CHAPTER 7

SLAVIC STUDIES SINCE 1939

In the period of tension which followed the Munich Agreement of 1938, the opening of World War II, and the period of Nazi-Soviet cooperation, Slavic studies in the United States, as well as the studies of the neighboring East European countries began to receive more serious consideration. A period of more active interest began. Because developments during World War II have continued since the ending of hostilities, it is difficult to draw a hard and fast line between the War and post-war period, largely because of the Cold War and the establishment of the Iron Curtain or, better yet, the recognition that there were tremendous gaps between the thinking of the Western free world and the Soviet dominated areas.

On the surface, the reactions in 1939 differed little from those in 1914. This is well illustrated by the fact that at the annual opening exercises of Columbia University in 1939, President Nicholas Murray Butler repeated large extracts from his talk of 1914 on a similar occasion. Yet, the attention of the American public was more sharply focused on events in Eastern Europe than it had been in 1914 and the colleges and universities during the preceding twenty-five years had provided a larger nucleus of trained men. The events of the first months showed, however, that far too many of these trained men were still bound to the thinking of the past and were not prepared to take into account recent developments on a global, and even on an East European, scale. Such short-sightedness prevented adequate consideration of the situation as it unfolded day by day.

The old myth that Russia was a single country inhabited by a single people, with boundaries defined long ago, proved remarkably vital. President Wilson’s formulation of a Russian policy in 1918, recognizing the need of the Russian people to choose their own form of government, was still accepted and even the colleges and universities paid little attention to the structure of the Soviet Union as it saw itself. The American people and their government continued to use the word Russian as a synonym for Soviet Union and were puzzled, as they had been in 1917, by the movements that arose in the territory. As in 1917, Finland stood out as a distinct nationality, but the popular reaction to the annexation of the Baltic republics was marked as much by confusion as by indignation. Supposed “experts” even found grim relief in the fact that after 1939 the borders of Germany and “Russia” were touching and this seemed to confirm the validity of the pre-1914 frontiers.

Thus the crisis tended to emphasize again the importance of Russian history and the Russian language. In a sense this was justified. The force of events had made the Russian language predominant in Eastern Europe and the leaders of the USSR were almost exclusively Russian, except the Georgian Stalin, who regularly espoused the Great Russian cause for foreign consumption. All tendencies to stress the opponents of Moscow and their cultures ended abruptly with the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union and continued in the following period of Soviet-democratic cooperation. Such emphasis on the Russian character of the USSR was furthered by many of the Russian emigres, who at the height of the war, were only too ready, whatever their political convictions, to serve the cause of Mother Russia, a policy which was fostered by Stalin’s clever use of Russian slogans.

Many British and American authorities zealously compared the German attack on the Soviets in 1941 to the German advance in 1918 after the Soviet Revolution. A bitter propaganda attack was started, both inside and outside the universities, against all national groups from the old Russian empire having separatist aspirations. The old equation that all who were not pro-Communist were pro-Nazi was repeated, especially after 1941. The Ukrainians received the worst criticism but they were not alone. Even though the United States government refused to recognize the seizure of the Baltic states, President Roosevelt acceded to the demands of Stalin and allowed him to sign the Atlantic Charter. They did not grant this to the representatives of the occupied countries, lest they break the friendship with that great anti-Nazi power—“Russia.” Under such conditions, lectures arranged by Professor Manning at Columbia University in the spring of 1941, with the aid of the Ukrainian National Association and a number of distinguished professors of Eastern Europe, evoked severe criticism from many anti-Nazi radio commentators who followed the whims of popular sentiment.

The chief counterweight to this tendency was the arrival in the United States of many distinguished scholars who had escaped the holocaust of Nazi rule and the direct impact of Soviet power on Slavic scholarship.

The circumstances of the peaceful occupation of Prague in the spring of 1939 made it difficult, if not impossible, for many Czech professors to leave. The chief exceptions were Professor Otokar Odlozilik and Professor Roman Jakobson who were outside the country when the storm struck.

The Poles were more fortunate, for during the crucial weeks of the destruction of Poland, many of their leading scholars had been able to escape north into Lithuania or south into Romania, from which countries they made their way to the west. When they arrived in the United States, the Polish organizations, working with the Polish Legation in Washington, found funds to allow them to continue their scientific work. To furnish a center for them and keep them from being lost in American life, an American branch of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Krakow was formed under the distinguished historian, Professor Oskar Halecki. This was later reorganized as the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in the United States. During the war years, it received sufficient funds to publish a quarterly journal, the _Bulletin of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America_, and to issue several scholarly works on Polish subjects. Still later, when the Germans pushed westward, other Polish scholars, such as Professor Waclaw Lednicki and Professor Manfred Kridl, succeeded in reaching the United States. Most of these men have since found places in the American scientific world.

