BA Russian and Czech (with Slovak)
About this course
Russian and Czech with Slovak brings together three Slavic languages from the two major branches of that family, giving you access to the linguistic, literary, and cultural worlds of Eastern and Central Europe across a remarkable sweep of history and geography. Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language and one of the world's great literary languages, the medium of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov, as well as the key to understanding a country whose significance in world affairs has rarely been more acute. Czech and Slovak are closely related West Slavic languages, the languages of two countries with rich intellectual and cultural traditions and pivotal roles in European history, from the Habsburg Empire and the First World War to the Communist period and the Velvet Revolution. At the University of Oxford, this four-year programme combines intensive language study in Russian and Czech with Slovak alongside serious literary and cultural engagement with the societies they represent. You will work on all three languages at an advanced level, developing reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in Russian and Czech, while Slovak is studied alongside Czech as a closely related language that enriches your understanding of the region. You will engage with literature in the original, from classical nineteenth-century Russian novels to Czech modernism and contemporary writing, and you will explore the historical, political, and cultural contexts of both the Russian and Czech/Slovak worlds. Oxford's tutorial system provides exceptionally close intellectual engagement with the material throughout. Graduates with this combination of languages from Oxford are extremely well placed for careers in diplomacy, the foreign service, journalism, translation and interpreting, international organisations, academic research, and any professional field that involves engagement with Russia, Czech Republic, or Slovakia. The depth of linguistic and cultural knowledge that Oxford's programme cultivates, combined with the analytical rigour of its teaching, is genuinely distinctive. Further postgraduate study in Slavonic studies, translation, or area studies is a natural pathway for those wishing to develop their expertise further.
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