Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

109 Cabell Hall
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400783
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4783
(434) 924-3548 Fax: (434) 982-2744
slavic@virginia.edu
www.virginia.edu/slavic

Programs of Study

The department offers programs of study in Slavic Languages and Literatures at the M.A. and Ph.D. levels, and a program in Contemporary Russian Studies at the M.A. level. The Slavic Languages and Literatures degree allows students to specialize in either Russian literature, Slavic folklore, or Slavic linguistics (phonology and morphology) while gaining a modicum of cross-discipline competence designed to prepare them for today’s job market. Students pursuing Contemporary Russian Studies take courses in history, government, language, literature, folklore, and sometimes other fields.

Degree Requirements

Master of Arts Required of all candidates for the degree are 30 semester credits of course work at the 500 level or above, the passing of a proficiency examination in Russian, and the passing of a comprehensive examination. Students choosing the Contemporary Russian Studies option write a thesis (on which their comprehensive examination will be based), while students choosing Slavic Languages and Literatures submit a major research paper or research portfolio in lieu of a thesis. Thesis courses are normally offered during the academic year only. Details about additional requirements can be found in section 2.1 of the Slavic Department Handbook, available at www.virginia.edu/slavic/faculty_handbook.html.

Doctor of Philosophy Candidates must receive formal permission from the department before undertaking a course of studies leading to the Ph.D. degree; those entering with an M.A. from another university must also pass a qualifying examination during the first semester. In addition to the general University requirements for the Ph.D. degree, candidates must complete no fewer than 60 credits of graduate level courses (or 30 beyond the M.A.); pass a proficiency examination in Russian; demonstrate a reading knowledge of either French or German; demonstrate a reading knowledge of a second Slavic language; pass a written and oral comprehensive examination before undertaking the dissertation; submit and defend a dissertation proposal; and complete a dissertation. Details about additional requirements are available in section 2.2 of the Slavic Department Handbook, available at www.virginia.edu/slavic/faculty_handbook.html.

Course Descriptions

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Prerequisites are noted for courses in language and linguistics. Prerequisites may vary from semester to semester and are therefore made known during course enrollment. Graduate standing is ordinarily prerequisite for courses at the 500 level and above.

Russian Language and Literature

RUSS 501 - (3) (Y)
Readings in the Social Sciences
Prerequisite: RUSS 302 and instructor permission.
Based on a careful analysis of the social science texts, students are introduced to advanced topics in Russian morphology and syntax. Successful completion of the course enables students to read nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian non-fiction with minimal difficulty.

RUSS 502 - (3) (IR)
Advanced Proficiency Russian
Prerequisite: RUSS 402.
Graduate-level translation, composition, and discussion. May be repeated for credit.

RUSS 503 - (3) (Y)
Advanced Russian
Prerequisite: RUSS 301, 302, and instructor permission; RUSS 401, 402 strongly recommended.
Graduate-level grammar and translation.

RUSS 504 - (3) (E)
Advanced Russian II
Prerequisite: RUSS 503 strongly recommended.
Development of advanced proficiency in the four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening.

RUSS 505 - (1) (S)
Advanced Conversation
Prerequisite: RUSS 302.
Two hours of conversation practice per week. May be repeated for credit.

RUSS 507, 508 - (3) (IR)
Problems and Methods of Teaching Russian
Prerequisite: RUSS 302 and instructor permission.
Recommended for all students who intend to teach, either at the secondary school or college level.

RUSS 509 - (3) (IR)
Russian for Reading Knowledge
Rapid, comprehensive introduction to the grammar of modern Russian necessary for reading texts in the original. Especially recommended for graduate students who need Russian for scholarly purposes.

RUSS 521 - (3) (O)
The Structure of Modern Russian: Phonology and Morphology
Prerequisite: RUSS 202, LNGS 325, and instructor permission.
Study of linguistic approaches to the phonology and morphology of standard Russian.

RUSS 522 - (3) (E)
The Structure of Modern Russian: Syntax and Semantics
Prerequisite: RUSS 202 and instructor permission; LNGS 325 strongly recommended.
Studies linguistic approaches to the syntax and semantics of contemporary standard Russian.

RUSS 523 - (3) (IR)
History of the Russian Literary Language
Prerequisite: RUSS 202 and instructor permission.
History of literary (standard) Russian from its formation to the present day. Includes problems of vocabulary, syntax, and stylistics.

RUSS 524 - (3) (IR)
History of the Russian Language
Prerequisite: RUSS 202, LNGS 325.
Diachronic linguistic analysis of the Russian language.

RUSS 550 - (3) (IR)
Russian Satire
Studies the theory and praxis of Russian literary satire. Examines several examples of Russian satire from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, while focusing on 20th-century works.

RUSS 551 - (3) (SI)
Russian Drama and Theatre
Studies works by authors from Fonvizin to Shvarts, emphasizing the major plays of Gogol, Chekhov, and Gorky. Includes production theories of Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, and other important Russian directors.

