Polydialogue. The University-wide Open Days

The Belarusian State University arranged Open Days for applicants. Open Days provide excellent opportunities to learn about the University, and particularly about the History Faculty. Read the conversation and note down the reasons to choose the History Faculty. Act out the conversation.

The Dean: One of the most important decisions you will take in your life is the choice of university at which to pursue your education. My advice is to consider all the options open to you and to identify the “best” department in terms of what’s best for you. I hope that you will find our talk helpful and informative when making your choice.

An Applicant: Is competition for entry the History Department strong?

The Dean: I should say that the standard of applicants at our Department is high.

An Applicant: Do the students at your Department have opportunity to choose the modules which will develop their interests?

The Dean: The History Department offers a wide range of modular courses form the Palaeolithic to the present day. You may take up Ancient and Medieval History, the History of Slavs, the History of the Republic of Belarus, Archaeology, Archives, Museology, Records Management, Modern History and Politics. Therefore you will have every opportunity to choose the modules which will develop your particular strength and interests.

An Applicant: Does the University have good facilities for research work?

The Dean: Teaching at university is research-led, ensuring that our students are exposed to leading-edge innovation and thinking. Our staff are regularly engaged in supervising the work of research students within their particular specialities. The University has links with many European Universities. Our Department is successful in foreign programmes. It has received high assessment of research work. The Department holds an increasing number of international scientific conferences.

A 3-rd year student: Our students benefit it from excellent library facilities. The latest information technology is available. A computer room is used for teaching of computer modules. You are expected to do a great deal of reading by yourself, and you are given book lists at all stages to guide you in this.

The Dean: I’d like to add that research work at our Department is carried out by individuals rather than by group.

The teacher of Archaeology: But in archaeology there is a natural tendency for research programmes to develop around particular excavations and the materials which they produce.

An Archaeology Student: Archaeology is an exciting discipline. If you study archaeology, you will have the opportunity of working in purpose-built laboratories, and have access to a range of photographic and drawing facilities. Excavations and surveys are and integral part of the archaeology course.

A museology Student: If you have an interest in applied science, enjoy the arts and like practical work, the course in conservation of objects in museums may be the ideal scheme to suit your needs. The Department provides training in the techniques of investigative conservation, work on a broad range of artifacts. Dating from prehistory to the present day. Together, our Department provides a balanced blend of theory and practice.

An applicant: What are employment prospects after graduating from the university?

The Dean: Close interaction with a wide range of professional bodies and other organizations, external to the University, ensures that schemes provide you with the skills needed by employers. Some of our students go on to careers which make direct use of the subjects they have studied: for example, many archaeology students find careers as professional archaeologists or in museums, and others (particularly historians) become teachers or lecturers.

A post-graduate student: It is important to realize, however, that a humanities degree is a qualification for a very wide variety of jobs in industry and business, the Civil Service and local government and elsewhere. Not all jobs require specific disciplines or skills, and very many employers (perhaps the majority) are looking for people who, in addition to a good educational achievements, are articulate, capable of thinking for themselves and able to tackle problems intelligently. In this sense, the degree schemes offered at the University are an excellent preparation for a wide range of interesting and rewarding careers.

A 5^th year student: I believe that Minsk with all the facilities of a capital city is one of the finest places in which to study in our country.

The Dean: As you study the events, the places, the people, I hope you will ask many questions. Some questions may be about history: “What caused these people to make decisions they did?” or “How do we know about these events?” Most of all, I hope you will catch the excitement of thinking, questioning and discovering answers about the world.

I wish you every success in your future studies.

 

Discussion

 

Ex. 1. Support each of the following statements with facts and details.

1. Our understanding of history will always be changing.

2. Historians gather information about the past from many sources.

3. Historians should always evaluate the sources of their information.

4. The excavation of a site is an important part of putting together the archaeological record of an area.

5. There are many ways an archaeologist can find out the age of an artifact.

6. Archaeology is a science that came into being towards the beginning of the XX century.

7. Unwritten literature is the historical evidence.

8. The investigation of myths, legends, epics, ballads – is one of the main laws of preserving culture.

Translation

 

Ex. 1. Translate in to Russian.

The usefulness of archives

Recorded information is everywhere in modern society. Individual documents, texts produced on typewriters, still photographs, moving picture images on film and videotape, sound recordings-all these various forms of information surround us. Recording information and finding ways to keep and use it for long periods of time are very old problems for human culture. In its more or less insatiable desire to gather, comprehend and utilize data, humanity has long sought means to fix knowledge in such a way that it can be called back to mind when necessary or desirable. Society at large uses archives and the information they contain. Large numbers of people with a great range of interests seek information from archival records. Many archival records are useful because they are a source of personal individual identity. Birth records or church baptismal and membership records are used to demonstrate citizenship or eligibility for social security and medicare benefits. Archival records are used by countless family historians and genealogists. This is not just frivolous hobby, such users of archives are engaged in the important psychological task of anchoring themselves and their family in time, setting a fixed and reliable context for themselves in an increasingly fluid, changeable world.

