Slavic Club Open for Business

Hoping to supplement students' study of life in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, three Russian and Soviet Studies concentrators have founded the Harvard Slavic Society.

"If you don't understand the people, including how they live and what they eat, you won't see the larger picture," said Joshua Thayer '87, one of the club's founders.

To this end, the organization plans to establish a sister-school relationship with a university in the Soviet Union, host a weekend-long convention of area Slavic students, and strengthen ties with the local emigree community, co-founder Thomas M. Kearney '87 said.

Jim Hilton '87, the club's third founder, said the Slavic Society plans to sponsor informal events including movies, weekly teas with faculty guests, and Russian song sessions, he said. "Some of the best minds are working on Russian Studies at Harvard and there was no undergraduate organization to follow up on this enthusiasm," Kearney added.

A Slavic Society was formed six years ago, but it died after a two-year existence because of a lack of continued student interest," said Vladimir E. Alexandrov, head tutor of the Slavic Languages and Literatures department.

"The department very much wants [the club] to succeed," and is giving it funds, Alexandrov said. But he said the department does not want to "channel" the group's activities by supplying more than advice and financial support. "We don't want to make this a quasi-extension of coursework," he said.

Kearney stressed that the organization does not endorse any political ideologies. "We're not proor anti-Soviet or Communist. We see the Russian and Eastern European communities as consisting of different cultures rather than as a monolithic communist bloc" he said.