Salt Babies: Narrating Maternity in Russian and Comparative Literature

盐娃：斯拉夫和比较文学中的母性叙事是一个计划中的研究网络，它将把活跃在母学研究中的斯拉夫研究学者与更广泛的学科领域联系起来。通过九个月在立陶宛和英国举行的两次学术会议和三次公开研讨会，并辅之以一系列相关活动和出版物，我们将询问人们对母亲经历和行为的理解，同时重新开始关于当代文学和文化如何反映母亲身份的对话。由于首席调查员和联合调查员共享斯拉夫文学方面的专业知识，文学和电影文化是我们研究问题的主要焦点；此外，这种方法使我们的网络能够解决斯拉夫研究中母亲研究长期被边缘化的问题。我们的书名《盐宝宝》源于俄罗斯作家伊萨克·巴别尔1926年的短篇小说《盐》，故事背景设定在俄国内战期间，讲述了一名妇女通过假装哺乳婴儿的方式说服哥萨克士兵让她上火车。由于他们尊敬哺乳的母亲，士兵们让她安然无恙地旅行；但当她不自然地平静的“宝宝”暴露为一袋走私盐时，他们把她扔下火车并开枪打死了她。我们的书名还引用了安妮·费恩颇具影响力的儿童小说《面粉宝贝》(1992)，在书中，一班捣蛋的男孩通过培养一袋袋面粉来学习如何模范良好的父母行为。这两个故事都表明，在各自的文化背景下，孕育母性行为的“好”是如何受到尊崇的；但是，它们也证明了母性行为是可以伪造的，从而暴露了我们的母性理想的脆弱性和流动性。这引出了该网络的关键问题：1.前苏联国家和西方国家在文化上(主要是文学上的)对母亲的表现有什么不同？公众对母性的认知有何不同？2.母性研究的方法论方法在斯拉夫研究和其他学科领域有何不同？3.我们如何有效地使用翻译的母性小说，让更广泛的公众反思母性经历？在共同研究者的机构(立陶宛维尔纽斯大学)举行的为期两天的学术研讨会将调查我们这个领域的状况，汇聚来自不同学科的斯拉夫研究学者--社会学、历史学、文学--在由知名的非斯拉夫主义母性研究学者主持的小组中，他们稍后将担任网络斯拉夫主义研究人员的导师和我们成果的内部评审者。在奴隶主义者和更广泛的母体研究领域的知名学者之间建立的联系将促进斯拉夫母体研究领域内的跨学科知识交流，我们将通过(1)在Devon和Exeter研究所(Dei，Exeter)举办后续研讨会，网络成员将在会上介绍和讨论新的研究，以及(2)同行评议期刊“母体研究”的斯拉夫写作特刊，出版这项研究，并最终出版编辑后的卷。三个主题的公共研讨会，分别计划在诺里奇的UEA、埃克塞特的前妇产医院(Poltimore House)和帕萨卡电影院(Vilnius，立陶宛)举行，挑战围绕(1)母乳喂养；(2)婴儿死亡；(3)收养和收养的主流沉默文化。每个研讨会将链接到相关的斯拉夫文学/电影文本；我们将邀请作者/导演、学者和父母支持组织的代表来领导观众讨论。我们还将策划两个关于母亲经历的公开展览(埃克塞特大学对职业母亲的摄影研究，以及在Dei展出关于德文郡历史上的生育规定的展览)。

Salt Babies: Narrating Maternity in Slavic and Comparative Literature is a planned research network which will connect Slavic Studies scholars, active in Maternal Studies, with wider disciplinary fields. Through two academic conferences and three public seminars held over nine months in Lithuania and the UK, complemented by a range of related events and publications, we shall interrogate received understandings of maternal experience and behaviour, while re-opening dialogue about how contemporary literatures and cultures reflect motherhood. As the Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator share expertise in Slavic literature, literary and cinematic culture are the main foci of our research questions; additionally, this approach enables our network to address the long-term marginalization of Maternal Studies within Slavic Studies. Our title "Salt Babies" derives from Russian author Isaak Babel's 1926 short story "Salt", an account (set during the Russian Civil War) of a woman who persuades Cossack soldiers to let her ride their train by pretending to nurse an infant. As they venerate nursing mothers, the soldiers let her travel unmolested; but when her unnaturally peaceful "baby" is exposed as a sack of smuggled salt, they fling her off the train and shoot her. Our title also references Anne Fine's influential children's novel "Flour Babies" (1992), in which a class of disruptive boys learn to model good parental practice by nurturing bags of flour for two weeks. Both stories show how "good", nurturing maternal behaviour is culturally enshrined in their respective contexts; but, by also demonstrating that maternal behaviour can be faked, they expose the vulnerability and fluidity of our ideals of motherhood. This inspires the network's key questions:1. How do cultural (primarily, but not exclusively, literary) representations of motherhood differ between former Soviet nations and the West? How does the public perception of motherhood differ?2. How do methodological approaches to Maternal Studies, especially to maternal fictions, differ between Slavic Studies and other disciplinary fields?3. How can we use translated maternal fictions effectively to engage the wider public in reflection on maternal experience?The opening two-day academic symposium at the Co-Investigator's institution (Vilnius University, Lithuania), will survey the state of our field, uniting Slavic Studies scholars from different disciplines - sociology, history, literature - in panels chaired by established non-Slavist Maternal Studies scholars, who will later act as mentors for the network's Slavist researchers and as internal reviewers for our outputs. Connections created between Slavists and leading scholars in the wider field of Maternal Studies will stimulate interdisciplinary knowledge exchange within Slavic Maternal Studies, which we will disseminate through (1) a follow-up workshop at the Devon and Exeter Institution (DEI, Exeter) where network members will present and discuss new research and (2) a special Slavic writing-focused issue of the peer-reviewed journal "Studies in the Maternal" which will publish this research, and ultimately an edited volume. "Salt Babies" thus consolidates and extends the work of previous AHRC-funded networks on European motherhood.Three themed public seminars, challenging the prevailing culture of silence around (1) breastfeeding; (2) infant loss; (3) adoption and fostering, are planned for UEA, Norwich; Exeter's former maternity hospital (Poltimore House); and Pasaka Cinema (Vilnius, Lithuania), respectively. Each seminar will link to a relevant Slavic literary/cinematic text; we will invite authors/directors, scholars, and representatives from parental support organizations to lead audience discussion. We will also curate two public exhibitions on maternal experience (a photographic study of working motherhood at Exeter University, and a display about Devon's historical maternity provision at the DEI).