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| American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies | |
|---|---|
| Name | American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies |
| Formation | 1938 |
| Type | Learned society |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Region | United States |
| Language | English |
| Leader title | President |
American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies is a scholarly society founded in 1938 to support research and teaching on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia, with emphasis on languages, literatures, histories, and cultures such as Russian literature, Polish literature, and Byelorussian language. The association has linked scholars from institutions including Harvard University, Columbia University, University of Chicago, Stanford University, and Yale University and has engaged with policy-oriented organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Its activities intersected with major events like the World War II, the Cold War, the Fall of the Soviet Union, and the Ukrainian independence movement.
The association was established amid debates involving figures associated with Russian Revolution, émigré communities from Bolshevik Revolution and institutions such as the New School for Social Research, the Institute of Pacific Relations, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Early leadership included scholars with ties to Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Berkeley, and it organized conferences that connected research on Soviet Union, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Balkan Peninsula affairs. During the Cold War, members engaged with policy debates involving the Central Intelligence Agency, the State Department, and the National Security Council, while publishing scholarship on events like the Prague Spring, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, and the Berlin Blockade. After the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, the association expanded programs for research on newly independent states such as Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and collaborated with foundations like the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.
The association traditionally operated with elected officers including a President, Treasurer, and Council drawn from faculty at universities such as Princeton University, Brown University, University of Michigan, University of California, Los Angeles, and Indiana University Bloomington. Its governance model paralleled learned societies like the Modern Language Association and the American Historical Association, and it maintained committees on areas such as language instruction linked to programs at School of Slavonic and East European Studies, archival initiatives with the Library of Congress, and area studies coordination with the National Endowment for the Humanities. The association interfaced with accreditation and grant-making bodies including the National Science Foundation and university presses such as the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press.
Membership included professors from Dartmouth College, graduate students at Columbia University, independent researchers, librarians from the New York Public Library, and specialists affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution and the Brookings Institution. Activities encompassed language pedagogy workshops for Russian language, seminars on Polish history, collaborative projects with the Ukrainian Studies Center and the Harriman Institute, archival access programs with the Hoover Institution, and public outreach in partnership with museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The association hosted reading groups on authors like Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Adam Mickiewicz, Milan Kundera, and Ivan Turgenev, and sponsored area studies curricula initiatives modeled after programs at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University.
The association produced newsletters and journals analogous to publications from the American Historical Review and Slavic Review, partnering with university presses including University of California Press and Indiana University Press. It published bibliographies and monographs on subjects such as Byelorussian literature, Czech literature, Serbian literature, and translations of works by Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Gogol, Bohumil Hrabal, and Vladislav Khodasevich. The association's editorial practices were informed by standards used by the Modern Language Association and the American Council of Learned Societies and drew contributions from scholars affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, the Russian State Library, and the Slavonic and East European Review.
Its annual conventions brought together presenters from institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Michigan State University, often addressing topics linked to events like Perestroika, Glasnost, the Yugoslav Wars, and NATO enlargement. Panels featured historians of the Muscovite period, literary critics of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, anthropologists studying the Caucasus, and political scientists analyzing the Commonwealth of Independent States. The association collaborated with international partners including University of Warsaw, Charles University, Moscow State University, Jagiellonian University, and the University of Belgrade for regional workshops and summer institutes.
The association administered prizes and fellowships similar to awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, honoring scholarship on figures like Alexander Pushkin, Pavel Florensky, Stanislaw Lem, and Václav Havel, and funding early-career research modeled after grants from the Fulbright Program and the Guggenheim Fellowship. It supported dissertation awards, language study fellowships linked to programs at the American Councils for International Education, and travel grants for archival research at institutions like the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art and the State Archives of Poland.
The association influenced curricula at universities such as University of Oxford and University of Cambridge through area studies advocacy, informed policy analysis used by U.S. Congress committees, and facilitated access to archives relevant to studies of the Soviet Union and post-Soviet transitions in Georgia (country), Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Criticisms involved charges of politicization during the Cold War comparable to debates about the Smith Act era, concerns about representation of émigré versus in-country scholars, debates over language preservation for communities like the Tatars and Karaim people, and discussions about funding priorities relative to foundations such as the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Category:Learned societies of the United States Category:Slavic studies