
doomed royal splendor, fanatic revolutionaries, and passionate love affairs
carried on over Siberian distances against impossible wintry odds. Almost
immediately, I started plowing through the novels of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy,
transfixed by their intensity and exoticism, if somewhat baffled by the
philosophical argumentation. A few years after my cinematic encounter with
Doctor Zhivago, I started studying Russian.
Very soon, however, I realized I would have to go to Russia if I had
any hope of reading Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy in the original-or, indeed,
of attaining a level of reasonable fluency in this most romantic and complex
of languages. One of the most exciting moments of my life was arriving
at Finland Station in Leningrad on a train from Helsinki in June 1970.
When I saw enormous Cyrillic letters over the train platform spelling out
the name of the city that had been home both to the Romanov tsars and Vladimir
Ilych Lenin (he had arrived at the same station to launch the Bolshevik
Revolution in 1917), I thought I had gone to heaven. Suddenly, my study
of Russian and Russia ceased to be an academic abstraction and acquired
flesh, blood, and reality.
Of course it didn't take long to discover that daily life in Soviet
Russia resembled David Lean's Hollywood vision no more closely than daily
life in Atlanta did Gone with the Wind. Along with several hundred other
American college students taking language courses at Leningrad State University,
I was shocked by the substandard and highly regimented living conditions:
hot-water showers once a week, enforced attendance for class and excursions,
an infected city water supply that made some of us very ill, a dining-hall
menu short on nutrition and long on monotony. When I began to meet ordinary
Russians and even to visit their small apartments, I was disillusioned
to find the citizens of a supposedly antimaterialistic socialist "utopia"
obsessed with things like cars, stereos, watches, and blue jeans. And yet
most people were fiercely proud of their country and its system and viewed
the United States with an odd mixture of envy and disdain. Americans were
so few and far between in Russia in 1970-even in a seaport metropolis like
Leningrad-that we were regarded almost as visitors from another planet.
I admit it: the otherness of Russia at the height of the Cold War was
one of its main attractions for me. It was hard to get there and difficult
to stay. Russia was America's Enemy Number One. The U.S. government poured
money into Russian and East European Area Studies programs at colleges
and universities, since we had to be prepared to speak the enemy's language
and know something of her culture if we were going to bomb and conquer
effectively. During graduate school in the Department of Slavic Languages
and Literatures at the University of California at Berkeley, I was supported
for several years on a National Defense Foreign Language Fellowship. Many
students in my field were later employed by the government to perform surveillance
work. If you studied Russian in those days, people assumed that either
you were a Communist sympathizer or you wanted to be a spy. (I was neither.)
Shortly after I returned from Leningrad in 1970, my brother married an
admiral's daughter. At the wedding, the admiral told me only half-jokingly,
"I thought you would come back dressed in red."
A sense of adventure and even danger surrounded every trip to Russia
then. I made many of them, as a Fulbright scholar (twice), study program
director, and tour guide: ten trips from 1970 to 1989, and twelve during
the tumultuous and fascinating period between 1989 and 1997, when earth-shaking
political and social events seemed to occur in Moscow almost daily. For
those of us trained in an era when it was inconceivable that the USSR could
ever cease to exist, let alone disappear in the course of a few short years,
watching the dismantling of the Soviet empire at home and abroad was an
irresistible and yet horrifying spectacle-something like slowing down to
see a spectacular twenty-car pileup across the median strip.
But I wasn't just a detached observer, because I knew so many people
caught in the wreckage. They had given the best years of their lives as
teachers, writers, musicians, scientists, or engineers to a system they
also trusted and believed impregnable. And after the initial euphoria-over
glasnost, the abolition of ideological censorship, and the restoration
of essential freedoms like the ability to travel abroad-had passed, we
all began to see that the future looked extremely complicated. Deprived
of the government funding that had always footed all the bills, many of
the institutions in which my friends worked began to close or fail to pay
salaries. Leading scientists became so despondent about their ability to
conduct research that they moved abroad. Intellectuals formerly subsidized
by unions of filmmakers, composers, or artists had to find new ways of
supporting themselves. Meanwhile, their health suffered under the stress
and the precipitous decline of even the most basic medical services. I
saw a close friend of many years sicken and die. The comfortable livelihood
he had made translating modern American novels into Russian had vanished
along with his readership. Others left for the greener pastures of Boston
or Berlin or Denver.
