My boss'll probably laugh till he falls over if he ever reads this review. He's an atmospheric physicist (translation: "a meteorologist who doesn't want to be in the same category as the empty suits on the evening news,") who programmed a lot in FORTRAN before he changed over to management. He likes to goad C programmers showing signs of prima-donnaism by saying he could write XYZ in FORTRAN, no matter what XYZ happens to be.

What earthly use is FORTRAN these days, you may ask (apart from any unlucky soul who has to maintain some hunk of ancient code), and thus, what use is this book? Well, that depends.

In the last numerical analysis class I took, I opted to do the programming assignments in FORTRAN, after one or two aggravating forays at writing them in C with a limited amount of time. Translating the algorithms into FORTRAN required a lot less work (duh, you say; the language exists for FORmula TRANslation). Still, with a time limit for homework assignments, it can be useful.

(In real life, a mathematician attached to a project I'm familiar with designs algorithms, but he's not a programmer, so his assistant has to implement them. Well, the mathematician actually writes them in FORTRAN, and the assistant gets to translate them into C...)

This particular book is, of course, somewhat elderly, as the title will tell you, but that can actually be in your favour. It's *extremely* easy to follow, and quite short, so it's easy to find what you need. And no matter how old, unmaintained, and just plain obsolete the FORTRAN compiler you're dealing with happens to be, this book will support you in writing code that can work with it.

Even though I don't work with FORTRAN these days, I keep it as a reference just in case, because it's worth its weight in platinum if you need to write something in the language.

This young chicken is beyond admirable..he should be a diety. These words not only struck my heart, but they left me with a feeling of deep, yet incomplete solitude. Just as one's first experience of seeing the enormity of the Grand Canyon leaves one humbled, so do the simple yet penetrating words and emotions of this text, which seem to explode from the pages. It is as if the words themselves have an inner being amidst the remembrances they provoke in the daily lives of its readers. The bearing of one phrase which can ignite so many feelings of love and desire, loss and regret. To the author: Thank you for calling to mind so many rich and warm experiences that have lingered so long in my mind. You have brought me a way to retrieve the closeness of my own heart.

When I was in college, I was required to read this book. I was struck then by the insights that Tismaneanu had. This text gave me the greatest understanding of why Bulgaria kept the communists while the Czech Republic has put its arms around a market economy. Recently, I went back a re-read this book, and was struck at how timely the analysis still is. I would whole-heartedly recommend this book to anyone looking to understand what has and will occur in Eastern Europe.

Vladimir Brovkin's brilliant work "Russia After Lenin: Politics, Culture & Society 1921-1929" clearly demonstrates that the propaganda claims made by the Bolsheviks were largely incongruous with the views held by a majority of Russians. The author demonstrates that Communist ideas were resisted most strongly by those whom the party was purported to be serving-the proletariat. Brovkin further shows that contrary to revisionist histories, Communism was established in Russia following a military coup led by the mearest fraction of society. Brovkin argues that Stalin's campaign of terrordeveloped directly from Lenin's notion of constant revolution and that this policy of terror was adopted in order to perpetuate the Communist Party's monopoly on political power. Brovkin's work is a must read for those who wish to gain a better understanding of how the Bolsheviks consolidated and maintained their dictatorial authority. "Russia After Lenin" is an outstanding book on politics and history that should be considered equal to the monumental books by Richard Pipes.

There is nothing better than this work in English. If you are interested in the history of Russian chant or want to know what old russian chant was (to the best of our knowledge), and you don't read Russian, there is nothing better or more comprehensive for you. You can safely buy this book, knowing that there is nothing better for you in the English language.

When asking any experts to recommend books on Eastern Orthodox Church music, this scholarly volume by Johann von Gardner will invariably be among the first titles mentioned. This English translation, done by Vladimir Morosan, was published by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press in 1980.

The author states at the outset of his preface: "The present work is intended as an aid to those who feel the necessity of gaining deeper understanding of the liturgical singing of the Russian Orthodox Church, not only in its present-day practical forms, but also in its theoretical essence and thousand year history."

While von Gardner accomplishes his goal with clarity and scholarly precision, it serves and an excellent introduction to the music of all Eastern Orthodox Churches, including the Greek, and the Arab-based Antiochian Orthodox Church (of which I am a relatively new member). In discussing the establishment of Orthodox Christianity on American and Western European soil the translator states in his preface, "...the parishes established by the Church of Russia have naturally preserved the choral tradition of the Mother-Church, and even parishes from Greek or Syrian traditions of monodic chant have in some instances adopted Russian choral singing under the influence of the prevailing choral milieu of the West."

