Ural Federal University: Polish Poetry Evening at the University

The official national date for Philology Day is May 25, but at UrFU it has long been celebrated in April. This year a special guest of the celebration was the vocal ensemble “Kasia – Katarzyna” (“Katya – Katerina”), which performed at one of the closing events of the festival – an evening of Polish poetry. It was attended by students studying Polish language, as well as those interested in Polish culture

“Students of the Ural Federal University Faculty of Philology have been studying Polish as one of the additional Slavic languages for a very long time. The event allowed the students to get acquainted with the most famous Polish poets, to feel the specificity of the Polish poetic form. Our vocal ensemble represents Polish song culture, we sing both folklore and pop songs, students also had a chance to listen to Polish pop songs. It is very pleasant that this evening was able to attract not only lecturers, but also students interested in Polish culture,” says Yulia Pikuleva, a member of the ensemble, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian Language, General Linguistics and Verbal Communication at UrFU.

The two-day program of the celebration was full of events. Student and teacher scientific conferences touched on topical issues of philology. So, on the first day, experts talked about the dialogue between the classics and modernity: how Pushkin became the progenitor of the language game used by the media, and how 19th century fiction becomes a manual for modern engineers. The second day was devoted to foreign languages, where students shared ideas about the difficulties of translating foreign works. In addition, students took part in a quiz on Russian classics and an expressive reading contest in Russian, English, and Chinese.

Schoolchildren also took part in the event. They were able to participate in a competition to translate a passage of a classical text, as well as to show their oratorical skills in a foreign language speech. The winner of the oratory contest received two extra points toward the potential Unified State Examination score for university admission in addition to the prize.