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. 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".

History

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 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 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 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.

Subfields

Following the traditional division of Slavs into three subgroups (eastern, southern, western), Slavic studies are divided into three distinct subfields:

Slavic countries and areas of interest

Notable people

Journals and book series

Conferences

Institutes and schools

Organisations

Sources

Library guides