Dr. Olga Rosenblum

Research fellow with the project Soviet Dissidence and the Public during De- and Re-Stalinization

CV

  • since 2022 research fellow with the project Soviet Dissidence and the Public during De- and Re-Stalinization
  • 2004–2022: Institute of Philology and History, Russian State University for the Humanities (positions held: 2004–2010: Assistant, Lecturer, Senior lecturer, 2010–2022: Assistant Professor)
  • 2005: PhD in Russian Literature, Russian State University for the Humanities
  • 2005: MA in Cultural Studies, Institute of European Cultures, Moscow
  • 2003: MA in Philology, Russian and German literature and History, Institute of Philology and History, Russian State University for the Humanities

Social Engagement

NGO Civic Assistance Committee, Center for Integration and Education of refugees' and forced migrants' children, Moscow

  • 2011–2014: Director of the Center
  • 2004–2011: Tutor for Volunteers teaching Russian Language Courses
  • 1998–2004:  Teacher of Russian as a Foreign Language (Volunteer)

Fellowships

  • 2020: Visiting Professor, Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
  • 2019–2020: Willy-Brandt-Stiftung, Berlin, Project “Soviet Dissidents Looking for Cooperation Abroad”
  • 2020: Memory Work Grant, Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, for organizing the webinar “Imagining and Presenting Crime and Responsibility in Labour Camp and other Museums in German-speaking and Russian-speaking Countries“  
  • 2019: Marion Dönhoff Stiftung, Project “GULAG seen by Socialist Realism: Ways of Coping with the Past in Prose and Film in the 1960s“
  • 2010: DAAD grant (Immanuel Kant) for a Research Stay at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Project “Biography Models in Soviet Literature of the 1940–1980s“
  • 2009: Erasmus Mundus Grant for a Research Stay at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Research Interests

  • The public and public discussion during the “Thaw” period in Russia
  • Open letters as a genre and a field of open discussion
  • Trial transcripts as a genre between literature and the law
  • Soviet dissidents: culture of protest and ways of self-representation
  • Repressions under Stalin represented in Soviet film and official literature in the 1950s-1960s
  • Interactions of Samizdat and official culture
  • Biography models as represented in Soviet literature
  • Russian as a foreign language: teaching migrants

