On 14 September, in the conference hall of the main building of VSU representatives of the university community had a meeting with Professor Matthias Freise, a linguist and researcher of the Russian language from the University of Göttingen. The meeting was started by Elena Chupandina, the first Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, who presented the guest to the audience.
Matthias Freise is a well-known scientist and lecturer, a professor of the Slavic Department of the University of Göttingen. He is the author of works dedicated to Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Bakhtin. He is a member of the International Dostoevsky Society. Last autumn, Matthias Freise was awarded with another title. He became an Honorary Doctor of VSU. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the award ceremony was postponed and only a year later Matthias Freise was awarded with the gown of honourable doctorate and a badge of honour for serving Voronezh State University.
One of his prominent services for Voronezh State University is the international master’s degree programme “Russian Literature in the European Context”, which was launched at the Faculty of Philology of VSU in 2015. The graduates of the programme receive two degrees: one from VSU and one from University of Göttingen. In 2020, Professor Freise suggested opening a bachelor’s degree programme “European Languages and World Culture”. The programme involves cooperation between the University of Göttingen and the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Philology of VSU.
Matthias Freise received the award from VSU for “strengthening international academic relations, enhancing the international prestige of VSU, and the development of the linguistic dialogue between Russia and Germany”. For Matthias Freise dialogue is the key concept in science. And he started his lecture with this concept.
“I do things that I find useful and promising. But my Voronezh colleagues and friends added extra value to my activities. I get a response from them and that’s where the dialogue starts and that dialogue is exactly the way Bakhtin understood it. It has supreme value, not just for one person but for all parties involved. And this is the essence of true science which is based on the dialogue. Voronezh State University and the University of Göttingen are special dialogue partners,” said Matthias Freise.
The scientist dedicated his lecture to Russian literature: the works by Dostoevsky which the professor’s parents read (he loves these works from the very childhood), Chekhov, and Tolstoy. The lecture was interwoven with stories and memories about his life. The participants of the meeting asked questions about his biography (“How did you come to study Russian literature?”) or cultural issues (“What will the literature of the future be like?”). As a result, the meeting was a real dialogue between the lecturer and the audience, Voronezh State University and the University of Göttingen, Russia and Germany. It was a dialogue of cultures.
