Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center
REEEC at Illinois
The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center is home to a wide variety of programs for members of the university community and the general public designed to expand understanding of and promote knowledge about Russia, and the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. REEEC receives major support for programming and FLAS fellowships through the U.S. Department of Education through its Title VI program, for which REEEC serves as a designated National Resource Center.
Featured News
- In October 2024, the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center (REEEC) hosted three Ukrainian scholars as part of the BridgeUSA Ukrainian Academic Fellows Program (UAFP). Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and... Read full story Building Bridges: Ukrainian Scholars Visit University of Illinois
- REEEC at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is pleased to welcome two new Nonresidential Fellows from Ukraine to our campus community: Oleh Bahmet and Vladyslava Moskalets. These two scholars join our community in the Spring 2025 semester as part of the IU-Ukraine Nonresidential Scholar... Read full story REEEC Welcomes Two Nonresidential Fellows from Ukraine
- We're very pleased to announce that Dr. Markian Dobczansky will become the new Associate Director of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at Illinois, starting on November 18th. Dr. Dobczansky is an experienced researcher, teacher, and administrator who has broad intellectual interests... Read full story REEEC Welcomes New Associate Director, Dr. Markian Dobczansky
M.A. REEES/M.S. LIS Student Spotlight: Rachel Schmalz
Rachel Schmalz is a first-year student pursuing a dual M.A. in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies & M.S. in Library and Information Science. She is also a 2024-2025 REEEC FLAS fellow studying Russian. Rachel is from Central City, Colorado, and earned her B.A. from Hastings College in Nebraska, majoring in History and Political Science. She was awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Moldova in 2021-22 and lived in Comrat, Gagauzia. Before coming to Illinois, Rachel completed an M.A. in History at the University of Alberta in Canada. Her thesis...
More News
2024-11-14 - REEEC is pleased to welcome to our academic community Illinois Scholar at Risk Maxim Krupskiy. Maxim Krupskiy joined the Illinois Scholars at Risk Program in the fall of 2024. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy, and is a human rights defender and attorney-at-law with more than twelve years of experience practicing law in Russia. Throughout his work, he has worked with many Russian and international...
2024-11-05 - The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center and the Slavic Reference Service at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are accepting applications for our 2025 Summer Research Laboratory (SRL) program. The SRL is an in-person program that offers comprehensive research support, access to library resources and competitive Research Awards to...- 2024-09-09 - This fall, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign welcomes a distinguished cohort of Ukrainian scholars as part of the BridgeUSA Ukrainian Academic Fellows Program (UAFP), an exchange initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and...
RUSS 122: Russia and Black America
This course explores the Russian-sourced cultural transfers that influenced the Black American experience; and examines the impact of that experience on people and events in Russia. Who were the Black artists, activists, and adventurers who lived and worked there, and what did they discover? A New York bellhop becomes a millionaire in tsarist Moscow; a Ford Motor Company worker spends four decades as a captive of the Soviet regime; a child actor grows up to win fame as a cult poet; and a young female writer witnesses the decline of Soviet communism as she dodges and outwits the KGB All materials are in English. Same as CWL 122 / AFRO 122, fulfills the General Education requirement for US Minority Cultures.
UKR 498: Problems in Ukrainian Lit.
Critical survey of major works in Ukrainian literature from the beginnings to the modern period in light of their historical and cultural background; lectures and readings in English. This course focuses on major works in Ukrainian literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, emphasizing its multi-national and multi-cultural dimensions. Among the authors included in the readings are Lesia Ukrainka, Olha Kobylianska, Pavlo Tychyna, Mykola Khvyliovyi, Isaac Babel, Leib Kvitko, Iryna Vilde, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Yurii Andrukhovych, Oksana Zabuzhko, and Askold Melnychuk. The contemporary war literature of Ukraine is a major topic and includes works by Serhii Zhadan, Stanislav Aseyev, Halyna Kruk, and Marianna Kiyanovska. The main theoretical concepts of the course include modernism, socialist realism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, decolonization, identity, trauma, and resistance. All texts available in English.
SLAV 525: Problems in Slavic Literature - Slavic Folklore
Selected subjects in Russian and Slavic prose, poetry, drama, and literary criticism. Topics vary. Slavic Folklore - This course covers major genres of folk songs and prose connected to calendar and life rituals, folk beliefs, and entertainment in Slavic cultures, along with significant analytical and theoretical approaches to their study. Students will read folkloric texts in the original for Slavic languages they know and in translation for others.
REES 496: Contemporary Autocracy in Theory, Law and Practice
Contemporary Autocracy in Theory, Law, and Practice Based on case studies from Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia, this class explores contemporary legal, media, and political practices used by autocratic actors to assert their power. The course analyzes the impact of these practices on the rule of law, human rights and freedoms, sustainable development, and democracy in general, both in the region and globally. It provides a historical overview of the development of autocratic practices, an introduction to its scholarly analysis using concepts from law, philosophy, and politics, and an investigation of specific contemporary examples. The course will be delivered in a seminar format. There are no prerequisites, although familiarity with political context in the region is helpful. The featured image is a photograph of the installation "Figure #1. Stability" by Tima Radya, a Russian artist from Ekaterinburg, made in 2012. More information about the art installation can be found here: https://stability.t-radya.com/
RUSS 219: Soviet/Russian Film - Propaganda and Alterity
Survey of Russian and Soviet film, from Eisenstein to the present. Weekly film screenings. The course focuses on propaganda and cinematic representation of the Other (regarding race, class, and gender) in Soviet and Russian film tradition. You will analyze the mechanisms of propaganda and see how it works by depicting "good" and "evil" and how it changes with a new political agenda of the Soviet/Russian state. You will broaden your knowledge of the main historical events in Russia during the 20th and 21st centuries. During class discussions, you will compare the Western paradigms of propaganda and alterity to Soviet and post-Soviet. Upon completing the course, you will learn about prominent film directors and the major masterpieces of Soviet and post-Soviet cinema of the 20th century. During the course, we will analyze how the major historical events were represented on the screen and what message they delivered to the audience. No knowledge of Russian required. No class prerequisites.
IS 461: Russian, East European, and Eurasian Bibliography & Research Methods
With a focus on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia, students will investigate this fascinating part of the world, how it has been studied and represented by generations of scholars, scientists, writers, artists, government officials, and others, and how the many fruits of their labors are (or are not) accessible to us today. This course is intended to provide all necessary tools for the conduct of effective research in the field of Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies for both scholars and librarians. Relying on the rich bibliographic tradition of Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, the latest techniques, strategies, databases and full-text options will be explored and explained. Topics include national bibliography, archival materials, émigré publications, rare books, open-Web resources, citation management tools, and web archiving, with particular emphasis on the transliteration systems, abbreviations, bibliographic and cataloging conventions, and constant troubleshooting that are essential to efficient REEES research. Attention is also paid to information architecture in general and the ways that historical, political, intellectual and technological phenomena affect access to published and unpublished research materials.