Using archives also brings larger societal benefits. Medical researchers use archival records to trace the symptoms and patterns of disease in their search for treatment and cure. Scientific researchers use climatic records in weather prediction.

Corporate bodies, too, derive benefits from the usefulness of their archives. Legal requirements and administration demand control over such documentation as contracts and financial data. Economic motives are essential source of records. Acquiring, managing and spending money produce large quantities of recorded data which is useful in providing a picture of economic health. Such records are necessary in accounting for one’s own funds as well as for money held in trust for others for particular reasons. Hiring, firing, paying and evaluating workers create records that are important to employer and employee alike, both in normal times and whenever problems arise.

Those who search the past for understanding the present find in archives the raw materials with which to construct their narratives and analyses. Indeed, most researchers are guided by the slogan they learn early in their training: “no archives, no history”.

Archives are useful because they inform, entertain enlighten and educate.

Many archives actively plan and implement educational programs for senior citizens and for school students. Archival records help senior citizens relive their own experiences and tell the stories of their lives to others. Those same records help young people reach back beyond the extent of their own personal memory.

Anniversary celebrations of churches, social clubs, schools, neighbourhoods and towns are all enriched by drawing on archival sources: original letters, photographs, reminiscences and other records. When individuals make contact with such archival sources-not only the information they contain, but also the “real things”, letters and diaries written by real people-they transcend the bounds of time and realize in direct and personal ways that they are part of a larger whole.

Archivists are charged with the responsibility to preserve records for the indefinite future. This responsibility requires that archivists employ certain safeguards to ensure that the records in their care will survive, including establishing and enforcing procedures that will guarantee the physical survival and integrity of the records. This also implies the responsibility to organize the records in a coherent and understandable way. All these activities are carried out to serve the purpose of making the records usable. Archivists are preservers of information.

Archivists make the records available to those who seek information-whether in person, by mail, by telephone or perhaps by electronic mail or fax machine. The archivist explains and enforces any restrictions on access to the records, while at the same time publicizing information about the archives and actively reaching out to a wide public audience through exhibits as well as educational and other public programs. Many changes affected the way records were made, how they were used, and ultimately what they meant. The nature of recorded information has evolved substantially since mankind first began to write things down rather than simply try to remember them. Today the amount of recorded information is vast and growing inexorably more so. To keep this quantity in perspective is a significant task of archives. Understanding the nature and characteristics of recorded information is essential for anyone who records, keeps or uses – that is to say, for every one.

 

Ex. 2. Translate into English.

A. В начале XX века выдающийся русский археолог В.А. Городцов на Северном Донце (in the Northern Donets basin) вел раскопки курганов (barrows), большинство из которых относились к эпохе меди-бронзы (to the Copper-Bronze Age). Городцов заметил, что наиболее древние погребения располагались в простых ямах (pits) – в так называемых катакомбах (“catacombs”; наиболее поздние находились в деревянных срубах (in timber – framed structures).

Взяв за основу эти три типа погребальных сооружений (tomb construction), В.А. Городцов выделил три археологические культуры: ямную, катакомбную и срубную. При этом было замечено, что каждому типу соответствуют определенная поза захороненного и разные вещи, положенные в могилу. Особенно явно различалась керамика.

Благодаря работам исследователей удалось установить территорию, которую занимали племена каждой из культур, выяснить время их существования, изучить хозяйство и быт, познакомиться с произведениями древнего искусства.

B. C момента первой публикации в 1964 г. книга лорда Тейлора «Микенцы» (“The Mycenaens”) зарекомендовала себя (has established itself) как лучшая исследовательская работа в области археологии о микенцах. В книге рассматриваются великие открытия, сделанные Шлиманом и его последователями в цитаделях Микен (Mycenae), Тиринфе (Tiryns), Пилосе (Pyloc), подтверждающие, что рассказ Гомера о Троянской войне не сказка, а быль. В книге рассматриваются и произведения искусства, проливающие свет на блестящую цивилизацию; и, прежде всего, книга охватывает историю подъема и падения в течение 400 лет этой великой цивилизации, которая оставила свой отпечаток на бронзовом веке Средиземноморья и завещала (bequeathed) свое наследие грекам классического периода.