{"id":1125,"date":"2020-10-27T15:29:37","date_gmt":"2020-10-27T14:29:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/?p=1125"},"modified":"2020-10-28T17:04:20","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T16:04:20","slug":"1990s-slavfile-history-and-humor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/1990s-slavfile-history-and-humor\/","title":{"rendered":"SLD History and Humor: SlavFile Takes You Back to the 1990s"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SlavFile<\/p>\n

by Nora Seligman Favorov<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a history buff or interested in seeing how our profession has evolved over the past quarter century, or if you\u2019re just messing around on the internet looking for something different to read, I would recommend some of the first issues of SlavFile<\/em> recently posted to the SLD website.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, the issue from February 1995<\/a>. SlavFile<\/em> was still in its infancy, and the RLD (not yet SLD) administrator Susana Greiss congratulated editor Christina Sever (sadly, no longer with us) and \u201cLayout and DTP\u201d editor Galina Raff (still doing layout lo these 25 years later!) for the great job they were doing. The switch to \u201cSlavic\u201d division was in the discussion stage, and division administrator Susana Greiss was asking readers for input. A \u201cCalendar of 1995 Spring Activities\u201d listed a number of in person <\/em>(imagine that!) events (a \u201cRussian Financial Terminology for Translators\u201d event at a library in Seattle; \u201cBreakfast at Denny\u2019s,\u201d also in Seattle; a couple of \u201caccreditation examination\u201d sittings, since the switch to certification still lay in the future). As a further reminder of how much things have changed, the list of resources for translators and interpreters consisted mostly of brick and mortar bookstores, along with \u201cTop 1 Video (ask for Greg\u2014Americanized name)\u201d in Hollywood, California.<\/p>\n

The May 1995<\/a> issue reflected the still relatively recent collapse of the Soviet Union with an interesting article profiling some of \u201cRussia\u2019s \u2018New Translators,\u2019\u201d as well as strongly worded letters to the editor both pro and con the move toward a more inclusive Slavic<\/em> Languages Division. And three cheers for Igor Vesler, whose engaging article \u201cUkrainian\u2014An Emerging Market?\u201d paired with his triple contribution to the Summer-Fall 2020<\/a> issue proves the man to be an asset with staying power. As Dagmar Kotlandova Koenig\u2019s article in that issue, \u201cTranslating Czech in the United States\u201d seems to demonstrate, the RLD had more success than the SLD has had attracting Czech participation, ironically enough. The Autumn 1995<\/a> issue contains a note \u201cFrom the Editor\u2019s Desk\u201d in which editor Christina Sever announces her need to step down and a call for a replacement. Susana Greiss\u2019s \u201cFrom the Administrator\u201d column in the following issue<\/a> announced that the division was \u201cfortunate to be able to recruit a new editor who, I think, will do us proud: Lydia Razran Stone.\u201d She knew of what she spoke.<\/p>\n

In case I haven\u2019t yet convinced you to browse these 25-year-old issues of SlavFile<\/em>, let me strengthen my case by quoting two funny stories from what might be only the second of Lydia\u2019s \u201cSlavFile<\/em> Lite: Not by Word Count Alone\u201d column<\/a>s\u2014in this case stories contributed by SlavFile<\/em>\u2019s then-assistant editor, Laura Esther Wolfson:<\/p>\n

Funny Story No. 1: A young woman who wanted to perfect her Russian got a job working on an American exhibit demonstrating the wonders of capitalism to the Soviet masses. Her responsibilities included demonstrating a supermarket checkout scanner, which, in the interests of verisimilitude, was provided with props in the form of various grocery items made of plastic. The gaze of a Soviet visitor at the exhibit fell on a plastic sausage, and, leading the young woman to digress from the properties of the scanner, he asked what measures were taken in the U.S. to prolong the shelf-life of sausage. The young woman seized the somewhat phallic looking sausage, held it aloft and said, confident in her use of false cognates: \u201c\u041e\u043d\u0438 \u043f\u043e\u043b\u044c\u0437\u0443\u044e\u0442\u0441\u044f \u043f\u0440\u0435\u0437\u0435\u0440\u0432\u0430\u0442\u0438\u0432\u0430\u043c\u0438! [\u201cThey use condoms!\u201d]<\/p>\n

Funny Story No. 2: A woman who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in the seventies told me about a New Year\u2019s party she attended in that city at the residence of a Western diplomat. At midnight, one of the guests exclaimed, \u2018What a pity that some poor KGB agent has to see in the new year eavesdropping on us instead of having a good time with his friends and family!\u2019 A few seconds passed, the phone rang, and the sound of a champagne cork popping was clearly audible at the other end of the line.<\/p>\n

Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Nora Seligman Favorov is Associate Editor of <\/em>SlavFile and a freelance translator of Russian literature and history.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"end<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Nora Seligman Favorov If you\u2019re a history buff or interested in seeing how our profession has evolved over the past quarter century, or if you\u2019re just messing around on the internet looking for something different to read, I would recommend some of the first issues of SlavFile recently posted to the SLD website. Take, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,19],"tags":[80,81,22],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8HJOu-i9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1125"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1128,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1125\/revisions\/1128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ata-divisions.org\/SLD\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}