Rimgaila "Rima" Salys is Professor Emerita of Russian Program at the

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado syst ...

and an expert in 20th century Russian literature, film, and culture. Her research interests include

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

and

post-Soviet The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...

cinema, 20th century Russian art and culture, theory and praxis of

literary modernism Literary modernism, or modernist literature, originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction writing. Modernism experimented ...

, and Soviet cinematic musical. Of note is her research in the history of the Patterson family of black expatriates in the Soviet Union, which included

James Patterson James Brendan Patterson (born March 22, 1947) is an American author. Among his works are the ''Alex Cross'', '' Michael Bennett'', '' Women's Murder Club'', ''Maximum Ride'', '' Daniel X'', '' NYPD Red'', '' Witch & Wizard'', and ''Private'' se ...

, who played the black baby boy in the famous soviet musical ''

Circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

''. She graduated from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in Slavic Languages and Literatures. From 1994 to 2014 she taught at the

, where she served as Associate Chair for Russian and Interim Chair for Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures.

Books

*1999: ''

Leonid Pasternak Leonid Osipovich Pasternak (born ''Yitzhok-Leib'', or ''Isaak Iosifovich, Pasternak''; russian: Леони́д О́сипович Пастерна́к, 3 April 1862 ( N.S.) – 31 May 1945) was a Russian post-impressionist painter. He was the ...

: The Russian Years (1875–1921)'', 2 vols, Oxford University Press *2009: ''The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov: Laughing Matters'', University of Chicago Press books ** The book discusses films ''

Jolly Fellows ''Jolly Fellows'' (russian: Весёлые ребята, Vesyolye rebyata), also translated as ''Happy-Go-Lucky Guys'', ''Moscow Laughs'' and ''Jazz Comedy'', is a 1934 Soviet Union, Soviet musical film, directed by Grigori Aleksandrov and starri ...

'', ''

Volga-Volga ''Volga-Volga'' (russian: Волга-Волга) is a Soviet musical comedy directed by Grigori Aleksandrov, released on April 24, 1938. It centres on a group of amateur performers on their way to Moscow to perform in a talent contest called th ...

'', and ''

Tanya Tanya may refer to: * Tanya (Judaism),an early work of Hasidic philosophy by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. * Tanya (name), a given name and list of people with the name * Tanya or Lara Saint Paul (born 1946) * List of Mortal Kombat characters#Tany ...

''. "Salys explores how Aleksandrov’s cinema preserved the paradigms of the American musical, including its comedic tradition, using both to inscribe the

foundation myth An origin myth is a myth that describes the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the creation or cosmogonic myth, a story that describes the creation of the world. However, many cultures have stor ...

s of the

Stalin era Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

in the

national consciousness National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...

." *1999: (editor & contributor) ''

Yuri Olesha Yury Karlovich Olesha (russian: Ю́рий Ка́рлович Оле́ша, – 10 May 1960) was a Russian and Soviet novelist. He is considered one of the greatest Russian novelists of the 20th century, one of the few to have succeeded in wri ...

. Envy. A Critical Companion'' *2005: (editor & contributor) ''Tightrope Walking: The Memoirs of

Josephine Pasternak Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (; rus, Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к, p=bɐˈrʲis lʲɪɐˈnʲidəvʲɪtɕ pəstɛrˈnak; 30 May 1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, composer and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pa ...

'' *2013: (editor & contributor) ''The Russian Cinema Reader'', 2 vols. *2015 (editor & contributor) ''The Contemporary Russian Cinema Reader : 2005–2016'',

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American people of Lithuanian descent American literary theorists Russian studies scholars University of Colorado Boulder faculty University of Pennsylvania alumni Harvard University alumni {{Colorado-stub