Russian Section

Kimberly Fedchak

Courses Taught

Coming Soon!

Question and Answer

When and how did you get interested in Russian? How did you learn and perfect your knowledge of the language?

I took a Russian course on a whim at Oberlin College and loved it. Why the whim? My grandfather was the son of Ukrainian immigrants, my piano teacher at Oberlin had graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory, and I had been recently dazzled by a Ukrainian folk song taught to me by Sibelan Forrester, who was teaching there at the time. r perhaps it was Sibelan that dazzled me! In any case, it was enough to get me started. As to learning and perfecting, I had three wonderful Russian teachers at Oberlin: two Russians (functionally) and an American woman, Arlene Forman, whose Russian dazzles me to this day. I spent long hours in the language lab on my own because I couldn't stand not being able to say the sounds. I memorized lots of vocabulary using flash cards, making up entire sentences on the fly for each word as I went through the cards while pacing in Russian House. I traveled to Russia as often as I could and stayed for as long as I could -- you'd think my Russian really would be perfect by now, wouldn't you! Foreign languages are works in progress that last a lifetime.

What is the topic of your dissertation? How does it fit into your teaching?

The topic of my dissertation is: "Superior and Beyond: the Language of Extremely Proficient American Speakers of Russian." While in Russia last fall I interviewed several wonderfully generous American speakers of Russian who agreed to be my guinea pigs; what I learn from their language will hopefully tell us all what parts of the language get learned really well in the course of a college language education and what parts we all need to work on independently after graduation. Perhaps this research will get collected into something of an independent study guide or textbook for the most advanced speakers by the time I'm done.

Can you say a little about the Eastern European musical ensembles you've started and sung in?

Michael, Julia and I started the Oberlin Slavic Folk Choir in February 1993; I directed it during that second semester of my senior year, when we had nine members. After graduation I came to Bryn Mawr and for three summers directed little temporary Russian choruses that performed at the end of the two-month summer institutes.

Meanwhile I started up another little student group that eventually blossomed into the Slavic and Eastern European Vocal Ensemble of Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, which later changed its name to Slaveja (slah-VEY-yuh, which means nightingale) and invited members of the larger community to participate. This was the group that sang at the opening of Swarthmore's Kohlberg building several years ago now. I gave up directing the group after two years when Lily took over, then Abigail, then Laura. We produced our own CD with many, many tracks on it; it's still available if anyone is interested. Slaveja disbanded last year after seven years of work. Now Laura, Anne, Leela, Sibelan, Yelena, Mary and I have formed a new group for women called Svitanje (SVEE-tan-yuh). I hope we'll have a chance to perform at Swarthmore, sometime!

How many instruments do you play?

I've been playing piano, clarinet and recorder the longest; I learned some guitar and accordion out of necessity; and recently I've been trying to teach myself the violin. I'm always singing, even though I don't feel as if I'm terribly good at it. I think directing would have been my calling, had I majored in music at Oberlin.

Where did you learn to play accordion?

I learned to play the accordion in my room in Denbigh when I was running the Russian Cultural Program for Bryn Mawr's Summer Russian Language Institute in 1994. I wanted to teach a couple of Russian dances and thought that live accompaniment would be better than a recording, so I hied me to the ACME School of Accordion (a bona fide accordion school of high repute in Haddonfield, I think it was, New Jersey) and invested $100 in a small red Soprani accordion with (ahem) mother-of-pearl trim. The gentleman who owned the school was a most excellent accordionist; he gave me a couple of lessons and I was off and running. Unfortunately, I never did learn to play "Troika" without making any mistakes. If you want to hear REALLY good accordion-playing, catch John Matulis who plays for the Phila. international folk dance crowd. He's also featured on Slaveja's CD.

Does your Ukrainian family background impact your interest and teaching in Russian? Do you speak any Ukrainian?

Unfortunately, although my grandfather grew up speaking Ukrainian to his father in Sayre, PA, a railroad town on the upstate PA-NY border, I don't speak any Ukrainian beyond "Yak shamash!" (How's it going?) and "stara baba" (old woman) (these phrases were never employed in quick succession by my grandfather, thankfully; he just enjoyed repeating them to me in a joking, half confidential sort of way) and the names for the western Ukrainian dishes we ate at Christmas eve and Easter. But I did originally take Russian in part because it was the closest thing to Ukrainian they had at Oberlin.

So what traits does a person need to be a success decorating those wonderful eggs?

Well, obsessive-compulsive tendencies help, in my case! But anyone can make a Very Beautiful Egg.

What is your favorite song?

There's no way I could possibly select a favorite song or instrumental work or orchestral piece from all the music I've been fortunate to encounter. But here's a short list of things dear to my heart: the Christmas carols I sing with Randal, the folk songs I learned from Brenae, Michael, Julia and Lily, the Gian Carlo Menotti opera "Amahl and the Night Visitors" that Mom and I always listened to on the couch at Christmastime, the Robert Shaw Festival performance of Rachmaninov's Vespers, the R&B-blues-reggae-and-rock-'n-roll my dad plays in his various professional groups, the lilting and spirited English Country Dance music I like to try myself, Cape Breton fiddle and Scottish bagpipe music, various barbershop tunes (hand motions and all), Copland's Appalachian Spring, parts of Carmina Burana (or as a good friend used to say, "Carving a Piranha"), Overture for Winds (we played it in band in middle school), the English madrigals and Palestrina works we sang with Mr. Perry at East High (especially Sicut Cervus with the second that John added for my especial benefit), and of course the beautiful Slavic vocal music I am currently singing with Svitanje.

