BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— Illinois Wesleyan University Professor of Russian Studies and recent appointee of the Isaac Funk Professorship Marina Balina has received a research fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to continue her pioneering work with Soviet and post-Soviet children’s literature.
The $20,000 fellowship is jointly sponsored by the NEH, the American Councils for International Education and the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research. The NEH, an independent grant-making agency of the United States government, is dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation and public programs in the humanities.
Balina has earned an international reputation for her work with Soviet literature, yet she is one of the first to study children’s literature. “Soviet children’s literature has been dismissed as propaganda by Western scholars,” said Balina. “It is a new field to speak about Soviet and post-Soviet children’s works, and that is very exciting.”