And while I am at it, North American slavists kind of suck. The Ukrainian friend was at a conference, and an eminent American scholar announced in his talk that there is an ethnic conflict in Ukraine that has caused a civil war.
The friend asked him if he had any evidence to support this (truly outlandish) claim.
“Yes, I saw a video on YouTube,” the eminent scholar responded.
I already knew that slavists were a bizarre bunch, ever since a visited the Chair of the Department of Slavic Studies at McGill and saw that he was sitting under a huge portrait of Putin and a tiny little portrait of Pushkin.
I’m thinking there must be a reason why Slavic Studies is a dying field.