Publications

Monographs

Articles

  • «Plochimi metodami ne postroisch' khoroschee obschestvo.» Diskussii o (ne)nasilii, politike i besovschine v moskovskikh dissidentskikh krugakh 1960-1970-kh gg. [“A good society cannot be built with bad methods.” Discussions about (non-)violence, politics and devildom in Moscow dissident circles in the 1960s and 1970s], in: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 184 (2023), 285-300
  • Obshestvennyj, narodnyj, metaforicheskij? Sud nad Iosifom Brodskim v zapisi Fridy Vigdorovoi. [People's, Social, or Metaphoric Court? The Trial of Joseph Brodsky as Recorded by Frida Vigdorova], in: Olga Rosenblum, Ilja Kukuj (eds.): «Byt' tebe v katalozhke... »: Sbornik v chest' 80-letija Gabrielja Superfina [“Jailed and Сlassified”. Collection for the 80th anniversary of Gabriel Superfin], Frankfurt M.: Esterum Publishing 2023, 507-535
  • «Diskussiy ne bylo»: otkrytye pisma konza 1960-h gg. kak pole obshestvennoy refleksii [Open letters in the late 1960s as a field of public reflection]. In: New Literary Observer 164 (2020), 38-51. Full version: Nesovershennaya publichnaya sfera. Istoriya rezhimov publichnosti v Rossii. Sbornik statey, ed. by T. Atnashev, T. Vaizer, M. Velizhev, Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 2021, 416-446
  • Sozdat’ «publlizistiku v nastoyashem smysle slova» (1956): zapis’ obsuzhdeniya romana V. Dudintseva kak gazetny otchet i dokument samizdata [“Creating „true opinion-based journalism” (1956): the record of the discussion on Dudintsev’s novel as a newspaper notice and a document of samizdat], in: Acta Samizdatica. Zapiski o samizdate [Notes on Samizdat] 4 (2018), 91-139
  • O «literaturnosti», «dokumentalizme» i «juridicheskom jazyke» zapisei suda nad Brodskim. Obsuzhdeniye doklada Olgi Rosenblum «Zapisat’ sud nad Brodskim – kak i dlya kogo?» v Mezhdunarodnom Memoriale 21 iyunya 2017 g. [On “literariness”, „documentness“ and „law language“ of the transcripts from Brodsky’s trial. Discussion of the paper presentation of Olga Rosenblum „To take the minutes of the court hearing during the trial of Brodsky – how and for whom?“ in International Memorial, June 21, 2017], in: Acta Samizdatica. Zapiski o samizdate [Notes on Samizdat] 4 (2018), 249-278
  • Mirnyje publičnyje protesty v Moskve (1950-1980e) [Peaceful public protests in Moscow (1950-1980er)], in: https://topos.memo.ru/ category/163, January 2018
  • «No ot znaniya do povedeniya tozhe est’ eshe put’, i nemalyi»: obraz pisatelya-zashitnika v vospominaniyach o Fride Vigdorovoi (1965-1966) [“There is a distance from knowledge to the action, and a long one”. The image of a writer as a defender in the memoirs about Frida Vigdorova (1965–1966)], in: Semiotika povedeniya i literaturnye strategii: Lotmanovskiye chteniya-XXII, Moscow: RGGU 2017, 303-321
  • The defense practice in the case of Joseph Brodsky: creating principles, in: M. Radziwon (ed.): Rocznik Instytutu Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, Zeszyt 3: Ruch obywatelski w Federacji Rosyjskiej. Nowe obszary działania, zagrożenia, tradycje. Lublin: Institute of East-Central Europe 2016, 95-110
  • «Soobshestvo» v tekstach Okudzhavy: suzheniye i rasshireniye granits [‘Community’ in Okudzhava’s works: narrowing and widening the boundaries], in: V. Yu. Malkina (ed.): Belye chteniya. K 85-letiyu Galiny Andreevny Beloy: sbornik nauchnych statey. Moscow: Editus 2016, 112-123
  • Bulat Okudzhava i avtorskaya pesnya [Bulat Okudzhava and Author Song], in: Russian Literature LXXVII-II (2015), Special Issue: The Bard Song, ed. by N. A. Bogomolov, 175-195
  • Zoya Kosmodem’yanskaya: Ėvoluciya «geroya» kak «kul’turnogo geroya» v 1940-e [Zoya Kosmodem’yanskaya: Evolution of the “Hero” as a “Cultural Icon” in the 1940s], in: Detskiye chteniya 1 (2013), ed. by M. Litovskaya, S. Maslinskaya et al., 135-147
  • Diskussii o biograficheskich kategoriyach v zhurnale «Literaturny kritik»: «Razgovor o geroye» Eleny Usievich [Discussions about biographical categories in the journal “Literary Critic”: “Conversation about a hero” by Elena Usievich], in: M. Klementi (ed.): Pravo na imya. Biografika XX veka. Chteniya pamyati Veniamina Iofe. Sankt-Petersburg: Nauchno-informacionny centr Memorial Sankt-Peterburg. Evropeisky universitet v Sankt-Peterburge 2013, 43-49
  • «Uprazdnenny teatr» Bulata Okudzhavy: detstvo «slepogo pokoleniya» [Bulat Okudshava’s The Show was Over: Childhood of the “blind generation”], in:  V. G. Bezrogov, M. V. Tendryakova (eds.): «Gulay tam, gde vse». Istoriya sovetskogo detstva: opyt i perspektivy issledovaniya. Moscow: RGGU 2013, 333-347
  • Bulat Okudshava v «legal’nom» i «nepodcenzurnom» prostranstvach: о sposobach samovyrazheniya i kul’turnoy funkcii [Bulat Okudshava in “legal” and “uncensored” space: On the ways of self-expression and cultural function], in: Philologicheskiye tradicii v sovremennom literaturnom i lingvisticheskom obrazovanii: Sbornik nauchnyсh statey. Vypusk 11. vol. 1, ed. by E. F. Shafranskaya, Moscow: MGPI 2012, 162-165
  • Bulat Okudzhava’s War Songs and Poetry: The three images of the past, in: Ethics and Humanism in European Science, Environment and Culture, ed. by M. Jaskula, B. Buszewski, A. Sekowski, Z. Zagorski. Krakow, Lublin, Torun: Societas Humboldtiana Polonorum 2011, 213-215
  • «Byvshee», «istoriya» i drugie sposoby vydeleniya proshlogo v stihah Bulata Okudzhavy ob Arbate [“What has passed”, “history” and other ways of distinguishing the past in Bulat Okudzhava's poetry about the Arbat], in: Pravo na imya. Vosmye chteniya pamyati Veniamina Iofe, Sankt-Petersburg 2011, 123-134
  • Okudzhava, in: I. O. Schaitanow (ed.): Russkie pisateli, ХХ vek: biografichesky slovar’. Мoskau: Prosveshenie 2009, 385-387
  • Okudžava v 1946-1948 gg.: «Solomennaja lampa», konsultacii G.V. Kreitana, sledstvennoe delo [Okudžava in 1946-1948: The “straw lamp“, the consultations of G.V. Kreitan, the investigations], in: Vestnik RGGU, Philologie. Moskau: RGGU publisher 2008, 161-177
  • Emozionalny spektr i kanaly opyta v «normativnoy biografii» (Zoya M. Aliger) [Emotions and Ways of Experience in “Normative Biography” (“Zoya” M. Aliger)], in: Pravo na imya. Biografika 20 veka. Epokha i lichnost’: rakursy istoricheskogo ponimaniya. Sankt-Petersburg 2008, 149-155. Reprinted in: Pravo na imya. Chteniya pamyati Veniamina Iofe. Izbrannoye 2003–2012, ed. by T. Pritykina, Sankt-Petersburg: Nauchno-informacionny centr Memorial Sankt-Petersburg. Evropeisky universitet v Sankt-Peterburge 2013, 52-59
  • Okudzhava v 1946-1948 gg.: «Solomennaya lampa», konsultazii G.V. Kreitana, sledstvennoe delo [Okudzhava in 1946-1948: the “Straw Lamp”, consultations with Kreitan, the MGB (Ministry of internal affairs) investigation]. In: Vestnik RGGU, Philology 2008, 161-177
  • Put’ v literature Bulata Okudzhavy: mezhdu ofizial’noi kul’turoi i kulturnoi periferiei [The way to the literature of Bulat Okudzhava: between official culture and cultural periphery]. In: Voprosy literatury 2007, 177-213
  • Konstruirovaniye biograficheskogo teksta kak kommunikaziya [Constructing a biography as communication], in: V. Tjupa, E. Rodionova, A. Starodubova, O. Fedunina (eds.): Kommunikativnye strategii kultury i gumanitarnye tekhnologii. Sankt-Petersburg 2007, 135-155
  • Otnosheniye avtora k sobstvennomu tekstu kak tekstologicheskaya problema: Bulat Okudzhava [The author’s attitude to his own text as textological problem: Bulat Okudzhava]. Russkaya filologiya. 16. Sbornik statei molodyh filologov, ed. by T. Kuzovkina, A. Steingoldt, Tartu: Tartu Ulikooli Kirjastus 2005, 133-139
  • Realny chitatel’ i obraz chitatelya: zapiski iz zala, adresovannye Bulatu Okudzhave [A real reader and reader’s image: Notes from the audience addressed to Bulat Okudzhava]. Russkaya filologiya. 15. Sbornik statei molodyh filologov,  ed. by T. Kuzovkina, K. Karu, Tartu: Tartu Ulikooli Kirjastus 2004, 162-167
  • Avtobiograficheski mif Bulata Okudzhavy (v pesnyah, stihah, proze) [Bulat Okudzhava’s autobiographical myth (in songs, poems, prose)]. Studia Slavica. Sbornik statei molodyh filologov. IV, ed. by A. Khačaturjan, D. Mironov, Tallinn: TPÜ Kirjastus 2004, 124-133
  • O nekotorych temach i obrazach knigi Lirika [Themes and images of Okudzhava’s book “Lyrics”], in: A.E. Krylov (ed.): Okudzhava. Problemy poetiki i tekstologii. Moskau: GKZM V.S. Vysotskogo 2002, 51-67

