Prof. Stephen J. Parker, the main donor of funds, standing in front of some of the freshly completed, beautiful custom built bookcases and shelving, cabinets and desks in quarter-sawn oak and a light cherry stain which comprise the Department’s new library.
Prof. Jadwiga Maurer enjoys the new Parker Library on its dedication day, 7 April 2006
After many years of planning and fund raising, the Stephen J. and Fan Parker Slavic Library has been completed. The library houses a superb collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian literature and literary criticism donated by Stephen Parker’s mother, Professor Fan Parker. The library also houses the Joseph L. Conrad Memorial Collection, a focused selection of works on Chekhov, Turgenev, and Slavic folklore. The library has been realized through the generosity of many persons and continues to develop with assistance from alumni, friends, and faculty who have donated funds and materials.
Born in Riga, Latvia, Fan Parker came to the US while still in her teens. She received her BA from New York University and a Master of Arts in Germanic literatures. After earning a doctorate in Slavic Studies from Columbia University in 1945 she went on to found, develop, and chair the Russian Department at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York, for nearly four decades. She taught an array of courses in Russian language and 19th and 20th century Russian literature, and published writings, among others, in regard to Dostoevsky, Garshin, Soviet literature, the Russian artist Ilya Repin, childrens' literature, and Alice in Wonderland.
