What They Discovered: Author Patricia Krafcik on the topic of her book, Witnesses to Subcarpathian Rus’: The Sojourns of Petr Bogatyrev and Ivan Olbracht

Join us for an exciting conversation with Patricia Krafcik about her recent book, Witnesses to Interwar Subcarpathian Rus’: The Sojourns of Petr Bogatyrev and Ivan Olbracht.

Witnesses investigates how the fascinating culture and the challenging life conditions of Czechoslovakia’s far-eastern province—nearly a terra incognita in the 1920s and 1930s—enticed the Russian ethnographer Petr Bogatyrev and the Czech writer/journalist Ivan Olbracht to travel there only a few years after many of our grandparents and great-grandparents emigrated from the region. What did they find?

Special Note: In preparation for this event, Prof. Krafcik encourages attendees to view her 2023 presentation on the C-RS YouTube channel.

After presenting a paper on travelers and researchers in Subcarpathian Rus’ at a scholarly conference in 2018 as part of a panel on the 100 th anniversary of the formation of Czechoslovakia and its soon-to-be new province of Subcarpathian Rus’, Prof. Krafcik was inspired to explore further exactly why that distant province proved so irresistible to outsiders. Surely, ethnographic research and a concern for social and economic justice drew them, but so did the stunning beauty of the mountains and valleys, as well as the diverse population who resided there and represented such an intriguing mix of peoples preserving ancient beliefs and practices.

C-RS is proud to offer Prof. Krafcik's book in the C-RS Heritage Store. An ebook version is also available from the publisher. Witnesses was recently included in Christine Hrichak's book recommendation column for Our People.

Questions? Contact Karen Varian: kvarian@c-rs.org

-

Patricia Krafcik is a Professor Emerita at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where she taught Russian language, literature, culture, and Slavic folklore. She has been deeply involved in Carpatho-Rusyn Studies for many years serving as editor and consulting editor of the Carpatho-Rusyn American Newsletter during its 20-year run and publishing articles and translations, which include Bogatyrev’s Magical Actions, Rites, and Beliefs in Subcarpathian Rus’ (1929; English-language title, 1998: Vampires in the Carpathians) and “In the Seventy- Seventh Kingdom”: Carpatho-Rusyn Folktales (2015). She also lectured several summers on Slavic and Carpatho-Rusyn ethnography at the Studium Carpatho-Ruthenorum International Summer School for Rusyn Language and Culture at Prešov University.