The Tatar-Russian Intercultural Dialog through the pages of Ismail Bey Gasprinskii’s ‘Perevodchik-Tercüman

Monday, March 22, 2021

The fifth colloquium in the series features Giuliana D’Oro, PhD Student in Germanic and Slavic Studies, “Sapienza” University of Rome. She will present on “The Tatar-Russian Intercultural Dialog through the pages of Ismail Bey Gasprinskii’s ‘Perevodchik-Tercüman’” Starting from a brief history of studies on multiculturalism in Russia and the concept of sblizhenie russkich i tatar, illuminated by the Bakhtinian perspective of vnenachodimost’, I will introduce the figure of Ismail Gasprinskii a Crimean intellectual, promoter of the so-called Tatar cultural awakening in the XIX-XX century. The originality of Gasprinskii’s thoughts is exemplified by the bilingual Russian-Tatar newspaper “Perevodchik-Tercüman” (1883-1914), a tool with which the author intended to promote mutual knowledge between the two cultures. The aim of my speech is to examine the literary works published in installments by Gasprinskii in the newspaper, that leads to interesting reflections on translation as a transit zone, a fertile ground for dialogue and creativity on which we must linger.

Giuliana D’Oro, PhD student in Germanic and Slavic Studies, graduated with a specialization in Linguistic, Literary and Translation Sciences in March 2018, at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, with a thesis entitled “Semantic fields, themes, motives and intertextual relations in the B.L.Pasternaks Dottor Živago”. During her Bachelor and Master’s degree courses, she spent study stays in Vienna, Tomsk, Berlin and Yaroslavl, thanks to the Erasmus and Extra-European mobility programmes. During the first year of her PhD, she carried out research at the ICATAT centre in Magdeburg (Germany) and participated in seminars and conferences in Italy and abroad (Germany, Poland, Romania). From September to December 2019 she had a study and research experience in Moscow, working at the Russian State Library and attending a Tatar language course offered by the University of Kazan. She is currently investigating the issue of multiculturalism in Russia, dealing in particular with Tatar-Russian relations and the literary production of Ismail Bey Gasprinskii.