RUSS 552 - (3) (O)
The Rise of the Russian Novel, 1795-1850
Studies the development of the Russian novel in the first half of the 19th century. Focuses on the major contributions of Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev, and examines the social and literary forces that contributed to the evolution of the Russian novel.

RUSS 553 - (3) (IR)
The Golden Age of Russian Poetry
Studies works by Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Baratynsky, Batyushkov, Lermontov, and others.

RUSS 554 - (3) (E)
Age of Realism, 1851-1881
Studies the works of Russia’s most celebrated writers during the middle of the 19th century. Explores the many forms that "realism" assumed in Russia at this time, and investigates how Russian writers responded to the calls of their contemporary critics to use literature to promote socially progressive ends.

RUSS 555 - (3) (E)
The Silver Age of Russian Poetry
Studies the poetry of Blok, Akhmatova, Mandelshtam, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, and Mayakovsky. Includes symbolism, acmeism, and futurism.

RUSS 556 - (3) (E)
Russian Modernist Prose
Examines selected works by the leading writers of the early part of the 20th century. Explores the competing conceptions of literature that evolved in the 1920s until the establishment of Socialist Realism in the 1930s.

RUSS 557 - (3) (IR)
Russian Formalism and Structuralist Poetics
Studies the theory and practice of literary critics. Focuses on the Russian Formalists and the relationship of their theories to those of later critics in America (New Criticism) and the current European Structuralists.

RUSS 558 - (3) (O)
Contemporary Russian Literature
Studies the evolution of Russian literature from the "Thaw" period until the present. Examines how Russia’s writers tried to accommodate, evade, or challenge the prevailing norms of Soviet literature during the 1960s and 1970s. Analyzes the forces shaping the development of contemporary Russian literature.

RUSS 565 - (3) (SI)
Stylistics
Prerequisite: RUSS 302 and instructor permission.
Studies the styles of modern Russian prose–literary, journalistic, scientific, etc. Stylistic nuances in contemporary speech.

RUSS 573 - (3) (Y)
Dostoevsky
Reading of major long and short works with attention to important criticism.

RUSS 574 - (3) (O)
Tolstoy
Reading of major long and short works with attention to important criticism.

RUSS 575 - (3) (E)
Russian Poetry
Studies Russian poetics and selected poets from Pushkin to the present.

RUSS 585, 586 - (3) (SI)
Selected Topics in Comparative Literature
May be repeated for credit.

RUSS 591 - (3) (Y)
Selected Topics in Russian Literature
May be repeated for credit.

RUSS 701 - (3) (E)
Proseminar in Russian Literature
Required of all candidates for the M.A. degree.

RUSS 702 - (3) (SI)
The Theory and Practice of Criticism
Studies the major critical theories and their applicability in the Russian context.

RUSS 729 - (3) (SI)
Medieval and 18th-Century Russian
Close reading of texts from the Kievan period to end of the 18th century.

RUSS 730 - (3) (SI)
Russian Literature of the Eighteenth Century
Studies the development of literature in the post-Petrine period. Emphasizes the works of Lomonosov, Derzhavin, and Karamzin and the interaction between Russian cultural life and that of Western Europe.

RUSS 731 - (3) (SI)
Pushkin
Close reading and analysis of major works. Emphasizes the narrative poems and lyrics.

RUSS 732 - (3) (IR)
Gogol
Close reading and analysis of the major works.

RUSS 735 - (3) (IR)
Turgenev
Study of the major works.

RUSS 736 - (3) (SI)
Tolstoy
Study of the major works.

RUSS 738 - (3) (SI)
Chekhov
Study of the major works. Analysis of Chekhov’s art as a short story writer and playwright.

RUSS 773 - (3) (SI)
Graduate Seminar on Dostoevsky
Study of the major and minor works.

RUSS 785, 786 - (3) (IR)
The Russian and West European Novel: 1790-1880
Studies the formation and development of the great Russian realistic novel. Emphasizes internal processes and West European influences.

RUSS 791, 792 - (3) (SI)
Seminar in Russian Studies
Advanced work on selected topics. A recent topic was "utopian vision." May be repeated for credit.

RUSS 793 - (1-4) (Y)
Independent Study in Russian Literature
May be repeated for credit.

RUSS 821 - (3) (IR)
Advanced Structure of Russian: Phonology and Morphology
Prerequisite: LNGS 325 and instructor permission.

RUSS 822 - (3) (IR)
Advanced Structure of Russian: Syntax and Semantics
Prerequisite: LNGS 325 and instructor permission.

RUSS 895 - (3) (S)
Master’s Thesis
Research for and final preparation of M.A. thesis.

