Maksim Hanukai

What are your current and future research projects?

My main research project right now is a book on Alexander Pushkin. Although I had been exposed to Pushkin’s works in one way or another from an early age, I only became fascinated (alright, obsessed) with them while doing my graduate studies at Columbia thanks to the many seminars I took with Boris Gasparov. I edited a special issue on Pushkin’s creative personality for our graduate student journal, Ulbandus, and went on to write a dissertation about him that later became the basis for my book. Entitled Pushkin’s Tragic Vision, my book traces the development of Pushkin’s sense of the tragic in the context of Russian and European Romanticism. I examine four masterworks—the “Oriental” narrative poem The Gypsies, the historical drama Boris Godunov, the paradoxical Little Tragedies, and the fantastic “Petersburg tale” The Bronze Horseman—showing how Pushkin often turned to the tragic mode to creatively respond to the literary, historical and philosophical currents of his time. Offering a comparative account of Pushkin’s development as a tragic poet, the study contributes to our understanding of Pushkin in the broader European context while simultaneously challenging reigning theories about the fate of tragedy in the Romantic period.

Frequent travel to Russia over the last 10 years has also made me more interested in contemporary Russian culture. I have been especially drawn to Russian theater, which experienced a revival in the early 2000s and continues to flourish today despite recent pressure from the Russian authorities. I have written about Russian documentary theater—a major trend—and am currently co-editing and translating an anthology of plays from the New Russian Drama movement, which will be published this spring. As I finish work on my Pushkin book, I plan to devote more time to this exciting research area with further articles and a book on the interaction between performance and politics in contemporary Russia.

What will you be teaching on a regular basis and what course would you ideally like to plan and teach here?  

I first came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison two years ago as a Visiting Assistant Professor, so I’ve already had the opportunity to teach a variety of courses here: Chekhov and Dostoevsky, the Russian Capstone Seminar and Soviet Literature, graduate seminars on Russian Romanticism and Literary Theory and Practice. I’m sure that I’ll be teaching some of these courses again in the future, but I’m also looking forward to adding new courses to our curriculum. I will be teaching the first such course this spring: a graduate seminar on Contemporary Russian Performance that will explore a wide range of performative practices: different forms of theater and drama, but also performative poetry, performance art, various “immortal regiments” and “monstrations,” etc. Given the traditional logocentrism of Slavic Studies in the United States, I’m hoping that our graduate students will benefit from learning about new approaches and media, even if they go on to work exclusively on literature. As far as undergraduate coursework is concerned, I’d love to teach courses on (among other topics) Theatricality and Spectacle in Russian Culture, The City in Russian Literature, History and Memory in Russian Culture, and Russian Postmodernism. I’m also interested in teaching (or co-teaching) comparative courses that could be cross-listed with other programs.

Do you have a favorite place or thing to do in Madison that you wouldn’t mind sharing with us?

I’m still discovering what Madison has to offer, but I really enjoy being within easy walking distance of two beautiful lakes. I live downtown, so an early morning stroll to the Farmers’ Market on the weekend has definitely become part of my routine.