Russian professor selected to be Kone Fellow

Evgenii Bershtein, assistant professor of Russian since 1999, has been selected as a summer 2005 Kone Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, an independent institute of Helsinki University that works to enhance excellence in teaching within the humanities and social sciences.

Bershtein, who grew up in Leningrad, became the first-ever Kone Fellow in May 2004, researching Russian Symbolist theology. This coming summer, he will continue his work on sexual ideologies in Russia between 1905 and 1917, and make presentations in Helsinki, Berlin, and St. Petersburg.
Bershtein says he wants to examine how images of sexual decadence migrated from Symbolist culture to
revolutionary journalism that helped compromise the Old Regime in Russia. "As does most of my research, this project combines literary study with the cultural history of sexuality."

Author of the recent essays "The Russian Myth of Oscar Wilde" and "Psychopathia Sexualis in Fin-de-Siecle Russia: Politics and Genre," Bershtein is looking forward to returning to the Collegium. "The Slavonic collection at the Helsinki University library is the best of its kind in Western Europe, especially for materials in the 20th century," he says. "It is a tremendous resource for me."

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