Boris Gorelik

Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Southern African Studies, Candidate of Sciences

Research interests:
• South Africa in the Russian historical consciousness
• History of cross-cultural encounters and interactions between Russia and South Africa
• Modern and contemporary history of South Africa
• History of Russophone communities in South Africa.

Selected works:

Articles:

• Cross-dresser as a bogey: on the gender ambiguity of Antjie Somers in Afrikaans folklore // South African Journal of Cultural History. 2021. Vol. 35. No. 1. P. 1–19 (ISSN: 1018-0745).
• Old friends and partners: Allan Bowe as an associate of Carl Fabergé // Jewellery Studies: The Journal of the Society of Jewellery Historians. 2021. No. 2. P. 4–11 (ISSN: 2754-1460).
• Gorelik B, Schutte G. J. Dutch trade and patronage networks as facilitators of transcontinental mobility in early modern Russia and the VOC Cape // Historia. 2021. № 1 (66). P. 39–60 (ISSN 0018-229X) (DOI: 10.17159/2309-8392/2021/v66n1a2).
• ‘Siyahamba’: the origins and significance of a South African chorus // Muziki: Journal of Music Research in Africa. 2020. Vol. 17. No 2. P. 3–17. (DOI: 10.1080/18125980.2021.1927806)
• ‘Russian-speaking Jews: an unfulfilled hope of South African Jewish communities’ (Russkoyazychnye yevrei: nesbyvshayasya nadezhda yevreyskih obshtshin YuAR), Yezhegodnik EAEK. Yevrei Yevropy i Azii: sostoyaniye, naslediye i perspektivy, vol 2 (2019–2020/5780), Herzliya, Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies; International Centre for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2020, pp 129–142. (ISBN 978-965-92845-4-2).
• ‘Valery Bryusov’s “unnamed” muse: A South African epilogue’ (‘Nenazvannaya’ muza Valeriya Bryusova. Yuzhnoafrikanskiy epilog), Literary Fact, 2021, vol 17, no 3, pp 281–291. (DOI: 10.22455/2541-8297-2020-17-281-291).
• Glyantsev, S. P.; Gorelik, B. M.; Werner A. ‘V. P. Demikhov and C. N. Barnard: points of connection’ (V. P. Demikhov i C. N. Barnard: tochki soprikosnoveniya), Transplantologiya. The Russian Journal of Transplantation, 2020, vol 12, no 4, pp 332–352. (DOI: 10.23873/2074-0506-2020-12-3-332-352).
• ‘On the emergence of Russian-South African business links. Allan Bowe, Faberge’s business partner’ (K voprosu o vozniknovenii rossiysko-yuzhnoafrikanskih delovyh svyazey. Allan Bowe, kompanyon Faberge), Journal of the Institute for African Studies, 2020, vol 53, no 4, pp 129–141. (DOI: 10.31132/2412-5717-2020-53-4-129-141).
• ‘An African memoir of Leo Tolstoy: N. L. Krasnokutsky’s account’ (Afrikanskiye zapiski o L. N. Tolstom. Vospominaniya N. L. Krasnokutskogo), Materialy nauchnykh sessiy 2019 goda v Gosudarstvennom muzeye L. N. Tolstogo, Moscow, National Leo Tolstoy Museum, 2020, pp 330-342 (ISBN 978-5-9988-1249-1).
• Van Wyk, B.-E.; Gorelik, B, ‘The history and ethnobotany of Cape herbal teas’, South African Journal of Botany, 2017, vol 110, May (DOI: 10.1016/j.sajb.2016.11.011).
• ‘A Russian prince in a Boer Republic: a memoir of Bloemfontein by Grigory Volkonsky’, Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa, 2016, vol 70, no 1 (ISSN: 1562-9392).
• ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy: Sorry, but it’s still funny’, Journal of African Cinemas, 2015, vol 7, no 1 (DOI: 10.1386/jac.7.1.51_5).
• ‘Fjodor Evgenjeviìc (Theodore Konovaloff)’, in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol 5, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2012 (ISBN 9783447067409).
• ‘The Cullinan Diamond and its true story’, Jewellery Studies: The Journal of the Society of Jewellery Historians, 2015, vol 23, pp 3–11 (ISSN: 2042-8529).
• ‘Between the Negus and the Duce: The Colonel Konovaloff memoir of the Italo-Ethiopian War’ (Mezhdu negusom i duche. Vospominaniya polkovnika Konovalova ob italo-efiopskoy voyne), Afrikantsy i rossiyane na perekryostkah istorii: k 100-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya d. i. n. Sergeya Rufovicha Smirnova, Moscow, Institute for African Studies, 2010 (ISBN 9785912980657).
• 'On the dark side of the Earth: Russian women in South Africa’ (Na tyomnoy storone Zemli. Rossiyskiye zhenshtshiny v Yuzhnoy Afrike), in Krylova, N L; Xenofontova, N A (eds), Afrika. Gendernoye izmereniye, Genderniye Issledovaniya, vol 12, Moscow, Institute for African Studies, 2010 (ISBN 9785912980718).
• ‘The Russian diaspora in South Africa: Assimilation or adaptation?’ (Russkaya diaspora Yuzhnoy Afriki. Assimilyatsiya ili adaptatsiya?), Asia and Afrika Today, 2004, no 5 (ISSN: 03215075).
• ‘Russian Jews in South Africa in the 1870s-1990s’ (Rosskiyskiye yevreyi v Yuzhnoy Afrike v 1870—1990-ye gg.), in Parkhomovsky, M (ed.), Russkoye yevreystvo v zarubezhye. Statyi, publikatsii, memuary, esse. vol 5 (10), Jerusalem, Russkoye Yevreystvo v Zarubezhye, 2003 (ISBN 9652229113).

Books:

• Rooibos: an ethnographic perspective. A study of the origins and nature of the traditional knowledge associated with the Aspalathus linearis. Cape Town: South African Rooibos Council, 2017.
• Avgustus Y. A Russian Fighting for the Boer Cause. Edited, translated and introduced by Boris Gorelik. Johannesburg: South African Military History Society, 2016 (ISBN 9780620702539)
• ‘An Entirely Different World’: Russian Visitors to the Cape, 1797‒1870. Edited by Boris Gorelik. Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 2015. (ISBN 9780981426464)
• Grinker D. Inside Soweto: Memoir of an Official 1960s-80s. Edited and introduced by Boris Gorelik. Johannesburg: Eastern Enterprises, 2014. (ISBN 9781291865998)
• A Lost Tribe: Russian-Speaking Jews in South Africa Today. Occasional Paper Series. No. 8. Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research, University of Cape Town, 2010. (ISBN 9780799224689)
• The Past and Current Russian Immigration to South Africa (Rossiyskaya immigratsiya v Yuzhnuyu Afriku: vchera i segodnya), Moscow, Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2007 (ISBN 978-5-91298-013-8).