Volume 124 Issue 39
Monday, October 17, 2011
kansan.com
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN
Jason Phoenix explains different gestures for responses during the demonstrations held by protestors participating in Occupy Lawrence. The local movement has expressed solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. The group is working toward promoting change in local government ordinances.
The "Russian Jayhawk," as the small carving has come to be known, was a gift of gratitude from an unknown Russian prisoner of war to Conrad Hoffman, a Kansas alumnus working with the YMCA in Germany during World War I.
It's a symbol of the long-standing connection between the University and its students doing good in Russian and Eastern Europe, said Marc Greenberg, chairman of the Slavic department.
Kansas, making his home first in Stauffer-Flint Hall — where he sat, forgotten, until 2009 — and then in the University Archives.
"I want the carving to help draw attention to the things
On Wednesday evening, he made another journey, this time to the offices of the department of Slavic languages and literatures in Wescoe Hall, where he'll live for one year in a glass display case.
The YMCA post was "an important non-governmental service performing a moral and social function during the First World War," Greenberg wrote in his article "Hoffman's Hawk."
According to the article, the YMCA worked in prisoner-of-war camps in Germany, providing education and coordinating social and athletic activities for the prisoners. The YMCA also helped prisoners develop trades and hobbies by giving them tools and arranging exhibitions and sales of their artwork.
Hoffman went to Germany in 1915, and it was common for him to receive presents, said the article, from the thankful prisoners who he worked with.
In 1913, Conrad Hoffman became the secretary of the YMCA at the University, leaving his position as a professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin.
According to a pencil inscription on his side, the Russian Jayhawk was given to Hoffman in 1917. He was probably carved by either
A gift of grammars
SEE JAYHAWK PAGE 3
CLASSIFIEDS 7B
CROSSWORD 4A
Index
CRYPTOQUIPS 4A
OPINION 5A
SPORTS 1B
SUDOKU 4A
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2011 The University Daily Kansan
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