Rethinking Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies in the West

State Pedagogical University in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation Photo: Leonid Andronov/Shutterstock

But then half a year into her studies, Russia invaded Ukraine and her programme severed its ties with its Russian partners. Teresa decided to instead spend her second year of studies in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where she also found a new thesis supervisor from the local partner university.

Meanwhile, in February 2022, Philipp Zimmermann was about to take up an internship at the Ukrainian parliament. In fact, he had already arrived in Ukraine, which he had visited many times before, but was advised to leave the country on the same day. Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine it became clear that he would not be able to take up the planned internship. He spent the next couple of weeks in a frenzy searching for another opportunity and was finally accepted for an internship in Georgia.

Looking beyond Russia

Teresa and Philipp’s stories are not rare given the recent turmoil facing Russian, East European and Eurasian area studies faculties. The war in Ukraine has led to the cancelling of funds for collaboration with Russian universities and cut short projects that required travel either to Russia or Ukraine. Several programme directors at universities based in the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States contacted for this article have also noted that many of their students felt they had to re-shape their research projects, master’s theses and even PhD proposals after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This led them to choose a different geographical area or methods, even if their thesis was not directly impacted by the conflict.

Geographical, financial and moral limitations caused by the war have undoubtedly brought new perspectives to the table and started shaping the discourse in academic research. “The whole area studies field has changed and I think it has to be that way,” says Sari Autio-Sarasmo, the director of the master’s programme in Russian, Eurasian and Eastern European Studies (a brand new, restructured version of an earlier master’s programme in Russian Studies) at the University of Helsinki.

For Teresa and Philipp, the radical change that cut through their academic studies has taken a somewhat positive turn. Teresa received a lot of support from her new supervisor in Kazakhstan to keep the topic for her thesis which, she now realises, might be more difficult to explore freely in Russia.

“Kind of ironically, it is a bit easier to talk about post-colonialism here in Kazakhstan than it would have been in Russia. This is not a popular topic in Russia for a lot of, unfortunately, obvious reasons,” she says, noting that influential Russian academics who look at Russia through a post-colonial lens are not in Russia either. When she talks about concepts such as post-colonialism in Kazakhstan, she sees that people are open to discuss them because of the living memory of colonisation.

“They’ve been on the receiving end of it, as opposed to Russia, which a lot of Russian people don’t want to see. They may admit to having an imperial legacy, but they don’t want to see it as a bad thing,” she notes.

Philipp, who is now doing his master’s in East European Studies at the Free University of Berlin, is planning to do a semester abroad in Kyrgyzstan, as he wants to explore topics such as nation-building and collective memory, topics that he has become more interested in since the invasion.

“Those who didn’t care that much about Ukraine or Eastern Europe before, became very interested in the region when the war started, but for me it was the opposite since I couldn’t go to Ukraine anymore or relate to my friends affected by the war, who were going through very difficult things,” he admits. “I had to redefine my interest in the region, become more flexible and uncover new areas.”

He first focused on the South Caucasus but eventually his interests shifted even more eastwards, towards Central Asia. “When I started studying in Berlin, I learned how the invasion in Ukraine has triggered some shifts in Central Asia and the way they think about their Soviet past, and this is why I have become very interested in how the war in Ukraine related to the societies of Central Asia,” he explains.

 “There are so many people who are interested in Central Asia and it’s only growing, which is really nice to see,” Teresa notes. “A lot of Kazakh academics are fostering academic relationships with western universities on western research projects. There is a sense like it’s building to something.”

It seems that Central Asia has certainly been receiving more attention in the last year than ever before, yet it is Ukraine that has truly been thrown into the spotlight, even if sometimes only to discuss security concerns. Western universities have been intensifying their ties with Ukrainian universities by inviting lecturers and incorporating their classes into curricula. This is also achieved through teleconferencing for the scholars that remain in Ukraine. The University of Tartu, for instance, is even planning to set up a Ukraine Centre to support joint research with Ukrainian scholars and academic institutions.

“To help Ukraine rebuild the country after the war, more must be done,” says Maili Vilson, the deputy head of academic affairs at the University of Tartu’s Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies.

The language question

Russian has often been the only language offered in programmes addressing the region and while the invasion encouraged several university departments to expand their language offerings, it is still too early to measure how the war will impact interest in learning Russian and other regional languages in the long term.

