Slavic and Eurasian Studies

Overview

The Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies offers instruction in Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Yakut (Sakha). 

Language minors are available in Russian language, Czech language, Polish language, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, and other Slavic languages. 

Scholarships and study abroad opportunities are available.

Watch this video to meet the instructors and see what courses and funding opportunities are offered by the department.

Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian

These are mutually-intelligible national variants of the Serbo-Croatian language, and have approximately 21 million native speakers. As Croatian, it is an official language of the European Union, and is a recognized minority language in Austria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Macedonia. 

Bulgarian

Bulgarian has approximately 9 million native speakers, primarily in Bulgaria. It is the official language of Bulgaria and an official language of the European Union, as well as being a recognized minority language in several surrounding countries. 

Czech

Spoken by over 10 million people, Czech is the official language of the Czech Republic and an official language of the European Union. The language has high mutual intelligibility with Slovak. Large numbers of immigrants to several states have meant that dialects of the language continue to be spoken in the US, including in Texas.

Polish

Spoken by 45 million native speakers and a further 5 million second-language speakers, primarily in Poland but also in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Solvakia, Ukraine, and across the world, Polish is an official language of the European Union. Polish has the largest number of speakers of the West Slavic group, and is the second most widely-spoken Slavic language, after Russian. Historically, Polis was a major diplomatic and academic language.

Romanian

Romanian is a Balkan Romance language spoken by around 25 million native speakers, mainly in Romania and Moldova. It is an official language of the European Union, and a recognized minority language in Hungary and Ukraine. 

Russian

Russian is an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and is used throughout Eastern Europe, the Baltic, and Central Asia. It has approximately 150 million native speakers - making it the largest native language in Europe - and a further 110 million second-language speakers. It is an official language of the United Nations, the second most widespread language on the internet (after English), and a notable literary language.

Ukrainian

Ukrainian is an official language of Ukraine with approximately 35 million native speakers, and is a recognized minority language in several neighboring countries. The language has some mutual intelligibility with Russian and Belarusian.

Yakut (Sakha)

Yakut is a Turkik language with around 450,000 native speakers, and is spoken by the Yakuts in Sakha, a federal republic in the Russian Federation. It is also spoken by a small diaspora in other parts of Russia, Turkey, and the rest of the world.

Study Abroad

Language program:

• SRAS programs across Russia, in Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia

No language required:

• Maymester in Poland: Spring/Summer (Security and Society in Central Europe)
• SRAS programs across Russia, in Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia.
• Jagiellonian University in Krakow
• Student Internships at Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw

Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships

The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies is also an awarding center for FLAS fellowships to support language study. Here, Matthew Rabatin, Senior Program and Outreach Coordinator for the Center for European Studies, talks through the opportunities and requirements of FLAS in the context of European Studies.

Department Scholarships

• CREEES Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Scholarships
• Professional Development Funding — for professional development activities or research related to the CREEES region
• Polish Studies Endowment Scholarship — for research, study or professional development in Poland
• Czech Studies Summer Scholarship — for research, study or professional development in the Czech Republic
• McWilliams Scholarship for Russian Studies — for research, study or professional development in Russia/the former Soviet Union
• ASEEES Graduate Student Essay Competition — for continuing CREEES M.A. graduate students

Course Offerings for Summer 2023

Russian 

RUS f406 FIRST-YEAR RUSSIAN I-WB (First session)
Emphasis on four-skills proficiency: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. 
Only one of the following may be counted: Russian 601C, 406, 506.
Additional hour(s) to be arranged. Taught online with established deadlines. Online activities and exams may be scheduled. Go to http://laits.utexas.edu/tower/online/courses/ for additional information and to test your computer and internet connectivity.

RUS s407 FIRST-YEAR RUSSIAN II-WB (Second session)
Emphasis on four-skills proficiency: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.
Only one of the following may be counted: Russian 601C, 407, 507.
Prerequisite: Russian 406 or 506.
Additional hour(s) to be arranged. Taught online with established deadlines. Online activities and exams may be scheduled. Go to http://laits.utexas.edu/tower/online/courses/ for additional information and to test your computer and internet connectivity.

Interested in learning more? Why not try the BBC's "Quick Fix" in Bosnian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Russian, Serbian, or Ukranian.