SCSS  

Southern Conference on Slavic Studies

Awards

SCSS  proudly recognizes member achievements and contributions through multiple awards:

  • Richard Stites Senior Scholar Awards
  • SCSS Outstanding Service Awards
  • Book Award
  • Student Achievement Awardees (Graduate and Undergraduate)

Richard Stites Senior Scholar Awards

The Southern Conference on Slavic Studies (SCSS) was established in

1962 in order to promote scholarship, education, and in all other ways

to advance scholarly interest in Russian, Soviet, and East European

studies in the southern region of the United States. The SCSS

Executive Council may at its discretion recognize an individual for

his/her scholarly contributions to Slavic studies.

In 2013 the Senior Scholar Award was named in honor of the

remarkable scholar Richard Stites.

Year, Host, Awardee, Field, University 

1973 South Carolina W. W. Kulski, Political Science, Duke University

1974 Nashville Serge A. Zenkovsky, Slavic Languages & Literatures, Vanderbilt University

1975 Atlanta John Shelton Curtiss, History, Duke University

1976 Virginia No award

1977 Birmingham Walther Kirchner, History, University of Delaware

1978 Chapel Hill Kazimierz Grzybowski, Law, Duke University

1979 New Orleans Alex Dragnich, Political Science, Vanderbilt University

1980 Maryland George A. Lensen, History, Florida State University; C. Jay Smith, History, Florida State University

1981 Kentucky Mary Barbara Zeldin, Philosophy, Hollins University

1982 Wash, D.C. Kurt Rosenbaum, History, West Virginia University

1983 Atlanta Victor S. Mamatey, History, University of Georgia

1984 Richmond Sam Baron, History, UNC-Chapel Hill

1985 Wash. D.C. Thomas T. Hammond, History, University of Virginia; Jesse Zeldin, Slavic Languages & Literatures, Hollins University

1986 New Orleans No award

1987 Chapel Hill Paul Debreczeny, Slavic Languages & Literatures, UNC-Chapel Hill

1988 Charleston No award

1989 Virginia Gertrude Schroeder Greenslade, Economics, University of Virginia

1991 Savannah Richard Stites, History, Georgetown University

1992 Jacksonville Radomir Luza, History, Tulane University; Robert D. Warth, History, University of Kentucky

1993 Atlanta Walter Arndt, Slavic Languages & Literatures, Dartmouth College

1994 Norfolk Vladimir Treml, Economics, Duke University

1995 Mobile David MacKenzie, History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

1996 Asheville No award

1997 Lexington James Falen, Slavic Languages & Literatures, University of Tennessee

1998 Chapel Hill Hugh Ragsdale, History, University of Alabama

2000 Wilmington Madeline Levine, Slavic Languages & Literatures, UNC-Chapel Hill

2001 Wash, D.C. Jay Alexander, History, University of Kansas

2004 Roanoke Rex Wade, History, George Mason University

2006 South Carolina David Goldfrank, History, Georgetown University

2007 Montgomery Don Raleigh, History, UNC-Chapel Hill

2008 Atlanta No award

2010 Florida David Crowe, History, Elon University

2011 Wash, D.C. Michael Melancon, History, Auburn University

2012 Savannah Beth Holmgren, Slavic & Eurasian Studies, Duke University

2013 UNC-Greensboro Louise McReynolds, UNC-Chapel Hill; David Griffiths, UNC-Chapel Hill (special award for “Outstanding Service to 18th Century Studies”)

2014 Atlanta No award

2015 Lexington No award (see Book awards)

2016 Tuscaloosa Julian Connolly, Slavic Lang., UVA

2017 Wash, D.C. Steven Marks, History, Clemson University

2018 Charlotte, NC Joan Neuberger, History, University of Texas-Austin

2019 Mobile, AL Frank Wcislo, History, Vanderbilt University

2020 Greenville, SC Susan McCaffray, History, UNC-Wilmington (conferences in 2020 and 2021 were postponed due to the Covid pandemic)–

