Alexei Kondratiev
May. 28th, 2010 07:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacFor the Mythopoeic Conference eight years ago in Boulder, Colorado, I was asked to provide the write-up for the program book on the Scholar Guest of Honor. And this is what I said:
**
Alexei Kondratiev is The Man Who Knows. He knows languages, he knows mythology and traditional spirituality, and he knows fantasy literature as well as, or better than, anyone else in the Mythopoeic Society. He was born in France, on one side the grandson of a Russian émigré; on the other side of native French descent – he knows both languages, of course – and developed a passion for Celtic civilization early in life. There is a Celtic underlay everywhere in France, even in Burgundy where Alexei grew up, and his talent is for discerning and bringing out this underlay wherever it extends. He also got an early start on learning fantasy literature through his parents’ book collection, and has read as widely, in both new and old books, as anyone I know. Now he lives in New York, where he teaches and writes on Celtic languages, mythology, spirituality, music, and other aspects of their culture. His primary interest is in re-creating native Celtic cultural and spiritual traditions through immersion in their languages: to this end he has written a book, The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual (1998). Any of the modern Celtic languages can give you the key, he says; he himself knows all six.
But that is only the beginning of Alexei’s knowledge. Even if you didn’t know of his equally intense passion for Polynesian culture and language, you would hardly have been surprised at the Hawai’i Mythcon two years ago to find that he has a supreme erudition regarding the spiritual and mythological tradition of those islands. He has been a composer, who once embarked on an opera cycle based on Lewis’s Space Trilogy. He has a deep knowledge of modern fantasy, as shown in his book reviews and commentaries in Mythprint, Mythlore (where he had a review column for several years), and Butterbur’s Woodshed. Nobody can penetrate to the spiritual heart and lay out the lasting worth of a seemingly routine modern fantasy novel more clearly than he. He understands how the individual character of a language can affect its literature, and he can apply this principle to many tongues. He can, and will, wish you happy new year in fifteen languages. Name a culture, or even a fantasy author, and Alexei will tell you something you probably didn’t know.
In all his work, Alexei’s broad and deep reading, and his careful thought about what he has read, show through. Yet despite his awesome erudition, and his determined advocacy of positions, he never hectors or overwhelms his audience. He can stand in the middle of a Mythcon, silent and impassive as a Púkel-man, and then he will speak, quietly and without arrogance, giving just the fact needed to illuminate a conversation. He talks as clearly as he writes: when transcribing a Mythcon panel on which he appeared, I found I hardly needed to edit a word he spoke.
Within the Mythopoeic Society, and in other circles where he and his work are known, Alexei has won great respect for the depth of his scholarship, the breadth of his knowledge, and the profundity of his care and love for the literary and spiritual values of the literatures and cultures he knows. For these reasons we are proud to present him as Scholar Guest of Honor at Mythcon XXXIII.
**
Alexei Kondratiev died on Thursday night. Anthony Burdge reported the news on the MythSoc mailing list this morning. "They suspect a heart attack, but we are not sure at the moment."
Can I express what a lopping of a limb, what an excision of a major organ, this loss is to the body of lore, knowledge, understanding, and communication that is the Mythopoeic Society? No, I cannot. We have all lost a friend, a beacon of conversational joy, a mirror of understanding.
ETA a photo of Alexei (in the white t-shirt and hat) taken a week ago. Anthony Burdge is standing; Jessica Burke is at the left front; Kristine Larsen in the back, on Alexei's other side from Jessica; I don't know the others.
**
Alexei Kondratiev is The Man Who Knows. He knows languages, he knows mythology and traditional spirituality, and he knows fantasy literature as well as, or better than, anyone else in the Mythopoeic Society. He was born in France, on one side the grandson of a Russian émigré; on the other side of native French descent – he knows both languages, of course – and developed a passion for Celtic civilization early in life. There is a Celtic underlay everywhere in France, even in Burgundy where Alexei grew up, and his talent is for discerning and bringing out this underlay wherever it extends. He also got an early start on learning fantasy literature through his parents’ book collection, and has read as widely, in both new and old books, as anyone I know. Now he lives in New York, where he teaches and writes on Celtic languages, mythology, spirituality, music, and other aspects of their culture. His primary interest is in re-creating native Celtic cultural and spiritual traditions through immersion in their languages: to this end he has written a book, The Apple Branch: A Path to Celtic Ritual (1998). Any of the modern Celtic languages can give you the key, he says; he himself knows all six.
But that is only the beginning of Alexei’s knowledge. Even if you didn’t know of his equally intense passion for Polynesian culture and language, you would hardly have been surprised at the Hawai’i Mythcon two years ago to find that he has a supreme erudition regarding the spiritual and mythological tradition of those islands. He has been a composer, who once embarked on an opera cycle based on Lewis’s Space Trilogy. He has a deep knowledge of modern fantasy, as shown in his book reviews and commentaries in Mythprint, Mythlore (where he had a review column for several years), and Butterbur’s Woodshed. Nobody can penetrate to the spiritual heart and lay out the lasting worth of a seemingly routine modern fantasy novel more clearly than he. He understands how the individual character of a language can affect its literature, and he can apply this principle to many tongues. He can, and will, wish you happy new year in fifteen languages. Name a culture, or even a fantasy author, and Alexei will tell you something you probably didn’t know.
In all his work, Alexei’s broad and deep reading, and his careful thought about what he has read, show through. Yet despite his awesome erudition, and his determined advocacy of positions, he never hectors or overwhelms his audience. He can stand in the middle of a Mythcon, silent and impassive as a Púkel-man, and then he will speak, quietly and without arrogance, giving just the fact needed to illuminate a conversation. He talks as clearly as he writes: when transcribing a Mythcon panel on which he appeared, I found I hardly needed to edit a word he spoke.
Within the Mythopoeic Society, and in other circles where he and his work are known, Alexei has won great respect for the depth of his scholarship, the breadth of his knowledge, and the profundity of his care and love for the literary and spiritual values of the literatures and cultures he knows. For these reasons we are proud to present him as Scholar Guest of Honor at Mythcon XXXIII.
**
Alexei Kondratiev died on Thursday night. Anthony Burdge reported the news on the MythSoc mailing list this morning. "They suspect a heart attack, but we are not sure at the moment."
Can I express what a lopping of a limb, what an excision of a major organ, this loss is to the body of lore, knowledge, understanding, and communication that is the Mythopoeic Society? No, I cannot. We have all lost a friend, a beacon of conversational joy, a mirror of understanding.
ETA a photo of Alexei (in the white t-shirt and hat) taken a week ago. Anthony Burdge is standing; Jessica Burke is at the left front; Kristine Larsen in the back, on Alexei's other side from Jessica; I don't know the others.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-28 06:01 pm (UTC)But I am so very glad to have known him.