Crimean Research Centre for the Humanities (Krimskii Tsentr Gumanitarnykh Issledovanii)

When travelling to Crimea to attend a conference devoted to the centenary of Il'ia Sel'vinskii's birth organized by the Crimean Research Centre for the Humanities at the Tavridian National University in Simferopol1, I knew little of the place and even less so of the stature of the Centre. The encounter with its scholars and the role it plays in contemporary Russian culture exceeded my wildest expectations. Having become acquainted with its work, I concluded that what we have there is one of the most vibrant places of studies in the Russian and Slavic world understood as an interaction of various culture. The Crimean Research Centre for the Humanities was founded in 1994. Its primary objective is formulated as striving to propagate and sustain the process of the positive transformation towards civil society. This goal is to be achieved by promoting research in the humanities and issues related to contemporary intellectual, social and political problems. Its activity is also aimed at assisting civil reconciliation in Crimea and preserving friendly relations between the diverse ethnic groups of the peninsula. One of the Centre's goals is to strengthen cooperation and develop a sense of partnership between research on the one hand and political grass-roots organizations and social agencies in Crimea on the other. In addition, the Centre fosters interests in the Commonwealth of Independent States and contacts with universities and cultural institutions abroad. CRCH activities include the following: 1) promotion of various research projects and grass-roots initiatives; 2) organization of conferences, seminars, festivals and commemoration of anniversaries of important events and personalities; 3) conducting of editorial activity through the publication of academic books, brochures and periodicals, such as The Crimean Archive, Problems of Russian Literature, and the electronic journal Crimean Press Review; and 4) operation of independent public opinion polls. The best example how it tries to organize its work was the above mentioned conference devoted to I. Sel'vinskii. Thanks to close cooperation with the Sel'vinskii Museum headed by Director Ms. Ludmila I. Daineko, her research associate Irina A. Dobrovolskaia and other staff (particularly Oksana Krivoruchko), the conference turned out to be a resounding success. The driving force behind the success of this research institution is its director, Professor Vladimir Pavlovich Kazarin. It can be said that the Centre is indebted to him for almost everything that has been achieved so far. A specialist in Russian nineteenthand twentieth-century literature and author of books on Gogol and Pushkin, he has placed the Centre on the map of national and

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