Education

A.B. Franklin & Marshall College; M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Yale

Areas of Expertise

Medieval Slavic Literatures, Russian Literature, and Glagolitic

Denis Crnkovic

Professor, Director of Russian Studies

Russian
Download curriculum vitæ

Born and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in a family of Croatian and German origin, Dr. Crnković attended Franklin and Marshall College and the Russian School of Norwich University. He received an A.B. in Russian Language and Literature from F&M in 1974. After working for two years as a free-lance translator, he studied Slavic literatures at Yale University, where he received the PhD in 1985 after defending his dissertation on the "Rhythmical and Syntactical Structures in the Life of Aleksandr Nevskij." He completed post-doctoral work at Saint Petersburg (then Leningrad) State University in Saint Petersburg, Russia. After serving as lector and instructor of Croatian and Russian at Yale and teaching for a year at Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut) he came to Gustavus in 1984, where he is currently Professor of Russian Language and Literature and Director of the Russian Language and Area Studies program. He has also served as Director of Curriculum II, the College's intensive integrated general education program.

In addition to offering numerous courses in Russian language and literature, Prof. Crnkovic has also conducted seminars on Central European Literature, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Modern and Contemporary Russian Culture. As part of Gustavus' emphasis on international education Professor Crnkovic has traveled and taught regularly in Central and Eastern Europe.

With an expertise in medieval Slavic literatures, Dr. Crnkovic maintains an active research agenda. His article, "Isocolic Structures and Graphemetic Features in the Croatian Church Slavic Regula Sancti Benedicti," has appeared in Studi Slavistici and his recently completed book, Ki lipo umije Atiti: Rhythm and Structure in the Croatian Glagolitic Church Books, is scheduled for publication in 2009. He is currently working on an in-depth study of the Glagolitic versions of the Life of St. Wenceslas. In the summer of 2009, Prof. Crnković participated in the NEH seminar "The Re-formation of the Book 1450-1650" in Antwerp and Oxford.

Besides his scholarly and pedagogical interests, Prof. Crnkovic is an amateur musician who has sung with the Lancaster (Penna.), Musica Sacra, the Yale Russian Chorus, and the Te Deum Gregorian Choir, and is currently a member of the Schola Gregoriana Ss Petri & Pauli dedicata. He is also an accomplished artisan in typography and printing on the letterpress.

Contact Information

Russian
Gustavus Adolphus College
800 West College Avenue
Saint Peter, MN 56082

Phone: 507-933-7389
E-mail: cronk@gustavus.edu

Courses Taught

• Composition
• Interm Russian I
• Russian I
• Russian II
• Russian Lit Since 1900

Denis Crnkovic's Schedule