In Memoriam: Stanley J. Rabinowitz
We at the Amherst Center for Russian Culture deeply mourn the loss of our Founding Director, Stanley J. Rabinowitz, Henry Steele Commager Professor of Russian, Emeritus. It is thanks to Stanley’s efforts that the Center’s collections first came to Amherst. Thomas P. Whitney ‘37, the original donor and Stanley’s friend, envisioned the Center as a living collection, with an active program of events to engage students, scholars, and the wider community. Stanley fulfilled that mission as director from 1991-2017, organizing conferences, lectures, concerts, film screenings, and exhibitions to connect students and the community with the culture he dedicated his life to studying. It is a testament to Stanley’s vision, passion, and boundless energy that more than thirty years after its founding, the Center’s collections have more than doubled in size and reach students and scholars across Amherst’s campus, the Pioneer Valley, and the globe.
In a letter to Stanley before the Center’s opening in its current home in Webster Hall, Whitney expressed what Stanley’s work had meant to him: “I owe you so much, Stanley. I can’t really express the gratitude I feel for your steadfast dedication to the cause of Russian culture and for your never failing support for the Amherst Center for Russian Culture.” Nor can we.
Opportunities to honor and celebrate Stanley’s legacy will be shared over the coming months.
A Poem for Stanley, by Polina Barskova
25 января 2024: Амхерст
Теперь уже не окликнет не вскрикнет-
Заверещит,
Потрясая тростью, поправляя седую прядь;
Речь его извилистая изощренная
как ахиллесов щит —
Язык его любящий свое течение изменять/
Измерять,
Перескакивая с русского на итальянский
По мосткам насмешки,
По-подмосткам аррогантных хитрых цитат
Из допустим Гоголя,
На которого был похож.
Но речь теперь не о декоруме, но о зияньи—
Ахилессова дыра- пята:
Ястреб, принеси мерзлых ягод ему на могилу-
Как рыцарю- строгий паж.
«Где ж Вас все время носит?
Вы забыли меня?» о нет
Я помню я оборачиваюсь мне кажется это он
Переходит дорогу
Машет рукой
Под снегом
По снегу идет
Наблюдает как люди медленно возвращаются с похорон.
January 25, 2024, Amherst
Now he won’t call your name with a shriek,
A squeal,
Shaking his cane, fixing a grey shock of hair;
His winding refined speech
A shield of Achilles –
His tongue loving to alter, to measure,
Its flow,
Skipping from Russian to Italian along
Scaffolds of humor
Stage floors of arrogant clever quotations
From, let’s say, Gogol,
His lookalike.
I’m not speaking about decorum but the gap –
The hole in Achilles’s heel:
Hawk, bring now frozen berries to his grave,
Like a solemn page serves his knight.
“Where are you always running?
Did you forget me?” Oh, no,
I remember, I swivel thinking it’s you
Crossing the road
Waving your hand
As snow falls
Walking across the snow
Watching as people slowly come back from the burial.
Translated by Catherine Ciepiela