Few distinguished Russian scholars arrived at this time and there was only one Ukrainian, Professor Nicholas Chubaty, who almost by accident, arrived in the United States for a meeting of _Pax Romana_, an international organization for social action under the auspices of the Catholic Church, and remained here after the outbreak of hostilities. The Southern Slavs and Bulgarians fared even less well.

War produced, at first, relatively little effect upon Slavic studies as a whole or Russian in particular. It was not until 1940 that there came any appreciable increase in the number of students. Yet the general reaction of the public differed from that of 1914. Despite the growth of anti-Nazi and even anti-German feeling, there was no attempt to exclude German from the curricula of any important institution. There was no decline of students, but rather an increase. The same was true of Russian, and long before 1941, the governing bodies of institutions without Slavic departments began to think of introducing them. We can only mention certain instances of this development.[38]

Professor Alfred Senn, a Swiss philologist from the University of Kaunas, who held several positions in other institutions, became Professor of German Philology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1938. During World War II, he offered courses in Russian, and in 1948 became Professor of Balto-Slavic Philology and head of the Department of Balto-Slavic Studies. As such, he was able to group around him a number of refugee scholars.

In 1939, Cornell University invited Dr. Jack Posin to teach Russian and in 1941 named Ernest J. Simmons Assistant Professor of English and Russian. In 1942 Simmons was named chairman of a newly established department of Russian, and, in 1945, was promoted to a full professorship. Dr. Posin, meanwhile had transferred to the University of Iowa, in 1942, as Assistant Professor of Russian.

At Syracuse University, Professor Albert Menut of the Department of Romance Languages, a student of Russian, was able to develop courses in Russian and to inaugurate a Russian program.

The extent of Slavic development during this period is revealed in a survey conducted by Professor Arthur P. Coleman in 1945, which showed eighty-one institutions offering courses in Russian and eleven in Polish. At the same time, there were 147 schools and colleges offering courses in Slavic history and culture. The increased interest in history seems all to the good, but it can be noted that well over fifty institutions offering work on Russian and Slavic subjects lacked collateral courses in the languages. This, however, was a far smaller proportion than existed in 1914. Furthermore, it was not a peculiarity of the United States, for as late as 1924 in Germany there were professors of East European history who looked askance at students wasting their time on linguistic studies, for they preferred to have them work from translations.

To secure a staff for the American expansion, particularly in Russian, offered many difficulties. There had been almost no immigration of Russians for many years and the bulk of the possible instructors were persons who had come to the United States shortly after World War I. These were the only ones with any special training, for during the period between the wars, few young Russians from educated families had seriously considered doing advanced work in Russian, even though there were many with knowledge of the educational system. An outstanding exception was Oleg Maslenikov who, at this time, joined the staff of the University of California.

The chief emphasis, in this period of expansion, was on a speaking knowledge of the language. Wherever it was possible, instruction was begun under the supervision of some member of the faculty with a knowledge of Russian, while much of the actual work was done by native assistants. This combination, originally applied to Russian by Professor Patrick, became the general rule and was successful where it was intelligently used.

Unlike the situation in World War I, the United States government actively encouraged these studies and assigned draftees as well as volunteers to special units for the study of languages, and special language schools were established for the Armed Services throughout the country. This created still another problem. Wartime conscription reduced the number of students alarmingly causing nearly all colleges and universities to become dependent upon government funds for their continued functioning. The larger institutions, with their highly developed laboratories and opportunities for scientific training, received most of the students to be trained in technical subjects. The government, therefore, often opened language centers in smaller institutions, many of which lacked necessary libraries and, in some localities, secured a proper staff of instructors only with difficulty. Thus, Bulgarian was assigned to the University of Denver, which was fortunate to find in that city an educated Bulgarian lady. She agreed to help, although she had never seriously considered teaching Bulgarian, and was compelled to prepare most of her materials from original Bulgarian texts which she owned.

With the reduction of the armed forces after the War, many of these courses were suspended, although both the Navy and Air Force still send selected students to various universities. The Army, however, has established its own language school at the Presidio of Monterey. With a well selected civilian faculty, many of them former members of university staffs, this is rapidly becoming one of the best institutions of its kind for the study of the Slavic as well as other languages. It is preparing, for its own use, its own courses and it promises to become an important testing ground for Slavic and East European studies. In addition to this, Russian has been introduced into the curriculum of such service academies as West Point, where the work which was tentatively started after World War I is now on a definite and secure basis.