For the first time, crime became a serious concern for travelers to
Russia (not to mention the citizens!). Despite the dangers, thousands of
entrepreneurs flooded Russia and the former republics, seeking quick riches
and often dealing with the unsavory "New Russians" who called
themselves respectable businessmen but often had links to the increasingly
important and ubiquitous mafia. On the street, even in subzero winter weather,
legions of beggars, a display never encountered in the old USSR, lay destitute
and miserable, no longer protected by the Soviet welfare state. At the
other end of the economic spectrum, well-heeled American expatriates became
a familiar sight in Moscow.
Back home, the U.S. government curtailed funding for the study of Russian
language and culture, since the country was no longer considered a military
threat. Government agencies also significantly reduced the number of Russian
specialists they hired. Enrollments in college and university Russian language
courses, temporarily inflated to dizzying heights by the Gorby-mania of
the late 1980s, soon plummeted by nearly half or more. The boom period
in Russian Area Studies had ended with a thud. Those of us who have devoted
many years to this enterprise are even now engaged in a search for personal
and professional redefinition. No less than the citizens of the country
we study, we have lost our old ways and have to find new ones.
It's a source of some consolation to know that I'm not the only Russia/Soviet
expert in a state of confusion and identity crisis. A cartoon in the New
Yorker not long ago portrays our situation with mordant humor. On a city
sidewalk, a well-dressed Manhattanite passes by a now-shabby gentleman
bearing an apologetic expression and a tin cup for donations. He holds
a sign that reads "Expert on Russia."
I'm not the only one who finds russia's changes disorienting. It's a
very different country today than it was when I first went there in 1970.
Risk taking is now rewarded, not punished. Despite daunting social and
economic problems, the new Russia affords opportunities unheard of in the
dark and oppressive Soviet past. The changes have been felt far afield.
You can even see some of the results around the Northeastern campus these
days.
One of the most noticeable and salutary changes is the presence of Russian
undergraduate and graduate students. During the seventy-plus years that
the Soviet regime endured, it was virtually impossible for young Russians
to go abroad for any portion of their education. The government feared
that they would be ideologically contaminated by contact with Western students
and ideas. In the very few cases when Soviet students were allowed to study
abroad, they had to go in heavily supervised groups (usually accompanied
by a security agent) under highly structured conditions. But now, Russian
students can independently and individually attend N.U. or any other American
institution of higher learning as long as they meet the admission standards-and
can pay the tuition. Many have taken advantage of this remarkable, if expensive
and complicated, new freedom.
At Northeastern, Russian is now frequently and prominently heard in
the student center and elsewhere, along with many other foreign languages
spoken by the increasingly international student body. Like others, the
Russian students are drawn to N.U. by its academic reputation, its location
in Boston (a city with strong European roots and cultural traditions and
a large permanent Russian community), and by co-op. Since the plunging
ruble has made tuition payments increasingly difficult for Russians, the
possibility of working during college or graduate school is of special
importance for them.
The Russian students at N.U. are a diverse group, reflecting the ethnic,
geographical, and religious diversity of a country that still (even after
the breakup of the USSR) occupies about one-sixth of the world's land surface.
In addition to Russians, there are numerous Russian-speaking students from
the former Soviet republics, such as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine.
Their dissimilarities notwithstanding, they all come to Northeastern for
one purpose: to get a good education that will help them compete more effectively
in the brave, scary new world of post-Communism.
Maria Prokoshina, a twenty-three-year-old undergraduate, was born in
Soviet Leningrad. When she was a teenager, her graceful home city on the
Gulf of Finland regained its original name of Saint Petersburg. She lived
there with her father and grandmother and studied English and French at
the prestigious Herzen State Pedagogical University, housed in a former
aristocratic palace not far from the Hermitage museum. Initially, she planned
to become a teacher. But the economic and employment situation in Saint
Petersburg became more and more difficult. Under the Soviet regime, Maria's
father had worked as a production manager in theater and film; by the early
1990s, these formerly thriving industries were reeling from the loss of
government subsidies. Like so many others, he had to find a new way to
make money, so he began to design light fixtures and started a small company.
