The Paths of Folklore: Essays in Honor of Natalie Kononenko

Teaching Slavic Folklore in Israel

The Paths of Folklore: Essays in Honor of Natalie Kononenko. Svitlana Kukharenko and Peter Holloway, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2012, 151–58.       Teaching Slavic Folklore in Israel Larisa Fialkova Teaching  Slavic  issues  in  the  Middle  East,  as  in  any  other  culturally  remote   region,   has   the   impact   of   estrangement   and   prompts   for   reflection   on   both   personal  and  academic  levels.  Why  are  these  subjects  taught?  Who  chooses   them?  What  are  the  main  challenges  that  we  face?  And  not  surprisingly  this   topic   has   been   raised   in   several   recent   publications   (Fialkova   2010;   Quenoy   2011).  The  story  of  the  teaching  of  Slavic  folklore  in  Israel  coincides  with  the   story  of  my  immigration  to  this  country  from  (then)  Soviet  Ukraine  in  April   1991,  and  it  was  triggered  to  some  extent  by  chance  factors.  At  that  time  I  con-­‐‑ sidered  myself  solely  a  scholar  of  fiction,  but  I  quickly  realized  that  a  wider   search  on  the  less  than  meager  job  market  was  a  necessity.  So,  a  few  words  on   previous   experience   in   teaching   folklore   in   Kyiv   were   included   on   my   cur-­‐‑ riculum  vitae.  And  these  few  words  led  to  my  starting  work  at  the  Israel  Folk-­‐‑ tales  Archives  at  the  University  of  Haifa.  That  was  soon  complemented,  and   much  later  replaced,  by  teaching  folklore  and  literature.   The  situation  with  teaching  at  the  university  level  in  Israel  was,  and  still   is,  markedly  different  from  what  I  experienced  in  Ukraine.  First,  there  are  no   strict   programs,   and   most   courses   are   not   compulsory.   At   my   university,   courses  are  first  proposed  and  designed  by  lecturers1  in  the  Folklore  Division.   Then  they  get  either  accepted  or  rejected  by  the  head  of  the  Folklore  Division   and  by  the  chair  of  the  department,  and  finally  either  chosen  or  rejected  by   the  students.  Courses  have  to  be  changed  each  year,  although  they  also  can  be   re-­‐‑offered  with  any  changes  after  an  interval.  This  leads  to  several  major  con-­‐‑ sequences—some  of  which  are  positive,  while  others  are  clearly  negative.     The  first,  positive,  consequence  is  that  there  are  enormous  options  for  en-­‐‑ tirely  new  courses,  which  was  unheard  of  in  Kyiv  in  the  early  1990s.  The  sec-­‐‑ ond,   ambivalent,   consequence   is   that   lecturers   alone   are   responsible   for   the   content  and  requirements  of  their  courses.  The  third,  rather  problematic,  con-­‐‑ sequence  is  that  the  notion  of  a  group  of  students  who  study  together  all  the   time  without  a  curator2  does  not  exist.  A  common  background  is  missing:  the                                                                                                                             1  Not  every  university  teacher  is  a  professor  in  Israel.  I  myself  am  not  yet  a  professor   but  a  Senior  Researcher,  who  is  equal  to  a  Senior  Lecturer.   2  A  teacher  who  is  responsible  for  a  group  of  students  not  only  in  academic  matters   but   in   behavioral   as   well.   This   person   organizes   various   meetings—both   individual   and  collective—with  students  and  acts  as  a  parental  figure  for  them.   152 LARISA FIALKOVA same  class  may  comprise  students  who  have  already  taken  two  or  three  folk-­‐‑ lore  courses  and  those  who  have  learned  about  folktales  only  from  Walt  Dis-­‐‑ ney’s   animated   pictures.   The   fourth,   mostly   negative,   consequence   is   that   textbooks  as  such  do  not  exist.  That  is  the  result  of  the  twofold   notion  that   students  should  study  directly  from  research  papers  and  monographs,  while   professors   should   write   those   instead   of   textbooks.   In   fact,   publishing   text-­‐‑ books  is  of  no  value  at  all  in  a  lecturer’s  promotion;  hence  it  is  perceived  as  a   waste   of   time.   In   addition,   each   class   has   students   who   completed   their   schooling   with   Hebrew   as   the   language   of   instruction,   others   with   Arabic,   and  yet  others—recent  immigrants  like  myself—whose  native  language  is  nei-­‐‑ ther  of  the  above.  Classes  are  taught  in  Hebrew,  while  reading  materials  are   mostly  in  English,  proficiency  in  which  varies  greatly  among  students.  Those   who  have  come  from  good  schools  and  have  high  English  proficiency  usually   succeed  without  textbooks  in  general  and  without  Hebrew  textbooks  in  par-­‐‑ ticular,   while   the   underprivileged   suffer.   The   publication   of   a   handbook   of   Slavic  folklore  (Kononenko  2007),  although  it  is  in  English,  is  a  great  aid  for   my  students.   My  idea  of  teaching  Slavic  folklore  in  Israel  was  rather  exotic.  It  was  not   taught  even  in  the  Slavic  department  of  the  Hebrew  University  in  Jerusalem,   the  only  place  where  a  Slavic  language  could  be  the  language  of  instruction.   Even  now  the  only  possibility  of  studying  Slavic  folklore  in  Israel  is  to  take   one  of  my  courses.  No  other  option  is  available.   It  is  clear  now  that  while  working  on  my  first  course  a  year  after...