2022 No award given in Richmond

2023 No Award Given in Gainesville, FL 

2024 Edith Clowes, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Virginia

SCSS Outstanding Service Award

1985 Washington, D.C. Rochelle Ross, SlavicLanguages & Literatures, Loyola Univ-New Orleans

1995 Mobile Betty Wheeler, History, North Carolina State University

1997 Lexington Walter Sablinsky, History, University of Virginia

2000 Wilmington Clifford Foust, History, University of Maryland

2001 Washington, D.C. George Munro, History, Virginia Commonwealth University

2002 Daytona Beach Josef Anderle, History, UNC-Chapel Hill

2003 Savannah Warren Lerner, History, Duke University

2005 Nashville Larry Holmes, History, University of South Alabama

2009 Charlottesville Harold Goldberg, History, Sewanee: The University of the South

2011 Washington, D.C. Rex Wade, History, George Mason University

2012 Savannah Olavi Arens, History, Armstrong State

Book Award (best book in Slavic Studies published by a member of SCSS)

 2012 Savannah Sharon Kowalsky (Texas A&M-Commerce) 

2015 Lexington Donald Raleigh (UNC)

Emily Baran (MTSU) for Best First Book

2017 Wash, D.C. Laurie Stoff (Arizona State University)

2017 George Liber (University of Alabama-Birmingham) Honorable Mention

2019 Mobile, AL Sarah Cameron (University of Maryland): The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan

2019 Susan McCaffray (UNC-Wilmington): The Winter Palace and the People: Staging and Consuming Russia’s Monarchy 1754-1917, Honorable Mention

2022 Krista Goff (University of Miami) Nested Nationalism: Making and Unmaking Nations in the Soviet Caucasus

2022 Mara Kozelsky, (University of South Alabama) Crimea in War and Transformation

2022 Honorable Mention: Jamie Cockfield, Russia’s Iron General: The Life of Alexei A. Brusilov 1853-1926; and Emily Greble, Muslims and the Making of Modern Europe

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AWARDEES [NAMED IN MEMORY OF BETTY WHEELER]

year, student name, college or university (professor), title of paper.

 Graduate Student

 1979 Susan K. Purves, Duke (Warren Lerner). “Towards a Soviet Labor Policy: The Railroad Workers and the Bolsheviks, 1917-21.”

 1981 David L. Geller, Emory (Tom Remington). “Modernization and the Allocation of Social Goods in the Soviet System.”

 1983 Angelia Graf, UNC (Paul Debreczeny). “The Death of Ivan Ilych.”

 1984 Edward J. Phillips, UNC (David Griffiths). “Peter Mikhailov: The Tsar-Carpenter in Holland, 1697-1698.”

 1986 Judith Ball Bruce, Virginia Commonwealth U. (George Munro). “Guilty as Charged? Towards a Hypothesis of Criticism and Response in the Russian Orthodox Church.”

 1987 Rev. James Flint, Catholic U. (Priscilla Roosevelt). “The English Catholic Reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution.”

 1989 Thomas M. Barrett, Georgetown U. (Richard Stites). “The Limits of Radicalism and Imperialism – Alexander II.”

 1991 Edward E. Roslof, UNC (Donald Raleigh). “The Renovationist Movement in the Russian Orthodox Church.”

 1992 David Nordlander, UNC (Donald Raleigh). “Gorbachev and History: Changing Perceptions of Khrushchev in the Light of Perestroika.”

 1993 Paula A. Michaels, UNC (Donald Raleigh). “Identity and Ideology: Forced Sedentarization in Kazakhstan, 1929-1933.”

 1994 Kevin Markland, UVA, (Allen Lynch), “Tectonic Foreign Policy: Russia’s New Dilemma and the Failure to Define Her Strategy in the Post Soviet World.”

 1995 Jeff Veidlinger, Georgetown (Richard Stites), ”Soviet-Jewish Cultural Identities in 1920s Theater Art.”

1996 no award

 1997 Marjorie L. Hilton, Univ of South Alabama (Larry Holmes), “Engendering the Revolution: Women in Soviet Posters, 1921-1928.”

1998 Boris B. Gorshkov, Auburn University (Michael Melancon), “Otkhodniki: Peasant Migrants and Social Identity in Pre-Emancipation Russia”

1999 Jeff Jones, UNC-Chapel Hill (Don Raleigh), “People Without Definite Occupation: The Illegal Economy and Speculators in Rostov-on-the-Don 1943-1948.”

