Slavic ( American English ) or Slavonic ( British English ) studies , also known as Slavistics , is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic peoples, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was primarily a linguist or philologist researching Slavistics. Increasingly, historians, social scientists, and other humanists who study Slavic cultures and societies have been included in this rubric.
8-507: In the United States, Slavic studies is dominated by Russian studies . Ewa Thompson , a professor of Slavic studies at Rice University , described the situation of non-Russian Slavic studies as "invisible and mute". Slavistics emerged in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, simultaneously with Romantic nationalism among various Slavic nations, and ideological attempts to establish a common sense of Slavic community, exemplified by
16-529: A reevaluation of its precepts in terms of decolonization . In the year 1897, During the last Emperor's reign of Russia, Czar Nikolai II implemented the public school system in Russia that had a population of 125 million people, but only around 26.5 million were literate in reading or writing. After his reign was over, Joseph Stalin took position of leader of the Soviet Union in the 1930s. He emphasized
24-620: Is an interdisciplinary field crossing politics , history , culture , economics , and languages of Russia and its neighborhood, often grouped under Soviet and Communist studies . Russian studies should not be confused with the study of the Russian literature or linguistics, which is often a distinct department within universities. In university, a Russian studies major includes many cultural classes teaching Russian politics, history, geography , linguistics, Russian language , literature, and arts. Mysticism and folklore are commonly studied,
32-560: The Pan-Slavist movement. Among the first scholars to use the term was Josef Dobrovský (1753–1829). The history of Slavic studies can be divided into three periods. Until 1876 the early Slavists concentrated on documentation and printing of monuments of Slavic languages, among them the first texts written in national languages. At this time the majority of Slavic languages received their first modern dictionaries, grammars, and compendia. The second period, ending with World War I, featured
40-463: The industrialization of reform and need for engineers and scientists, which have led to Russia now being in the top 5 countries to rank #1 in Physics regional research reputation. The reform of their education system came from being 21.2% literate to 99.69% in 2021. This article relating to education is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about Russian culture
48-507: The introduction of Christianity , rule under the tsars and expansion of Russian empire , later rule under communism, history of the Soviet Union , and its collapse and studies about present-day Russia. Russian studies rose in prominence during the Cold War, but experienced a decline after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Aggressive behavior by Russia, particularly its invasion of Ukraine , led to increased attention to Russian studies and
56-563: The rapid development of Slavic philology and linguistics, most notably outside of Slavic countries themselves, in the circles formed around August Schleicher (1821–1868) and around August Leskien (1840–1916) at the University of Leipzig . At this time, Slavonic scholars focused on dialectology . After World War II, centers of Slavic studies were created at various universities around the world, with much greater expansion into other humanities and social science disciplines. This development
64-632: Was partly due to political concerns in Western Europe and the North America arising from the Cold War. Slavic studies flourished in the years from World War II into the 1990s, though university enrollments in Slavic languages have declined since then. Following the traditional division of Slavs into three subgroups (eastern, southern, western), Slavic studies are divided into three distinct subfields: Russian studies Russian studies
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