“There was a clear “knee-jerk” reaction last year as many decided not to study Russian, in protest or a degree of peer pressure perhaps,” says Renee Stillings, director of SRAS, the US-based consultancy that offers advice on studying in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. This has been the case especially in small liberal arts colleges, where students are experiencing more moral pressure. This is less so in programmes designed for aspiring US military officers, where there has been an increased interest in the language for defence purposes.

Does this mean that there is more interest in Ukrainian, or other languages spoken in the region? Kind of. “There is an uptick, especially in Ukrainian,” Stillings says on the language picture in the US. Regardless of the percentage change, it is no secret that other language classes relevant to the region are still not reaching the same popularity as those for Russian. This is despite a push since the invasion to launch more Ukrainian classes. Sometimes launching a new course might take more time than expected, as is the case for the Ukrainian classes at Philipp’s programme in Berlin. These remain “in the works” nearly a year and a half after the invasion, with the only “alternative” being certain recommended online resources. But even more established courses on regional languages are not (yet) experiencing a higher inflow of students. According to Oxford’s Nicolette Makovicky, this extends to her own department’s Georgian programme.

In any case, Stillings says that it is difficult to predict how sustainable these new language trends could be. It might happen that if the war disappears from the front pages, then students will rethink what language would be more “useful” to learn in terms of the number of speakers or most published scientific publications, leaving Ukrainian (and other languages) in the shadows again. Or, as a recent survey from SRAS on enrolment in Russian-language classes in the US puts it: “It is unlikely that a significant percentage of those students who elected to not take Russian this year did so in order to take Ukrainian.”

Strong Russian skills can open doors for jobs in the US federal government, risk analysis firms, or even NGOs, notes Kathleen E. Smith, the associate director at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies. This is why, even when students visit countries such as Armenia, Kyrgyzstan or Latvia, they do so more often to practice Russian than local languages.

Long-term changes

Russian might still be prevalent in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, but can we sense any potential long-term changes in research interests that go beyond the language question? My interviewees kept talking about Russia’s “near abroad” or “peripheries”. Should these Russo-centric expressions be considered a slip of the tongue, or a bad habit that has to be addressed even more by higher education institutions that are now finally stepping out of Russia’s shadow?

When discussing new research interests surrounding Russia among academia, it seems the closer you get to countries that share a centuries-long history with Russia, such as Finland or Estonia, the more awareness exists of other countries in the region. This also extends to the presence of different narratives, which also reflect a more nuanced understanding of the region that avoids expressions such as “post-Soviet space”.

“Being located next to Russia, owing to a long and complex historical experience and relationship with Russia, we in Estonia are well aware of the much more diverse perspectives on Russia, as well as those in other countries of the region,” Vilson notes. Yet many of the contacted universities still consider security issues, Russia’s state ideology and propaganda, and Russia’s relations with China as the main topics of interest among their staff and students. This is not, as controversially as it might sound, a necessarily bad thing. We cannot go beyond the fact that Russia has been an imperial power for centuries. You have to know it well to know how it affected its neighbours and colonies.

In the first year of her studies in Glasgow, Scotland, Teresa could not choose a single course on Russia, which she found a bit surprising, given that her master’s theoretically covers the whole vast region of Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia. She notes that even if there is the desire to refocus our academic research onto other countries, the “basics” about Russia, the common history – and even more importantly, the historiography – are needed and cannot be denied if we are to pursue quality research.

“You need to discuss how Russia has changed its discussion of history, how Stalin had an impact on how you discuss this. Just even this concept of the discussion of history has a history,” she argues. Despite all the turmoil brought into academia by the invasion, Russia remains Teresa’s main point of interest. “Even though I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about Central Asian politics, people and my experience living here, it has only further reinforced that I want to specialise academically in Russia,” she admits.

Her nuanced outlook discussing such a sensitive topic reflects a new trend among younger generations aspiring to join the academic debate on Russia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia. This trend brings hope for sustainable change in the future for academia.

“Students have become more critical towards Russia and the information presented in the courses. They are very sensitive, why are we discussing certain topics in a certain way,” Autio-Sarasmo notes. She also argues that lecturers have to think even more thoroughly about how they present materials in their classes, and have to be able to defend their approach in front of the students. This is a good thing in times when narratives related to Russia, and especially colonialism, have to be redefined.

Veronica Snoj is a Slovenian-Argentinian journalist and a Russian Studies graduate.

decolonization, Languages, Russia, Russia's war against Ukraine, Russian studies, Ukraine