This period, too, saw the beginning of the organization of the so-called area studies. In these, the history, geography and economics of the given area are stressed. Such efforts represent an attempt to overcome the gaps which have developed between historical, literary and cultural studies through the departmentalizing of institutions. But as they have developed, historical and economic elements have been stressed more than cultural and literary. This was perhaps natural. However, during the War, at the height of the enthusiasm for the USSR, studies of this kind tended to accent the Soviet version of the relations between the nationalities of the Soviet Union, and the old Russian concept of a single Russian people. There was thus, a perpetuation of the previous confusion in American thinking; and, it was not overcome even when the Ukrainian and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics were included as charter members in the United Nations.

The greatest single deterrent to Slavic study was the almost simultaneous death of nearly all the older leaders of Slavic scholarship. To list but a few of the more prominent: Professor John Dyneley Prince, who had retired from Columbia in 1937, died in 1945 at the age of 77; Professor Alexander Kaun, of the University of California, died at the age of 55 in 1944; Professor George Z. Patrick, of the same institution, died at the age of 63 in 1945; Professor Henry Lanz, of Stanford, died in 1945 at the age of 59; Professor Samuel Hazzard Cross, of Harvard, died in 1944 at the age of 55.[39] Thus, within three years practically all the older men in the field of Slavic literature died except Professor George Rapall Noyes and Professor Manning. The losses in history were not so severe but Professor Samuel N. Harper, of the University of Chicago, died in 1943 at the age of 61. As a result Professor Robert J. Kerner, for many years at the University of California, was the only person remaining in the field of history who had become prominent before 1914. This, in a sense, sharply delineates the earlier period of Slavic studies. Today the leaders of Slavic scholarship belong definitely to a different generation, one which is certainly better trained but does not necessarily have the range of interests which often marked the older men.

Another, somewhat different, development needs to be noted. During the first years of the War, when England was severely strained by the war and the bombing of her cities, it seemed that the _Slavonic and East European Review_ would be compelled to suspend publication. To meet the crisis it was decided that the journal would continue under the direction of the American contributing editors. Thus, until his untimely death, Professor Cross was the practical editor of the magazine, assisted by Professor Leonid I. Strakhovsky. Issues appeared with both an American and British volume number. After the War when the British expressed a desire to resume publication, the American editors expanded their numbers and, with the aid of the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies, established the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies to publish _The American Slavic and East European Review_. The present committee of scholars in charge of the publication is Professor Abram Bergson of Harvard; Professor George B. Cressey of Syracuse; Professor H. H. Fisher of Stanford; Professor Alexander Gerschenkron of Harvard; Professor Oskar Halecki of Fordham University; Professor Roman Jakobson of Harvard; Professor Michael Karpovich of Harvard; Professor Robert J. Kerner of California; Professor W. Lednicki of California; Professor Philip Mosely of the Council for Foreign Relations; Professor Geroid Robinson of Columbia; Professor Alfred Senn of the University of Pennsylvania; Professor Ernest J. Simmons of Columbia; Professor S. H. Thomson of the University of Colorado; Professor George Vernadsky of Yale, and Professor Francis J. Whitfield of the University of California. Nothing better illustrates the way in which Slavic studies has developed than this list, for the overwhelming majority of these scholars represent those institutions where departments had existed before World War I.

_The American Slavic and East European Review_ is the leading publication in the United States for Slavic studies. However, other journals, such as the _Publication of the Modern Language Association_, _Speculum_, the _Journal of Central European History_ (edited by Professor S. H. Thomson) and the _Journal of East European History_ (edited by the University of Chicago), also contain specialized articles. As a matter of fact, there are very few of the more specialized journals which during the past years have not included articles on some aspect of the East European historical and cultural world.

There are also several quarterlies published in the United States which deal with East Europe. Among these are: _The Russian Review_, edited by Professor D. von Mohrenschildt of Dartmouth College, originally founded with the aid of the Russian Student Fund; the _Ukrainian Quarterly_, edited by Professor Nicholas Chubaty for the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America; and, the _Polish Review_, published by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America. We may also place here the _Armenian Review_, edited by Mr. Reuben Darbinian for the Hairenik Association (Boston, Mass.). These are scholarly journals devoted to the language, culture and history of the people for whom they are compiled, which cannot be overlooked in any survey of the intellectual output for East European subjects. There are also many smaller organs and bulletins of societies, often with world wide connection, which serve a more specialized political program. They are important for their frequent opposition to the accepted viewpoint of history and culture, but are essentially more political than scholarly in its content. As has been stressed again and again, Slavic studies have developed so largely under the influence of the imperial Russian and German traditions that truth has often seemed to be merely what was decided in pre-World War I St. Petersburg and Berlin.