2000 Ann Keown, UNC-Chapel Hill (Laura Janda), “Polite Pronouns in Russian and Czech.”

2001 Stephen Norris, UVA (Robert Geraci), “Images of 1812: The Patriotic War in Russian Culture.”

2003 Sharon Kowalsky, UNC-Chapel Hill (Don Raleigh), “Making Sense of the Murdering Mother: Soviet Criminologists and Infanticide in Revolutionary Russia”

2004 No Award

2005 Nick Ganson, UNC-Chapel Hill (Don Raleigh),”Exploring the Causes of Child Mortality during the Soviet Famine.”

2006 No award

2007 Emily Baran, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Don Raleigh), “Communism or Armageddon?: Representations of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Soviet Press, 1954-1985.”

2008 Anita Kondoyanidi, Georgetown University (Richard Stites), “The Liberating Experience: War Correspondents, Red Army Soldiers, and the Nazi Extermination Camps.”

2009 no award

2010 Zsolt NagyUNC-Chapel Hill (Chad Bryant), “National Identities for Export: Hungarian, Czechoslovak, and Romanian Nationality Rooms in Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning.”

2011 Gary Guadagnolo, UNC-Chapel Hill, (Don Raleigh), “Revolutionary Narrative, Revolutionary Defense: Reading Stalin’s ‘First Victim’.”

2013 Louis H. PorterUNC-Chapel Hill, (Don Raleigh), “An Endnote to History: Julian Huxley, Soviet Scholars, and UNESCO’s History of Mankind,” 1945-1967.

2014 Aaron Hale-Dorrell, UNC-Chapel Hill, (Don Raleigh), “Khrushchev’s Corn Crusade: The Industrial Ideal and Agricultural Practice in the Era of Post-Stalin Reform, 1953-1964.”

2015 Adrianne JacobsUNC-Chapel Hill, (Don Raleigh), “An Edible Empire: Soviet National Cuisines Between Tradition and Modernity, 1965-1985.”

2016 Trevor Erlacher, UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh, “The Roots of Ukrainian Integral Nationalism: Dmytro Dontsov’s Formative Years 1883-1914.”

2017 Louis Porter, UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh, “Communists by Night: International Civil Servants and Daily Life in the Soviet Colony in Paris 1956-1967.”

2018 Kyungtaek Kwon, Emory University, (Matthew Payne), “The Boundary of Komsomol’tsy Between Heroes and Vydvizhentsy in the Soviet Far Eastern City of Komsomol’sk-na-Amure in the 1930s.”

2019 Virginia Olmstead McGrawUNC-Chapel Hill, (Don Raleigh), “The Foundations of Soviet Fashion: The Ministry of Light Industry and the All-Union House of Design.”

SCSS did not meet in 2020 or 2021

2022 Perry YoungGeorgetown University, (Michael David-Fox), “The Will to Labor: A Conceptual History of the Will in the Stakhanovite Movement and Stalinist Ideology.”

Undergraduate Student: In 2006 the undergraduate student award was named in honor of Betty Wheeler, long-time SCSS member and supporter and professor at North Carolina State University.

 1979 Lars Olson, Eckerd College (William Parsons). “U.S. and Soviet Defense Spending and Its Effects on Society Today.”

 1983 Josephine Hicks, U. of the South (James Hart). “The Origins of the Cold War: A Study of US – Soviet Relations.”

 1984 Michael J. Potemra, Catholic U. (Priscilla Roosevelt). “Naturalism and Ambition: Karol Sidor and the Aborted Slovak Declaration of Independence of 12 March 1939.”

 1985 William Thompson, Emory (Tom Remington). “Bedfellows Make Strange Politics: Finland and the Soviet Union, 1939-1985.”

 1989 Becky Bridges, Eckerd College (William Parsons). “The Good Soldier Schweik in the Austro-Hungarian Army.”

 1991 Matthew Jackson, Florida State U. (Michael Launer). “Aktsionsarten and Russian Verbal Aspect.”

 1992 Charles Walden, U. of Georgia (Ron Rader). “Protestant Christianity in the Soviet Union Under Glasnost.”

 1993 Ron Bialkowski, Duke U. (Martin A. Miller). “The Apostle of Terror: The Logic of Terror in the Life and Novels of Boris Savinkov.”

 1994 Stephen Retherford, VA Commonwealth U, (George Munro), “The Politics of Food: An Examination of the Russian Famine of the Early 1920s and the American Response to It.”

