Explore Russian language and Slavic culture at Temple University’s College of Liberal Arts.

The College of Liberal Arts offers undergraduate Slavic and Russian coursework to foster a better understanding of the Russian language and Slavic culture, society and business. Our small class sizes and dedicated faculty equip students with deep knowledge and strong language skills. Studies in Slavic help students achieve their learning goals, whether they want to go on to use Russian to communicate with Russian friends, to engage in business with Russian partners, to work in government or in the media or to study Russian culture. Courses offered include Russian Language, Russian for Business and Russian Culture.

Students interested in studying Russian can expect to take courses in Intermediate and Advanced Russian, Conversation and Composition, Writing with Russian Sources, Russian Culture and Service Learning. Students may choose to further their study of Russian language, culture and society by taking elective courses in Russian. Please see the Russian Courses page in the College of Liberal Arts Undergraduate bulletin for a full list of Russian course offerings.

Learn About One of the World’s Most Fascinating Cultures

Russia is the place that gave birth and room for flights of imagination for some of the world’s most prominent writers, artists, musicians, directors of the stage and screen: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pasternak, Akhmatova and Brodsky, Repin, Kandinsky, Malevich, Popova, Chagall, Chaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stanislavsky and Tarkovsky.

Personalized Instruction

Our language program is well run with a 1:10 teacher to student ratio, so all students get lots of attention from their instructors. There are great study abroad options: We encourage students to study abroad and recommend programs through the American Council of Teachers of Russian, Council on International Educational Exchange, and the School for Russian & Asian Studies. See Temple’s Study Abroad office or one of the Russian faculty for more information.

Russian Combines Well with Many Other Disciplines

Business and Russian, science and Russian, political science or history and Russian, English and Russian, another foreign language and Russian, engineering and Russian, mathematics and Russian, music and Russian. Russian provides you with opportunities your non-Russian studying classmates don’t have.

The alphabet is cool: It has 33 letters, 10 of which are vowels, and the last letter of the alphabet looks like a backwards R: Аа Бг Вв Гг Дд Ее Ёё Жж Зз Ии Йй Кк Лл Мм Нн Оо Пп Рр Сс Тт Уу Фф Хх Цц Чч Шш Щщ Ъь Ыы Ьь Ээ Юю Яя

Russia covers almost an eighth of the world and has about 150 million people, and the College of Liberal Arts sends students from its Slavic and Russian classes there every year as part of the study abroad program! As a student, you can also win awards and scholarships, get involved in community service and gain work experience through internships.

Study Abroad

Although Temple University does not have its own study abroad program in Russia, Temple students do study abroad through a variety of programs in Russia for the summer, semester and entire academic year. Temple University’s Education Abroad Office can help you plan your program. Students must complete Russian 2002 (fourth-semester Russian) or its equivalent before participating in a program overseas. Studying abroad is a life-changing experience that will give you the language and intercultural skills you need to use Russian in your career in government, business, media, education or a non-profit agency.

We encourage students to consider applying for scholarships through the National Security Education Program. If you are a Pell Grant Recipient you can apply for the Benjamin Gilman International Scholarship Program. Another terrific funding opportunity is the Boren Scholarship.

• American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS offers summer, semester, and academic year programs in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Vladimir. ACTR also began offering programs in Almaty (Kazakhstan) in 2014.
• Middlebury College’s Schools Abroad offers programs in Moscow, Yaroslavl’, and Irkutsk.
• The Council on International Educational Exchange offers summer, semester, and academic year programs in St. Petersburg.
• The School of Russian and Asian Studies offers summer, semester, and academic year programs in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk, and Vladivostok.

Awards and Scholarships

The Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures provides an annual award to exceptional students of Russian. Our students have also received support for study abroad in Russia from the American Council for Teachers of Russian (ACTR).

Internships and Community Service

Students have had the opportunity to intern at the Philadelphia branch of the Mid-Atlantic Russia Business Council in areas such as web design, communications, seminar planning, and general administration. Our Russian heritage speakers also had the opportunity to intern at the offices of state representatives from Northeast Philadelphia where they worked as liaisons with the Russian community.

Russian students also have the opportunity to participate in community service by working together with the Russian faculty to recruit students from local area high schools who participate in the annual Russian Olympiada. 2016 marked the tenth year for the Delaware Valley High School Olympiada of Spoken Russian. 92 students representing five schools from Pennsylvania and New Jersey registered to compete in 2 categories: Regular Learners and Heritage Speakers. For the second time, individual learners participated in the competition, alongside the school teams coached by their experienced Russian teachers: Marian Barnum, Vlada Jackson, Konstantin Lyavdansky, Amy Wojcik.

We thank all the teams and their teachers for the high oral proficiency level they demonstrated during the Olympiada. This year’s winners are: Alphonso Gonzalez (4R, Vineland High School, NJ; Russian teacher: Vlada Jackson ) and Natalya Ter-Saakov (4H, Eastern High School, NJ; independent).

Courses Offered

Students interested in studying Russian can expect to take courses in Intermediate and Advanced Russian, Conversation and Composition, Writing with Russian Sources, Russian Culture, and Service Learning. Students may choose to further their study of Russian language, culture, and society by taking elective courses in Russian for Business and Travel, Echoes of Terror in Russian Culture, Pushkin, Short Story in Translation, Women’s Voices in Russian Culture, and History of Russian Cinema.