The Slavic group of the Modern Language Association of America is still the leading scientific center for philologists and students of literature in the broadest sense of the word. It holds a yearly meeting, concurrent with the Modern Language Association, and is divided into two parts, literary and philological. It offers the best possibilities for the developing of personal contacts among more serious students. In time it should become a section parallel to that of the English, Romance and Germanic sections but the day when there are sufficient members is still in the future.

For many years there was no special section in the American Historical Association and its allied societies, devoted to the study of Slavic or East European history. This did not mean that the subject was ignored, for numerous papers were included in the regular program and, many times there were entire meetings devoted to Slavic problems. However, in 1955 a special conference on Slavic and East European studies was formed to provide continuity and concentration in the subject. This activity will undoubtedly expand in future years.

Another organization serving Slavic scholars is the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, formed by Professor Arthur P. Coleman, formerly of Columbia University and now president of Alliance College. Founded in 1941 to parallel such groups as the American Association of Teachers of German, this organization exists to bring together teachers of the subject, rather than to promote research. The association is divided both by languages and by localities. It has appealed to many emigre scholars, and this has led it to a more definite anti-Communist position than many other groups, which have often leaned over backward to appear impartial and unprejudiced. It has now established the _Slavic and East European Journal_.

The ranks of emigre scholars, which had started to grow with the arrival of many Poles in 1939, were augmented after 1945 by the arrival of many displaced persons. These men, for the most part Ukrainians and often of considerable intellectual stature, found themselves in an unenviable position chiefly because of their inability to speak English. The majority were already mature or even elderly. They had escaped the holocaust caused by that interpretation of the Yalta agreements which had led to the forcible return of many refugees to the Soviet Union. However, they were aided by their own ability to make the most of opportunities given them by the freakish events of the last months of the War in Europe. In and out of the DP camps, they had created their own scholarly groups in Germany and Austria. Thus, the Ukrainian Free University which had been established first in Vienna and then moved to Prague after World War I, was now reopened in Munich. An UNRRA university was started in the same city. A less formal Baltic university was established in Hamburg in the British zone. At one time there were plans to transfer this latter institution to Canada, but the plan miscarried. However, many of the leading professors of these institutions have come to the United States and Canada and are being absorbed into the American educational world. In the beginning, many of these men were compelled to take non-intellectual positions. Others found places in institutions (usually Catholic, of either the Western or Eastern Rites) educating their compatriots, at schools such as Alliance College, and the Ukrainian Catholic St. Basil’s College in Stamford, Connecticut.[40]

In addition to these institutions, the displaced persons opened many more elementary schools on all educational levels to train their fellow countrymen whose education had been interrupted by the War and the limitations imposed on general education, both by the Soviets and the Nazis.

By a series of fortunate coincidences, the majority of the administration of the old Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv, and a large part of its membership were saved in the DP camps. There, this society, which had been suppressed by the Soviets in 1939 after their occupation of Lviv, was again revived under the same officers in Munich. The center was later moved to Sarcelles near Paris. Many of its members have come to the United States, and while the headquarters are still in Sarcelles, American and Canadian branches have been established in New York and Toronto and are working actively, publishing the results of their studies in both Ukrainian and English.

At about the same time, other Ukrainians in the camps, perhaps more often from eastern Ukraine, formed the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences. Its members have also come, in numbers, to America and are functioning in New York and Winnipeg. They publish the quarterly _Annals_ in English, greatly aided by the East European Fund set up by the Ford Foundation.

These two groups, which parallel the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America, have counterparts in the Francis Skorina Society (Kryvian), and the White Ruthenian Institute of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., the Croatian Academy of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Serb National University in Chicago. The Masaryk Institute, formed by a group of Americans and Czechs before the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, is in a sense similar but it has also the features of the Kosciuszko Foundation. It is too early to know what position these societies will take in Slavic programs of the future, but their outstanding individuals are securing recognition in American colleges and universities. Whether they will ultimately form a branch of this general educational field or whether they will develop into more highly specialized groups drawing upon interested Americans of non-Slavic origin, cannot now be answered with certainty. Some of them are undoubtedly ephemeral but some have had a long cultural tradition and can be expected, in their new environment, to exercise an influence out of proportion to their numbers.

