The SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA, along with other research centres and institutes, comes under the jurisdiction of the university's Faculty of Arts.  Its activities are overseen by the Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Arts, Dr Robert Major. 
   The Faculty of Arts of the University of Ottawa comprises 18 academic departments (including History, Linguistics, Modern Languages & Literatures, and the School of Translation and Interpretation) along with nine laboratories and research centres (including the Institute of Canadian Studies).
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The SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP has collaborated with the Centre for Research on Canadian-Russian Relations (CRCR), which is associated with the European and Russian Studies (EURUS) programme at Carleton University in Ottawa in instituting a Canada-Russia publication series, under the joint editorship of CRCR Director J. Laurence Black and SRG Director Andrew Donskov.
   Volume I of this series was published in 1999, under the title Russian roots & Canadian wings: Russian archival documents on the Doukhobor emigration to Canada, compiled, translated and annotated by John Woodsworth, with a Foreword by Vladimir Tolstoy, current director of the Museum-Estate of Leo Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana.  The book is published by Penumbra Press in Manotick (Ontario).
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The SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP is collaborating with the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES) at the University of Toronto, directed by external SRG member Donna Orwin, on a project entitled Rethinking the Russian idea, aimed at promoting the development of Russian Studies in Canada.  Further details about the project are available on our Russian Happenings page.
   CREES, in collaboration with the Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures at the University of Toronto, also publishes the annual Tolstoy Studies Journal under Donna Orwin's editorship.  Its 1999 issue featured an article by SRG Director Andrew Donskov entitled "N.N. Strakhov's correspondence with L.N. Tolstoy (1894-1896)" (pp. 72-107), which included twelve of Strakhov's letters to Tolstoy (in the original and in John Woodsworth's English translation) drawn from the SRG's 2000 publication L. N. Tolstoj i S. A. Tolstaja: Perepiska s N. N. Strakhovym / The Tolstoys' correspondence with N. N. Strakhov (click on the title for details).
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The SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP is grateful for the support it has received from the Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS), which publishes Canadian Slavonic Papers (CSP), a journal devoted to the work of Slavic scholars in Canada.  We are especially appreciative of our contact with CSP Editor Edward Mozejko and Associate Editor Gust Olson.  SRG members have participated in several CAS conferences over the past few years (see details under SRG members involved in Slavist conferences on our Russian Happenings page).
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The SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP maintains a close working relationship with the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures at the University of Ottawa, particularly its Slavic Section.  Several SRG members are drawn from this department, including one (Richard Sokoloski) who has been serving as department chair for the past few years.
   The SRG has co-sponsored a number of activities involving students in the Polish and Russian academic programmes of the department, such as the annual book awards of the respective embassies (see details on our Polish Happenings page and our Russian Happenings page, respectively).
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The appointment of Mark Stolarik, Chair of Slovak History and Culture at the University of Ottawa, as an SRG member is a first step in expanding the Slavic Research Group's activities beyond the Russian and Polish fields.  We hope to publish a work by Dr Stolarik on Slovak Studies in the near future. 
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The SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP collaborated with the Institute of Canadian Studies (ICS) at the University of Ottawa in sponsoring the Doukhobor Centenary Conference in October 1999.  Former ICS director Chad Gaffield was not only a member of the conference's organising committee, but also served as one of the editors of the conference Proceedings, published shortly thereafter; he is currently SRG's newest member.  The ICS also devoted a page of its website to the Doukhobor conference programme.
   The SRG looks forward to further co-operation with the ICS on other projects of common interest.
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The SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP is pleased to count among its members Corinne Gaudin, a specialist in Russian and Soviet History in the Department of History at the University of Ottawa.  It should also be noted that two other SRG members,  Mark Stolarik, who holds the Chair of Slovak History & Culture and Chad Gaffield, former Director of the University of Ottawa's Institute of Canadian Studies, are also affiliated with the Department of History (see above).
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The SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP is also fortunate to have as a member Maria Los of the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa, who has done research in the sociology of law and human rights in reference to the post-communist countires of Eastern and Central Europe.
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The SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP is grateful for the assistance it received from the Doukhobor journal  ISKRA in their promotion of the 1999 Doukhobor Centenary Conference and for their publicising of SRG activities and publications on Doukhobor themes.  ISKRA was founded in 1943 in the Kootenay district of British Columbia and still published 18 times a year in Grand Forks, B.C.  One of the keynote speakers at our conference, Eli A. Popoff, was at one time the editor of ISKRA.  A special word of thanks goes to former editor Jim (Dmitri) Popoff and current editor Jason Harshenin for their help and support.
   ISKRA has published correspondence and scholarly articles (in both Russian and English) by SRG members Andrew Donskov and John Woodsworth, as well as a number of the latter's Russian-language poems, sometimes with English translation.
   The SRG is equally grateful for the support of the Doukhobor cultural organisation, the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USCC), which publishes ISKRA.  We wish to acknowledge in particular the respected leader of the USCC, John J. Verigin Sr (a Companion of the Order of Canada) and his son, John J. Verigin Jr.
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ON 6 JUNE 1999, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Russia's national poet, Aleksandr Pushkin, the SLAVIC RESEARCH GROUP joined forces with the Sasquatch Writers Performance Series, a local Ottawa poetry society founded by Cuban- Canadian poet Juan O'Neill in 1980, to sponsor a Pushkin Evening at the National Library of Canada (see the Russian Happenings page under Other Pushkin events for details).
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