1995 no award

1996 no award

1997 Erik Moore, UNC (Paul Debreczeny), “Sergei Sergeevich and You: Interpretive Possibility in Tertz’s Tenants.”

1998 Donald Johnson, UNC-Wilmington (Sue McCaffray), “Chernobyl, Glasnost, and the End of the Soviet Union”

1999 Emil Mladenov, Univ of Richmond (John Treadway), “Bulgarian-German Relations in the 1930’s.”

2000 Jeff Berkson, Duke Univ (Carol Flath), “The Mirror, the Dream, and the Double: Dostoyevsky’s Idealism and its Ethical Ramifications”

2001 Victory Boft, Georgetown Univ (Richard Stites), “Utopia, Dystopia, and Science Fiction”

2002 (tie) Paul Prudhomme-Qurqmaz, Georgetown Univ (David Goldfrank), “The Golden Horde and the Malmuks, from Berke to Ozbek, as Revealed in Contemporary Mamluk and other Arabic Sources” (Award Shared With):

2002 Emily Winslow, Virginia Tech (Amy Nelson), “Razvitie prava zhenshchin na trud v Rossii”

2003 Jesse Andrews, North Carolina State Univ. (Jerry Surh), “Terek Cossacks, 1650-1830”

2004 No Award

2005 Michael Brown, Univ of South Carolina (Judith Kalb), “Ideology, Duality, and Progress: Yevgeny Zamyatin’s World of One State, Two Sexes, and Three Propositions”

2006 Will Gartshore, University of Maryland (Michael David-Fox), “Actors and Reactors: Russian Theater Intellectuals and Revolution”

2007 Jennifer Harkins, University of Mississippi (Valentina Iepuri), “The Social Position of Women in Russia: The Role of Mothers and Women in the Russian Family”

2008 Evan Sparling, “The Ethnic Awakening of the Ruthenian Immigrant Community in America,” Dickinson College, Karl Qualls

2009 William Campbell, “He Takes Out Terrorists in the Bathroom: The Putin Cult in Contemporary Russia,” Washington and Lee University, Anna Brodsky

2010 Matthew Burkhalter, “An Unholy Menagerie in Christianized Russia: The Nature of Devilry in Peasant Folklore,” University of the South, Harold Goldberg

2011 Tyler AdkinsDuke University, (Carol Apollonio) The Sublimity of Delirium: The Holy Fool and the Intellectual in Moscow to the End of the Line.”

2012 Philip Schwartz, UNC-Chapel Hill, (Don Raleigh), “Andrei Rublev and the Struggle for Its Release: Soviet International Cultural Politics in the Late 1960s,”

2013 Rachel M. Harrison, University of South Carolina, (Judith Kalb), “The Action and the Aim: A Comparison of Nietzschean War Theory to the Psychology of Survival in Lidia Ginzburg’s The Siege of Leningrad: Notes of a Survivor”,

2014 Ray Belanger, UNC Chapel Hill, (Louise McReynolds), “Everywhere and Nowhere: Elite Masculinity in 16th Century Muscovy.”

2016 Stephan Ghazikhanian, Duke (Carol Apollonio), “Dostoevsky’s Doctors: A look at the Scientific Nature of Doctors in Dostoevsky’s Works.”

2017 David Hayter, Virginia Commonwealth University, (Judyth Twigg), “Beyond the Axis of Convenience: Re-Examining Russian-Chinese Relations and the Search for Multipolarity.”

2018 Jake ZellnerVanderbilt University, (Frank Wcislo), “Detroit Polar Bears in the Land of Lice and Snow: The American Soldier Experience in North Russia, 1918-1919.”

2019 Yelyzaveta ShevchenkoVirginia Commonwealth, (George Munro), “Russian Sartorial Aesthetics under Catherine the Great,”

SCSS did not meet in 2020 or 2021

2022 Mark GrujicVanderbilt University (Michael Bess and Emily Greble), “Success of Postwar Ethnic Integration in Bosnia’s Brcko District.”

2023 (Two awards given):

2023 De’Vonte Tinsley, Virginia Tech, (Tom Ewing), “Revolution on the Daugava: Dvinsk in the Context of War, Revolution, and Civil War 1917-1920.”

2023 Phil GongDuke, (Carol Apolloni), “Triple Doubles: Ivan, Smerdyakov, and the Devil in The Brothers Karamazov.”

SCSS

Southern Conference on Slavic Studies

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