Publishing archival records with commentaries, other commentaries

Introductory notes, conference reviews, reviews of scientific publications and exhibitions

  • «V nekotorom otnoshenii prognoz blagopriyatny.» Olga Rosenblum o russkom izdanii perepiski Heinricha Böllya i Lva Kopeleva. [“To a certain degree the forecast is a good one”. Olga Rosenblum on publication of the correspondence carried on by Heinrich Böll und Lev Kopelev in Russian]. In: https://www.colta.ru/articles/boell/17037-v-nekotorom-otnoshenii-prognoz-blagopriyatnyy, January 12, 2018
  • Berlin 1937: v teni zavtrashnego dnya [Berlin 1937: In the shadow of tomorrow]. In: https://urokiistorii.ru/article/53915, September 6, 2017
  • «Hotite, ya vam pochitayu?» [Do you want me to read it for you?] [Review of the book: Frida Vigdorova. Pravo zapisyvat’. [Right for recording]. In: https://gorky.media/reviews/hotite-ya-vam-pochitayu/, April, 10, 2017
  • Voyna Bulata Okudshavy [Bulat Okudshava‘s war]. In: Okudshava, Bulat. Bud’ zdorov, shkolyar. Uroki muzyki. Utro krasit nezhnym svetom, ed. Bernstein, I. Moscow: Samokat 2014, 124-146
  • Belye chteniya (RGGU, Moscow, October 19–22, 2011). In: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye №118 (2012), 489-498
  • Krugly stol «Kak pisat’ istoriyu sovetskoy literatury?» (October 20, 2011, Moscow, RGGU, Institut philologii i istorii, Belye chteniya) [Roundtable discussion „How to write History of Soviet literature?“]. In: Detskiye chteniya № 2 (2012), 256-262
  • Mezhdunarodnaya nauchnaya konpherentsiya «Belye cteniya», Moscow, RGGU, October 21-23, 2010 [International scholarly conference “Belye chteniya“]. In: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye № 111 (2011)  (on the Website only), https://magazines.gorky.media/nlo/2011/5/mezhdunarodnaya-nauchnaya-konferencziya-belye-chteniya.html
  • «Puteshestviye diletantov» Bulata Okudzhavy: «proshloye» i «dokument» [Bulat Okudzhava’s The Dilettantes’ Journey: “the past” and “a document”]. [Book review: Ouvarova, Svetlana: 2009. Metaistoriya Bulata Okudshava. Obraz dokumenta v romane «Puteshestviye diletantov» (Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis. Stockholm Studies in Russian Literature), 222 p.]. In: Novoye literaturnoye obozreniye №111 (2011), 367-372
  • Vernut’sya k kornyam [Going back to the origins]. [Book review: Erik Kulavig. Dissent in the years of Khruschev: nine stories about disobedient Russians (Moscow: AIRO-XXI, 2009)] // Novoye Literaturnoye Obozreniye №101 (2010), 392-396
    Svyaz’ vremen [The link of times]. [Book review: Irina Kaspe. Art of Absence: The Unnoticed Generation of Russian Literature] / Russky Zhurnal. 2006. June 6.
  • Mezhdu marginal’nost’yu i meinstrimom [Between marginality and mainstream] // Russky Zhurnal. 2006. March 15.