The instability of life in Russia worried her father, Maria told me
one day recently over coffee, speaking in strongly accented but excellent
English. "He was afraid he wouldn't be able to support me," she
says. He encouraged her to travel abroad and seek better opportunities,
knowing that teachers in Russian schools made pitiful salaries that they
rarely even received. So in the summer of 1996, she came to Boston to study
English in a special program at Boston University. "I was surprised
how beautiful and international and friendly Boston was." Maria returned
the following winter to see a friend from the former Soviet republic of
Georgia who had stayed in Boston. Then she heard about Northeastern, completed
an application "with a lot of help from the staff in the admissions
office," and entered in the fall of 1997 as a middler student with
transfer credits, mainly in French and business. After starting as an economics
major, she eventually transferred into the College of Business Administration.
Maria has also taken several courses in cinema studies, since her dream
is to work in the production end of the film business in Hollywood.
"I like the independent style of education at Northeastern,"
Maria observes. "You create your own path and follow it. In Russia,
the educational approach is completely different. Here, people want you
to succeed, and they help you, give you a second chance. You can change
your mind if you want. In Russia, you get your diploma and then decide
what you want to be. Here, it's exactly the opposite."
Coming to Northeastern has required determination and sacrifice from
both Maria and her father, who has been helping to pay the bills. Now that
she's in the United States, she doubts she will return soon to Russia to
stay, although she misses her family and city. "I don't fantasize
about life here. It's hard, too. But if you're worth something, you can
still succeed. In Russia these days, people only care who's behind you,
not who you are. Many people there have lost hope. How can they be so patient?
They deserve a better life than they have."
Evgeny Aisenshtein, a twenty-three-year-old graduate student in computer
science from the central Russian city of Chelyabinsk, agrees with Maria
that it will take a long time for the economic situation in Russia to significantly
improve. He plans to become a software developer, and "there are practically
no opportunities in that field in the near future in Russia," he told
me on a rainy spring day. "You need a well-developed market, which
will take at least ten years to develop. And that's too long for me."
So he says he may also stay in the United States (if he can solve the formidable
visa problems) after he finishes his master's in two years. "Or perhaps
I'll go on for a Ph.D."
When I met Evgeny, he had been in the United States and at Northeastern
for only two months, but he seemed to be adapting very quickly. Fluent
in English after having studied it at South Ural State University and in
special summer classes in Chelyabinsk, Evgeny has not found it difficult
to keep up with his classmates. Like Maria, he likes the way students in
an American university are expected to do much of their work independently,
away from the classroom. He lives in an apartment on Beacon Street and
finds daily life-especially shopping-easier than in Russia (except for
insurance, utilities, and phone bills). So far, his biggest complaint is
about Boston's "changeable" weather: "I never know what
to wear."
A true child of the computer era, Evgeny found out about Northeastern
in remote Chelyabinsk on the Internet, from the College of Computer Science's
Web site. He downloaded the application, filled it out, and sent it in.
Owing to the slow and unpredictable mail service in Russia, he received
information sent out to newly admitted students before receiving the actual
admissions letter. Evgeny is fortunate because his father, a successful
businessman who runs a car service and repair company, is able to pay the
tuition bills.
Like Evgeny, twenty-five-year-old Natalia Shelkova came to Northeastern
from a remote provincial Russian city. Irkutsk lies far to the east of
Moscow, in southern Siberia, not far from Mongolia and very near Lake Baikal,
the deepest freshwater lake in the world. She studied economics at Irkutsk
State Economic Academy. At Northeastern, Natalia is a graduate student
in economics and receives a full scholarship from the U.S. Information
Agency under the Freedom Support Act/Edmund Muskie Fellowship program.
Created at the initiative of former Maine Senator Muskie, this competitive
program provides funding to students from Russia and the former USSR
so they can study in their discipline in American colleges and universities.
But the Muskie fellowship has one important condition: the recipients must
agree to return to Russia for at least two years after their study in the
United States is completed. The point, Natalia explained to me, "is
to bring some American ideas to Russia."
The daughter of an engineer and a high school principal, Natalia admits
that she is "not really hopeful" about the current economic situation
in Russia. She agrees that the mafia now has great power and influence
there, but suggests that rather than confront this force head-on, it may
be more sensible perhaps "to make their activities legal, to allow
them to do their business somehow." Nor does she believe that Russia
can simply imitate the American way. "We can learn from the United
States, but Russia has its own resources and treasures. One thing is certain:
we cannot force people to do things, as happened under Communism."
