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)--award given in Richmond in 2022
2023 Gainesville, FL 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) for Best Book
2015 Lexington Donald Raleigh (UNC) for Best Overall Book
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 Nagy, “National Identities for Export: Hungarian, Czechoslovak, and Romanian Nationality Rooms in Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning,” UNC-Chapel Hill (Chad Bryant)
2011 Gary Guadagnolo, “Revolutionary Narrative, Revolutionary Defense: Reading Stalin’s ‘First Victim’,” UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh
2013 Louis H. Porter, "An Endnote to History: Julian Huxley, Soviet Scholars, and UNESCO’s History of Mankind," 1945-1967, UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh
2014 Aaron Hale-Dorrell, "Khrushchev's Corn Crusade: The Industrial Ideal and Agricultural Practice in the Era of Post-Stalin Reform, 1953-1964," UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh
2015 Adrianne Jacobs, "An Edible Empire: Soviet National Cuisines Between Tradition and Modernity, 1965-1985," UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh
2016 Trevor Erlacher, "The Roots of Ukrainian Integral Nationalism: Dmytro Dontsov's Formative Years 1883-1914," UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh
2017 Louis Porter, "Communists by Night: International Civil Servants and Daily Life in the Soviet Colony in Paris 1956-1967," UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh
2018 Kyungtaek Kwon, "The Boundary of Komsomol'tsy Between Heroes and Vydvizhentsy in the Soviet Far Eastern City of Komsomol'sk-na-Amure in the 1930s," Emory University, Matthew Payne
2019 Virginia Olmstead McGraw, "The Foundations of Soviet Fashion: The Ministry of Light Industry and the All-Union House of Design," UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh
SCSS did not meet in 2020 or 2021
2022 Perry Young, "The Will to Labor: A Conceptual History of the Will in the Stakhanovite Movement and Stalinist Ideology," Georgetown University, Michael David-Fox
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 Adkins, The Sublimity of Delirium: The Holy Fool and the Intellectual in Moscow to the End of the Line,” Duke University, Carol Apollonio
2012 Philip Schwartz, “Andrei Rublev and the Struggle for Its Release: Soviet International Cultural Politics in the Late 1960s,” UNC-Chapel Hill, Don Raleigh
2013 Rachel M. Harrison, “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”, University of South Carolina, Judith Kalb
2014 Ray Belanger, "Everywhere and Nowhere: Elite Masculinity in 16th Century Muscovy," UNC Chapel Hill, Louise McReynolds
2016 Stephan Ghazikhanian, "Dostoevsky's Doctors: A look at the Scientific Nature of Doctors in Dostoevsky's Works," Duke, Carol Apollonio
2017 David Hayter, "Beyond the Axis of Convenience: Re-Examining Russian-Chinese Relations and the Search for Multipolarity, " Virginia Commonwealth University, Judyth Twigg
2018 Jake Zellner, "Detroit Polar Bears in the Land of Lice and Snow: The American Soldier Experience in North Russia, 1918-1919," Vanderbilt University, Frank Wcislo
2019 Yelyzaveta Shevchenko, "Russian Sartorial Aesthetics under Catherine the Great," Virginia Commonwealth, George Munro
SCSS did not meet in 2020 or 2021
2022 Mark Grujic, "Success of Postwar Ethnic Integration in Bosnia's Brcko District, Vanderbilt University, Michael Bess and Emily Greble
2023 (Two awards given):
2023 De'Vonte Tinsley, "Revolution on the Daugava: Dvinsk in the Context of War, Revolution, and Civil War 1917-1920," Virginia Tech, Tom Ewing
2023 Phil Gong, "Triple Doubles: Ivan, Smerdyakov, and the Devil in The Brothers Karamazov," Duke, Carol Apollonio