Other Slavic Languages and Literatures

SLAV 511 - (3) (O)
Slavic Folktale
Examines the history of Russian and Ukrainian tale collection, classification, publication and scholarship, related genres, and Russian and Soviet theories of the origin and function of the tale and the role of tales in socialization.

SLAV 512 - (3) (O)
Slavic Life Cycle Ritual
A survey of the major genres of Russian oral literature. The course will cover prose genres such as tales, legends, religious narratives. It will also cover those poetic genres not directly connected to ritual, such as epic, ballad, historical song, religious song and lyric. We will look at performers and performance. Major theories of folklore and oral literature, both Russian and Western, will also be examined.

SLAV 513 - (3) (E)
Slavic Heroic Epic
Examines the Slavic epic and related poetic forms, namely historical songs, ballads, religious songs, and beggars’ chants; prose narratives believed to be "true"; legends, fabulates and memorates; and performers, their social position, relationship to the church, and their learning and transmission techniques.

SLAV 514 - (3) (E)
Agrarian Ritual and Material Culture
Ritual is a cultural phenomenon, a people’s way of structuring their temporal universe, be it the calendar year or the life of a person. A study of ritual, therefore, is crucial to understanding Russian world view. A survey of the rites and rituals of the calendar year and of the human life cycle, this course will examine Russian rituals surrounding marriage, birth and death and the rites that are performed on holidays such as Christmas, New Years’, Easter, midsummer or Ivan Kupalo and the like. Students will study descriptions of the various rituals and get a sense of ritual variation. They will work with ritual song and other oral texts. They will learn basic ritual theory and apply it to Russian material.

SLAV 525 - (3) (IR)
Introduction to Slavic Linguistics
Prerequisite: RUSS 202, LNGS 325, and instructor permission.
Introduces the phonology, morphology, and grammatical structure of Russian and other Slavic languages.

SLAV 531 - (3) (IR)
Slavic Folklore in America
Includes the various genres of Slavic oral literature as found in North and South America. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

SLAV 533 - (3) (IR)
Topics in West Slavic Literatures
Topics include Polish, Czech, or Slovak fiction, poetry, or drama. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

SLAV 536 - (3) (E)
Slavic Mythology
Survey of Slavic pre-Christian and Christian beliefs and customs, emphasizing their role in folklore.

SLAV 537 - (3) (E)
South Slavic Folklore
Surveys South Slavic ethnography and folklore, emphasizing the Bulgarians and the Serbs.

SLAV 543 - (3) (IR)
Topics in South Slavic Literatures
Includes Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Bulgarian, or Macedonian fiction, poetry, or drama. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

SLAV 555 - (3) (IR)
Topics in Ukrainian Literature
Includes Ukrainian fiction, poetry, or drama. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

SLAV 592 - (3) (IR)
Selected Topics in Slavic Linguistics
Prerequisite: LNGS 325 and instructor permission. May be repeated for credit.

SLAV 710 - (3) (IR)
Topics in Slavic Civilization
Includes specialized aspects of Slavic culture and society. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

SLAV 711 - (3) (IR)
Balkan Studies
Studies Balkan languages and literatures other than Slavic, emphasizing linguistic and literary ties with the South Slavs. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

SLAV 742 - (3) (IR)
Common Slavic
Prerequisite: LNGS 325 and instructor permission.
Studies the historical phonology and morphology of Common Slavic.

SLAV 743, 744 - (3) (O)
Old Church Slavonic
Prerequisite: RUSS 102 and instructor permission.
Studies the history and structure of Old Church Slavonic. Reading of selected texts.

SLAV 793 - (3) (IR)
Independent Study in Slavic Linguistics
Prerequisite: LNGS 325, RUSS 302, and instructor permission. May be repeated for credit.

SLAV 851 - (3) (IR)
History and Structure of the East Slavic Languages
Prerequisite: LNGS 325 and instructor permission.
The diachrony, dialectology, and synchrony.

SLAV 853 - (3) (IR)
History and Structure of the South Slavic Languages
Prerequisite: LNGS 325 and instructor permission.
The diachrony, dialectology, and synchrony.

SLAV 854 - (3) (IR)
History and Structure of the West Slavic Languages
Prerequisite: LNGS 325 and instructor permission.
The diachrony, dialectology, and synchrony.

SLAV 861, 862 - (3) (IR)
Seminar in Slavic Linguistics
Prerequisite: Instructor permission.

SLAV 897 - (3-12) (S)
Non-Topical Research, Preparation for Research
For master’s research, taken before a thesis director has been selected.

SLAV 898 - (3-12) (S)
Non-Topical Research
For master’s thesis, taken under the supervision of a thesis director.

SLAV 997 - (3-12) (S)
Non-Topical Research, Preparation for Doctoral Research
For doctoral research, taken before a dissertation director has been selected.

SLAV 999 - (3-12) (S)
Non-Topical Research
For doctoral dissertation, taken under the supervision of a dissertation director.