During this academic year, the Division of Russian and Eastern Studies (RAE) in the Dept of Modern and Classical Languages organizes a series of activities under the unified theme of "Discover Asia."  Through film showings, faculty research presentations, and a public lecture, we intend not only to discover, explore, and analyze various parts and aspects of Asia, but we also will interrogate how Asia is discovered, by raising questions such as: What/where is Asia?  Who—in terms of race, class, and gender—discovered it?  In what ways?  To what ends?  In what historical contexts? 

An integral part of our “Discover Asia” activities is a brown bag series of RAE faculty research presentations over the course of the year.  The next presenter is Professor Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby of Russian Studies and she will give an exciting presentation entitled “Gulag Victims as Orthodox Martyrs: The Development of the Holy Spring of Iskitim, Siberia.”   Come and join us. 

Synopses: Russian folk Orthodoxy is characterized by a belief in holy springs. Bathing in the springs or drinking their water is said to improve physical well-being of the healthy and cure the sick. Iskitim, a city in Eastern Siberia, is the home to a "new" holy spring that is attracting attention in the local community. Visitors come year-round to gather the water, to bathe in the spring, or to be baptized.   The spring is located at a former quarry, which served as a Gulag until the 1950s. It is believed that a group of Gulag prisoners were executed at the spring, an event that has led to the spring's classification as holy. This paper will examine the intersection of folk religious belief in holy springs, Orthodox doctrine and the experience of the Soviet past. These intermingled conceptions leads to the conclusion that the Gulag victims were indeed Orthodox martyrs. Ironically, a majority of Siberians still vote for the communist party in elections. These oppositional cultural strands demonstrate the complexity of folk religion in the post-Soviet world.