Ella Lury Wiswell

Wiswell Scholarship

Born in the Russian Far East town of Nikolaevsk-na-Amure Ella Lury Wiswell was the founder of the Russian language/literature program at UHM. Established in 2004 the purpose of the Frederick J. and Ella Lury Wiswell Scholarship is to encourage the study of Russian language by providing scholarships and/or tuition waivers to full-time UHM students, and to provide travel grants to study in Russia.

For more information contact Dr. Anastasia Kostetskaya, Russian Division, European Languages, Moore Hall 457, ph. (808) 956-9536

Educational Background

• 1931 Received diploma from the École des Professeurs de Français à l’Étranger
• 1929-1931 Attended Sorbonne University
• 1927-1929 Attended University of California, Berkeley
• 1926 Graduated from the Canadian Academy, Kobe, Japan

Professional Experience

• Anthropological field work in Suye Mura, Japan, with John Embree, 1935-1936
• Study in Acculturation among Japanese in Kona, Hawaii, with John Embree, 1937-1938
• Taught night courses in Russian at the University of Hawaii, 1938
• Research Analyst on Japan, Board of Economic Warfare, Washington, D.C., 1942-1944
• Japanese broadcast checker, U.S. Office of War Information, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1945-1947
• Editorial Assistant in preparing Planning Micronesian Future, (Cambridge University Press, 1951) U.S. Commercial Company, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1945-1947
• Associate Professor of Russian Language and Literature, University of Hawaii, 1951-1968

Selected Publications

• The Destruction of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, 1920. Translated from Russian, Gibel’ Nikolaevska-na-Amure by A. Ya. Gutmann (Anatoly Gan). Edited by Richard Pierce (The Limestone Press, 1993), xxxiii, 395 p.
• The Women of Suye Mura with Robert J. Smith. (The University of Chicago Press, 1982), xxxvii, 293 p.
• Around the World on the Kamchatka 1817-1819 by V. M. Golovnin. Translated from Russian (The Hawaiian Historical Society and the University of Hawaii Press, 1979), xxxix, 353 p.
• Hawaii in 1819: A Narrative Account by Louis Claude de Freycinet chapters 27 & 28 translated from French Pacific Anthropological Record, No. 26. , Marion Kelly, editor. (Bernice P. Bihop Museum, 1978), xii, 136 p.
• “A Russian Traveler’s Impressions of Hawaii and Tahiti” Chapter 7 translated from Russian of A. V. Vysheslavtsev Ocherki perom i karandashom iz krugosvetnogo plavaniia v godakh 1857, 1858, 1859 i 1860 in The Hawaiian Journal of History XVII, 1983, p.76-142.
• Japanese Peasant Songs. Compiled and annotated by John Embree, with the assistance of Ella Embree and Yukuo Uehara. (Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1944), ix, 96p. Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, v. 38.