Н.И. ВАВИЛОВ КАК ОРГАНИЗАТОР НАУКИ

The article highlights the activities of N.I. Vavilov as an outstanding organizer of science in the hard times of transformation of agriculture in the USSR. The period of his scientific and organizational work spans 20 years (1920-1940), of which the first decade was the most productive. The decrease in the practical impact of his work is associated with socio-political and repressive conflicts in the USSR and with clashes of different scientific and non- scientific concepts related to understanding the basics of genetics and its role in promoting agricultural production. Despite this, the historical significance of N.I. Vavilov’s organizational contribution to science is not transient as reflected by the fact that both institutes organized by him, i.e. All-Soviet Institute of Plant Breeding (currently, All- Russian Institute of Genetic Resources of Plants) and Institute of General Genetics, bear his name.

Wspomnienie roli, jaką odegrał profesor Władysław Kuraszkiewicz w początkowym okresie białorutenistycznych badań gwaroznawczych w Polsce

Post-war research on Belarusian dialects in Poland using linguistic geography methods was launched in the 1950s by Prof. Antonina Obrębska-Jabłońska and her associates at the Polish-Soviet Institute in Warsaw. Before long, the institute’s Eastern Slavic sections were transferred to the Slavic Studies Unit of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where this work was continued. The main source of information on Eastern Slavic dialects between the Bug and Narew rivers, i.e. in the southern part of the area planned to be included in field studies, was Władysław Kuraszkiewicz’s article from 1939. In this work the Professor discussed the accentually determined development of Belarusian and Ukrainian diphthongs and the position-dependent depalatalization of consonants as well as mentioning preserved relics of infinitive forms of the it’`ie and peč`ye type, which in a subsequent work he explained as being a relic of the Jatzvingian (Yotvingian) language. The present paper highlights the merits of the distinguished Polish Slavic studies scholar, Professor Władysław Kuraszkiewicz, as a person, researcher and teacher.

Mohammad Malas, The Dream: A Diary of the Film (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2016). Pp. 181. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9789774167997./Al-Manam/The Dream (Syria), 1987. Color, 45 min. In Arabic with English, French and German subtitles. Director: Mohammad Malas; Distributor: mec film, http://mecfilm.com/index.php?id=1624.

In 1980 Muhammad Malas began research for a documentary about Palestinians in the refugee camps of Lebanon. Malas, who had received training in filmmaking at the All Soviet Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, had already worked for a decade directing documentaries for Syrian television. He researched and filmed in Lebanon during long visits in 1980 and 1981, but his work was interrupted by the Israeli attacks on Lebanon in 1981 and 1982 and the Camps War that raged in the refugee camps of the southern suburbs of Beirut in the mid-1980s. Al-Manam (The Dream) was finally completed in 1987. It was highly acclaimed in a few venues in Europe and the Arab world, but was not widely released. Over the years the film has screened at festivals here and there, but otherwise has been difficult to see and impossible to purchase. Now, The Dream has finally been released on DVD by mec film, and an English language translation of the diary Malas kept while filming in 1980–81 and which appeared in Arabic in 1991 has been published by the American University in Cairo Press. The near simultaneous release of these two works, a formally important work of Arab cinema and a detailed accounting of the thoughts of the filmmaker as he conceptualized that work, is an exciting development for Arab film studies—a boon to both scholarship and classroom teaching.