Natalia is also realistic about the inherent limitations of the capitalist
system. "Of course it's nice to have all the choices in the stores,
but if you don't have money, you don't have any choices. So it's not a
completely free system, either. The American Dream only comes true for
one in a hundred people, but it does move life along."
When she returns to Irkutsk after finishing her graduate work at Northeastern,
Natalia plans to work in business for a while and then perhaps to teach.
"You need to have real-life experience before you can teach business-the
students respect you more." This last summer, she worked in the Boston
office of Merrill Lynch "to learn what American corporate culture
is like."
These well-spoken and promising students are not the only Russians on
the Northeastern campus. There are also several on the university faculty,
particularly in engineering and the sciences, fields in which the Soviet
education system traditionally excelled. None of them has had a more unusual
and dramatic life than Alexander Gorlov, professor and director of the
Hydro-Pneumatic Power Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial,
and Manufacturing Engineering.
The holder of numerous U.S. patents for his inventions involving the
production of hydroelectric power, Gorlov has been at Northeastern for
more than twenty years, since long before glasnost and democracy came to
the USSR. In fact, Gorlov arrived at N.U. in 1976 as something of a celebrity,
a Soviet dissident expelled for his friendship with one of the most famous
of all Soviet dissidents: author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. After years of
being hounded by the KGB and forced to abandon his prominent career as
a scientific researcher, he was left with no choice but to leave Russia:
"I had two options-Siberia or the West," Gorlov told me one day
in his office. Because of his excellent professional reputation, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology brought him to Boston. But in the end MIT was afraid
to spoil its delicate official relationship with Soviet scientists, and
so he was never offered the faculty position he had been promised there.
He got the N.U. job by answering an advertisement.
When he started teaching at Northeastern, Gorlov says, using one of
the colorful Russian proverbs that pepper his conversation, "I felt
like a chicken who had fallen into cabbage soup." (The English equivalent
is something like "to be up a creek without a paddle.") He knew
almost no English and had to learn it on the job. "I'll never forget
my first lecture," he says with a smile. "I memorized it word
for word, like a poem, but when I got to class, it only lasted for fifteen
minutes. So I finished, stopped, and started it over again."
Like all of the small number of people who emigrated from the USSR during
that era, Gorlov was convinced he would never see Russia again. "I
would never have imagined the wild idea that the USSR would collapse. When
I left, I had no doubt that the regime would last as long as the reign
of the Romanovs." (The Romanov tsars ruled for more than 300 years,
from 1613 to 1917.) And yet the impossible did come to pass, and Gorlov,
like Solzhenitsyn himself, was eventually allowed to return to his homeland.
Gorlov traveled to Russia for the first time in 1991, and has returned
several times since for conferences and collaboration with Russian colleagues.
But unlike Solzhenitsyn, who now lives in Moscow, Gorlov has no intention
of returning to Russia permanently to live.
The trips home have been sobering and difficult for him. "Life
is terribly hard for my friends there now. They live on $200 a month, and
so I help as many of them as I can. The economic situation has definitely
deteriorated since the early 1990s. In the long run, though, I am optimistic.
There is tremendous initiative among the young population now. If the government
can learn how to get out of their way, then the country will start to rise.
Because you can't forget that Russia has enormous natural resources, including
more oil than Saudi Arabia." Gorlov is putting his optimism into practice
by helping the numerous Russian students who have been studying engineering
at N.U.
After my conversations with Gorlov and other Russians on campus, I'm
feeling a little less confused about where Russia and I stand these days.
The monolithic totalitarian days of May Day parades on Red Square are surely
over. Doctor Zhivago has been in print in Russia for a decade now and it's
hard to believe both the novel and film were ever banned as anti-Soviet
propaganda. Moscow politicians are even talking about taking mummified
Lenin out of his mausoleum and giving him the decent burial he allegedly
requested. But it's unrealistic for any of us to expect that reinventing
Russia is going to be easy. The habits of Soviet imperialism die hard,
as the bloody struggle in Chechnya reminds us every day.
"It took the Communists seventy years to ruin Russia," one
of my Saint Petersburg friends observes. "It will take at least that
long to fix it again."
Harlow Robinson, professor of modern languages, wrote about opera
in the November 1999 issue. He is the author of biographies of Sergei Prokofiev
and Sol Hurok, and of articles and essays on Russia published in the New
York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Nation,
and other popular and scholarly publications.
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