Methodical notes: on academic writing, teaching migrants’ children, course outline

  • Navyki, treniruemye EGE, i akademicheskoye pis’mo: smena praktik [Experience gathered after preparations for the Unified State Examination: change of the practice areas]. In: Gumanitarnye chteniya RGGU-2011, ed. Bak, D.P.,  Perlov, A.M. Moscow: RGGU 2012, 308-320
  • Obucheniye detey migrantov: effektivnost’ v pare s etikoy [Teaching the migrants’ children: Effectivness united with ethics].  In: Russky Zhurnal: http://www.russ.ru/Mirovaya-povestka/Obuchenie-detej-migrantov-effektivnost-v-pare-s-etikoj, March 2, 2012
  • «Akademicheskoye pis’mo» posle podgotovki k EGE [”Academic Writing“ after preparing for the Unified State Examination]. In: Vyssheye obrazovaniye v Rossii № 8-9 (2011), 123-128
  • Obucheniye praktike akademicheskoy (analiticheskoy) raboty [Teaching to work academically (analytically)]. In: Dni aspirantury RGGU, ed. Trembich, L.P. Moscow: RGGU 2011, 90-91
  • «Uchit’ uchitelya»: podgotovka k reabilitatsionnoy i adaptatsionnoy obrayovatel’noy deyatel’nosti [“To teach a teacher”: to train those who will work in scope of rehabilitation and adapting [for schooling]]. In: Rebenok v istorii i kulture, ed. Obuchov, A.S., Tendryakova, M.V. (Moscow: 2010), 325-342. Reprinted in: Podgotovka uchitelya k reabilitatsionnoy i adaptatsionnoy deyatel’nosti. In: Voprosy vospitaniya: nauchno-praktichesky zhurnal № 4 (2011), 30-45
  • Istoriya russkoi kul’tury (period «ottepeli»). Programma kursa. [History of Russian culture (the “Thaw” era). Program for a course. Comp.by O.M. Rosenblum]. Moscow: RGGU 2010. 24 p.
  • «Metod», «subjektivnost», «mezhdisziplinarnost» v slovoupotreblenii aspirantov-gumanitariev [The notions of “method”, “subjectivity”, “interdisciplinary” as understood by postgraduate students in humanities], in: Dni aspirantury RGGU [Postgraduate studies at RSUH]. Moscow: RGGU, 2009. pp. 60-70.
  • Adaptaziya i obrazovaniye detei migrantov. Psihologicheskiye problemy. [Adaptation and education of refugee children. Psychological problems]. Russky yazyk, 2001. Dec. Nr 46 (310). pp. 3-4.

Interviews with dissidents

Interviews on Joseph Brodsky Affaire: To centennial of Frida Vigdorova

Courses

Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU), Moscow, Institute of Philology and History (2004-2022):

  • supervision of bachelor and master theses 
  • courses for undergraduate and graduate students:
    • Russian literature of the 20th century
    • Soviet literary criticism
    • Soviet official and underground culture
    • Soviet history represented in Soviet literature 
    • Biography studies
    • Academic writing
    • Russian language
  • PhD students of different faculties (2007-2010):
    • Methodology of humanities (coordinating and teaching)

Higher School for European Cultures (2019)

  • Russian literature of the 19th and 20th centuries 

Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (2020)

  • Reckoning with Stalinism in Soviet Politics, Literature, and Film
  • Russian Language for Heritage Speakers

Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Faculty of Public Administration, Moscow (2009-2011)

  • Russian language