Martin Burr grant recipient 2022

It is our great pleasure to announce that Serhii Wakulenko is the latest recipient of a Martin Burr grant. Serhii intends to use the award to partially fund research activities related to their project What Gives Us Firm Ground: A Collection of Essays by George Y. Shevelov (1908–2002).

George Y. Shevelov (1908–2002) was a Ukrainian-born American Linguist primarily renowned for his research into historical phonology of Slavonic Languages and other branches of language history. His bibliography (New York 1998) contains 872 items published in nine languages (Ukrainian, English, German, Polish, Swedish, French, Spanish, Russian, and Czech) and includes several fundamental books in the area of Ukrainian and Slavonic studies.

Serhii and colleagues are producing an edition of Shevelov’s little-known writings primarily dealing with the philosophy of humanities, especially with the impact of politics on science and vice-versa. The book will contain 35 rare pieces of his, written from 1944 to 1996, among them 14 hitherto undocumented bibliographically. The original language is mostly Ukrainian (32 items), 2 pieces are translated from Swedish, one from English. The edition (planned to appear in early 2023) will address issues of interest to a broad public of intellectuals, including historians and political scientists, but with a special focus on linguistics as one of the model disciplines within the humanities.

Photo (provided by Serhii) of the initial part of one of the newspaper articles to be republished, which is accompanied with a telling editor’s note: A Ukrainian scholar, barely several years ago employed by a University in the Soviet Ukraine, pictures in this article the school life under the Soviet regime as he knows it from his own experience. For security reasons he is forced to remain anonymous.

We are delighted to be able to help Serhii finance this project.

Congratulations, Serhii and good luck!