Denis Crnković

Denis Crnković grew up in Lancaster, Penna,. in an immigrant Croatian and German family. The Crnković family history dates well back to the Renaissance in coastal Croatia and many of Denis’ relatives still live in Zagreb and the surrounding area where they continue to tend the ancestral vineyards. In Lancaster he attended Franklin & Marshall College, earning an A.B. in Russian Language & Literature. On finishing his PhD in Slavic Literatures (Yale 19850 , he studied at St Petersburg – then Leningrad – State University and, after a one-year teaching appointment at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., he accepted a position at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota, where he has ever since been Director of the Russian and Eastern European Studies Program. In his years there he has taken numerous January term study tours to Central Europe and Russia and taught the Gustavus Semester Abroad in Pécs, Hungary. His research and writing center on Slavic literatures and cultures, particularly on the Croatian middle ages, although he has published articles on later Croatian literature, Russian modernism and Dostoevsky. He is also an accomplished amateur letterpress printer and his research has often been a happy confluence of his Slavic studies and his fascination with early printed books. Besides his scholarly and pedagogical interests, Prof. Crnković is also an amateur musician who has sung with the Lancaster (Penna.), Musica Sacra, the Yale Russian Chorus, the Te Deum Gregorian Choir, and the Schola Gregoriana Ss Petri & Pauli dedicata

Pamela Kachurin

Pamela Kachurin is an art historian specializing in Russian and Soviet art and architecture. Having first traveled to the Soviet Union before 1991, Dr. Kachurin has been able to witness the remarkable changes since then. She has traveled and worked in Uzbekistan, Belarus, and the major cities of Russia. Dr. Kachurin has conducted wide-ranging research on Russian and Soviet artists at Russia’s museums, archival repositories, and libraries. She is the author of “Making Modernism Soviet”, published by Northwestern University Press in 2013, as well as numerous articles, book reviews and encyclopedia essays on Russian and Soviet art. She was the curator of "Designing the Modern Utopia" an exhibition of Soviet-era textiles at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Kachurin currently works with the Russian collection at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, and has lectured widely in the US and abroad.

Janetta Rebold Benton

Janetta Rebold Benton is the Distinguished Professor of Art History at Pace University, New York. She has lectured for many years at the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has served as the speaker on trips worldwide for both institutions. A former resident of Paris, she was Visiting Professor in the graduate school of art history at European University in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in the graduate school of art history at China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, on two Fulbright Senior Scholar Awards in 2012 and 2018.

Dr. Benton is the author of eight art history books (with translations into French and Chinese), as well as numerous scholarly articles and reviews published in Austria, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, and the U.S. She holds degrees/diploma from Harvard University, Brown University, George Washington University, and Cornell University.

Carol Reynolds

Dr. Carol Reynolds weaves history, humor, and high energy into everything she does. A musicologist, pianist, and organist, she specializes in Russian, East European, and German cultural history. Carol was a professor of music history for more than 20 years at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In addition to music, she is well versed in the history and fine arts of western Europe and Russia. Before becoming a professor, she studied at the Leningrad Conservatory and lived in West Germany.

Dr. Reynolds is a frequent Smithsonian Journeys Expert and has led tours through Russia, the Baltic States, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Croatia. She is fluent in Russian and German.  

A staunch advocate of Arts Education at every stage of life, she works with organizations like The Dallas Symphony, Van Cliburn Concerts, Kimball Museum, Opera America, and Smithsonian Associates. Carol has turned her attention to public speaking and the creation of online arts curricula and educational programs for adult audiences and secondary-school students.

Under the moniker Professor Carol, she publishes courses in cultural history for adults and students, including Discovering Music: 300 Years of Interaction in Western Music, Arts, History, and Culture, Exploring America’s Artistic Heritage, Imperial Russia, and Early Sacred Music. She and her husband Hank maintain a second home in Weimar (former East Germany).