Remembering Tom Shaw as Teacher, Scholar, Mentor

David M. Bethea

The thing I remember most about Tom Shaw over the years is his generos­ity, his willingness to do the “heavy lifting” without commenting on it. Per­haps it has something to do with coming from a modest background, going through the Second World War, being the “go-to guy” when the profession was establishing itself in the 1950s during the Sputnik era. We all know that Tom took great pride in being a rigorous scholar, someone who would insist that his own work and the work of colleagues meet certain stan­dards. He always said he wanted our work to be looked on seriously by col­leagues in Russia/the Soviet Union. And in this connection one of the things he was most proud of was the splash made in Russia by his dis­covery of the “Mniszek sonnet” in Boris Godunov. His edition of Pushkin’s letters is truly a foundational text we all come back to again and again to learn things about Pushkin’s life and affairs.

Editing Pushkin: A Seminar Held at
Oxford University, UK, July 2007

Catherine O’Neil

In 2006 the first volume appeared of a projected new collection of Push­kin’s works: Pushkin: Poemy i povesti. Chast´ I. Moscow: Novoe izdatel´­stvo, 2006. Commentary by Oleg Proskurin. The complete edition is enti­tled Pushkin. Sochineniia. Kommentirovannoe izdanie pod obshchei redaktsiei Devida M. Betea (Moscow: Novoe izdatel´stvo). The collection is supported by the Vilas Trust and the Pushkin Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.