When were you last in Russia, and what were you doing there?

I spent September 2000 through January 2001: I was in St. Petersburg on December 31 when the bridges were, uncharacteristically for winter, raised ceremoniously and then lowered at midnight to represent the meeting of the two millenia. Aside from seeing all my dear friends, I was interviewing extremely proficient American speakers of Russian for my dissertation (see question #2 above).

What Russian television program would you recommend?

St. Petersburg is surely my favorite Russian city, and oddly enough, it's not because its rationality appeals to my intellect. It's because I grew up there a little bit, during my study abroad semester in college in 1992, because I had adventures there and was completely on my own there and found some wonderful friends... and because the wind off the water gives the city a wildly elemental feel.

What is your favorite place in Russia, and when were you last there?

At Oberlin, again, I took an ExCo (Experimental College) course in folk dance on a whim, and I met several wonderful people, two of whom were my teachers, Brenae and Johnathan. I signed up thinking that it might be interesting but not knowing whether I would be able to do it at all... and once the music was cranked up and we began dancing our first, easy dance (Kendime), I had this feeling of wild elation, and I was hooked. The next four years of my college life revolved largely around folk dance and music.

What other things are you working on just now?

I'm thinking of doing some volunteer work at Thorncroft, an "equestrian center" in Malvern. The school has 400 students, 200 of whom have some sort of disability and for whom physical therapy sessions take place actually on horseback. This therapy seems to be effective because being with the animals relaxes the riders. I don't know much about horses, but I do miss being out in "the country" (I grew up in the finger lakes region of upstate NY), and I hope I'll be able to fit this opportunity into my schedule.

Where would you suggest students should travel in Russia and Eastern Europe?

I've been to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladimir, Suzdal, Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Krasnodar and Yalta for varying periods, and I would enjoy seeing any one of these places again. I haven't been to any of the former central Asian republics, but I know there are numerous opportunities to travel and study there, as well. I know at least one study abroad sponsor organization that sends qualified students pretty much anywhere they want to go in Russia with one-on-one tutoring. I do not advise independent travel to the Caucuses right now because it's dangerous to be on your own in such a volatile place.

What is your favorite Russian food? (What is your favorite food?)

My favorite Russian food is definitely pel'meni, little ravioli-like meat dumplings served in broth (not tomato sauce!) or with vinegar and sour cream. Mmmmm! My favorite American foods are my mom's potato salad and her stuffing with raisins and her barbecued chicken (because of the sauce).

What is your favorite board game?

Backgammon.

What things does a person need to know in order to claim they know a foreign language?

If your friends parents ask you what languages you know, you say "French and a little German" because that's what you studied in school; a familiarity with the structure of the language and some experience with it is really all that's required in this situation, I think. If you're asked in the context of a job interview for an international non-profit organization, you would be better off describing your proficiency in terms of function: "my German skills are basic -- I could order meals and navigate a city on a business trip -- but my French speaking, listening and reading skills are strong enough to interact with most people in professional and private settings with minimal difficulty."

Another interesting question is: what things does a person need to know in order to learn a language well? I would say that many things help: attention to detail, a good memory, patience, a creative capacity (since a large part of speaking a foreign language at the beginning levels is figuring out ways around what you don't know, which is just about everything), a sense of adventure, and a good-natured willingness to make mistakes Frequently and Publicly, to laugh, and then to move on.

Of course, we are all endowed with these traits and capabilities to some extent, and the great secret is that language classes push you to improve them more immediately than almost any other class that I can think of. Not only do you start out knowing absolutely nothing, but you also can't fall back on the highly polished English-language strategies you usually use to compensate for not knowing anything! I bet you never thought that studying a language could make you bolder and humbler and more adventurous, but it can if you don't let fear get in your way. Make becoming bolder, humbler and more adventurous one your goals when you study a language and you are likely to achieve linguistic success and experience great personal growth as well.

Given your interest in math and science, what would you say Russian has to offer students in the natural sciences?

Taking a couple (or more) years of Russian can open up worlds for mathematicians, geologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, and pre-med students who have research or humanitarian interests in the former Soviet republics and in some countries of Eastern Europe. In fact, the fastest growing segment of Russian study abroad alumni who continue to use their language skills are those employed by non-profit (environmental, health services, etc.) organizations based both in the US and in Russia. Russian is an excellent subject to combine with another major field of study; however, it's important to realize that you'll need at least two years of college-level language study to become really functional in Russian. There are many federally-funded programs that are crying for BA's with research interests in Eastern Europe to apply to their programs (which provide language support as well as research opportunities). So even beginning-level Russian language study at Swarthmore could be supplemented after graduation through one of these programs (as long as their funding priorities remain the same).

What other things on Swarthmore campus might interest you?

The music department! The arboretum! Dancing! ...Did I mention music?

What do you do to stay fluent in Russian?

I talk to myself in Russian, write journal entries in Russian, work with phonetics tapes, read books and newspapers, listen to SCOLA, call up my podruzhka Natasha. This is all in my copious spare time, of course!

If you could teach just one thing to everyone at Swarthmore, what would it be?

I'm not sure: when I find out what One Thing no one at Swarthmore knows, I'll get back to you.

Kira (in the hat) with friends in St. Petersburg.