It cannot be stressed enough, as is stated on the back-cover summary, "the music of the Orthodox Church cannot be understood in purely aesthetic categories, apart from the liturgical context which determines both its content and its function." That's really what this book is all about, how the music and liturgy are inseparable.

Although I have many years of experience directing choirs and leading worship services in Protestant Churches, I discovered that as I began tackling the job of directing our Orthodox parish choir (on a part-time basis), that it was like learning a new language. This book goes a long way toward helping the reader become familiar with that new language, but one can only learn to "speak it" by full immersion in the services of the Orthodox Church.

Below are the titles for each of the four chapters:
The System of Orthodox Liturgical Singing: Concepts and Terminology
The Liturgical System of the Orthodox Church
The System of Russian Liturgical Singing
Periodization of Russian Liturgical Singing

I would definitely agree with those who recommended this book to me, it is an excellent introduction, however if you have no first-hand experience with Orthodox liturgies, I would think that much of this book would be an academic exercise.

At times, the reader may feel overwhelmed with too much information, or with unfamiliar terminology, but for someone like me who wants to get to the heart of this glorious worship experience, it's worth the effort.

"Russian Icons" by Vladimir Ivanov is an excellent summary, chronologically arranged, of the history of Russian Icons. Not only is it well illustrated, it gives a nice overview of the history of Russian icons. What impressed me the most about this book was its lovely photographs of the icons. They capture the spirit of the paintings. They are also high-quality photographs, not blurred or smudged. It is a work which is both useful to a stranger to the subject and an expert.

name architektor+histor

Reprinted from SlaveFile Slavic Languages Division American Translators Association Summer 1998, Vol. 8, # 3 (Publisher's note: "Russian words had to be transliterated")

Russian-English Automotive Dictionary

Reviewed by Lydia Stone American Translators Association

SLD member Vladimir Kotchine has sent us his dictionary for review, and although I have informed him that I do not work in regularly in this subject (some might even say I am not qualified to drive) he has agreed to my reviewing it. It is a well-bound soft cover volume on good paper with double columns and excellent readability resulting from moderately large print and sufficient spaces between entries. I have seen no typos, and in any but my own writing, these usually jump up off the page and strike my eyes. Kotchine takes a kind of "Kuznetsov" approach to the dictionary, by which I mean that the main defined unit is the multiword noun term, e.g., "kontrol'naya lampa stoyanochnogo tormoza", alphabetized according to head noun (in this case "lampa"). Some nouns, especially very specific one are defined (e.g., "rastvorovoz" = mortar carrying truck) alone without subentries and a small number of adjective ("zamaslennyi (o svechakh) = oiled, fouled)" listed as independent entries and a somewhat larger number of verbs listed either alone "zalegat' = bottom; stick; freeze)"; with sub-entries ("zamenyat': gil'zu = reline, resleeve; dvigatel' re-engine, re-motor, etc. or as verbal phrases ("zamedlyat' dvizhenie vklyucheniem ponizhayuschei peredachi" = gear down). Context (for example "akk - storage battery") is given in some cases. This seems to be an eminently reasonable approach to the subject matter. General filler material is virtually absent. Coverage seems to me to be remarkably extensive with ca. 120 entries under "klapan" more than 80 under the subentry "porshnevoe kol'tso" alone. Entries cover types of vehicles (including antiques and even some terms pertaining to horses) as well as parts and styles of vehicles, and even driving operations. Citations of a randomly selected entry of appropriate length in full gives an idea of the range and completeness of the definitions. udar ì: v stseplenii (pri soskal;zyvanii nogi s pedali) slamming in the clutch obratnyi (zavodnoj rukoyatki) return shock; crank knock obratnyi (pri zapuske) flashback; kickback; backfire pri pereklyuchenii peredach shifting shock

Although I have never had an assignment heavily involving automobile terminology, I was more than delighted to accept the author's kind offer to keep the volume. I am sure that, to paraphrase a famous review, that if I ever come to need such a thing, Kotchine's dictionary will be exactly the thing I need. I would conjecture that translators working in this or allied fields would find the book invaluable.