About

The Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies (formerly the Department of Slavic Languages) at the University of Texas at Austin provides a unique environment for study: it is a small department in a large state university. This environment combines the extensive resources of a research-oriented and multi-disciplinary university with a small community of people who come to know students personally and genuinely want them to do well.

Slavic courses were offered at UT beginning in 1915, when instruction in the Russian and Czech languages was offered for the first time. A program in Czech studies was initiated in that same year and continues to offer the only Bachelor of Arts degree in Czech in the country. A Bachelor's degree in Russian was added in 1958. The Department of Slavic Languages was formed in 1965 and authorized to grant the Master of Arts degree in 1967. Polish, Serbo-Croatian, and Old Church Slavic have since joined the regular language offerings; Belarusian, Bulgarian, and Ukrainian are sometimes available as well. The Department of Slavic Languages was authorized to grant the Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1990.

In 1988, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies was designated by the federal government as a National Resource Center for Soviet and East European Studies (today, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies) under Title VI of the Foreign Language Education Act. The National Resource Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies provides expanding opportunities for interdisciplinary area studies relating to a region undergoing historic changes which are both profound and dramatic.