Many of the newly arrived scholars are already playing an important role in the development of Slavic studies and in the reorganization of some of the older departments. It would take too long to list all who have found important posts. Professor Oskar Halecki is developing the study of Polish history at Fordham University. Professor Roman Smal-Stocki at Marquette University has taken a prominent part in the formation of a Slavic Institute there. By such publications as _The Nationality Problem of the Soviet Union_, he is helping acquaint the American public with the dangers of open, as well as secret, Communism in the United States, besides exposing the inaccuracy of the American concept that all citizens of the former Russian empire are Russians by blood, feeling and culture. There is, in addition, the work of Professor George Shevelov in comparative philology at Columbia University, and that of Professor Dmytro Chyzhevsky at Harvard, which emphasizes the older Ukrainian literature.

The rise of recently arrived Slavic scholars and the influence of transplanted organizations of Slavic scholarship was earnestly needed by American Slavic scholarship and, in fact was forced by the surprising number of deaths during the war period. Development in the different institutions has been conditioned, of course, by the general traditions and spirit of each school. While growth has been rapid, it cannot be said that all results have been unqualifiedly happy or successful, partly because of the sporadic interest by both faculty and students in the field as a whole. Slavic subjects (not to speak of the closely associated non-Slavic languages like the Ural-Altaic groups, modern Greek and Romanian, all of which have strong Slavic overtones) are extremely broad and diverse. Yet for the average American student, Slavic and Russian are too exclusively identified. Even interest in Russian has been chiefly limited to either pure philology or, more frequently, Russian literature of the nineteenth or twentieth centuries.

As an example, consider Columbia University’s efforts to secure a balanced course. When Professor Ernest J. Simmons joined the staff, in 1946, as professor of Russian literature and Chairman of the Department of Slavic Languages, as it was now renamed, he hoped to build a broad program. The department was informally divided into four sections: Slavic and Russian philology; Czech and Slovak; Polish, and South Slavic. To help defray expenses, the university, reversing the policy formulated by President Butler after the unpleasant developments of the World War I period, sought from the lesser Slavic lands, a yearly subsidy to pay the salary of a distinguished professor. This was easily secured from both Poland and Czechoslovakia and Professor Roman Jakobson was appointed the Thomas G. Masaryk Professor of Slavic Philology, and Professor Manfred Kridl was named the Adam Mickiewicz Professor of Polish. Arrangements were made without considering developments which might be caused by the Communists, and similar agreements were made with many countries of the Near and Middle East. The experiment was hardly satisfactory. After the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia, the new regime imposed such conditions that maintenance of the chair was impossible. Poland more slowly followed the same course. Despite other arrangements with less possible political interference, made by the university, the number of students in the Czech, Slovak, Polish and South Slavic sections of the department has been scarcely larger than it was between the wars. There was no attempt, at Columbia, to break the traditional separation between the faculties of philosophy and political science, or establish a single department for all Slavic, or even all Russian, instruction. Russian history, under Professor Geroid Robinson, continued to develop as it had, just as other areas of study continued under the faculty of political science.

Development at Harvard was somewhat different. There, after the interim period following the death of Professor Cross, Professor Roman Jakobson came to Cambridge in 1949, with a number of experts in Slavic fields. At about the same time, work in all Slavic subjects was, at least partially, consolidated and Professor Karpovich was named to the Curt Hugo Reisinger Chair of Slavic Languages and Literatures, in addition to his work in history.

At the University of California development was severely affected by the death of Professors Patrick and Kaun, until the staff was rebuilt by the appointment of Professor Gleb Struve and Waclaw Lednicki, and the promotion of Professor Oleg Maslenikov.[41] There was no attempt to integrate the work in history under Professor Robert J. Kerner, although the department broadened with an increase of students.

In the same period, Slavic studies at Catholic universities, especially those administered by the Society of Jesus, have been greatly strengthened. While Georgetown University, alone, achieved standing in language instruction following World War I, the situation has changed since World War II and Fordham, Notre Dame, and Marquette are all setting new standards in the range of courses offered and in the thoroughness of their work. These institutions have also contributed by studying the contrasts and similarities between the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, with emphasis on the nationality problem of Russia-USSR. Numerous conferences have been held and addresses have been published.

Marquette University, located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where there is a considerable population of Slavic descent, has established a Slavic Institute under the direction of Professor Roman Smal-Stocki. In the announcement of its first publication, _The Doctrine of Anarchism of Michael A. Bakunin_, the Institute stated its goal:

... to strengthen the knowledge of Slavic matters and problems in America through this special series of monographs on Slavic nations, their history, culture, civilization and their great personalities. Simultaneously we would like to cultivate through original research, the Slavic heritage of more than twelve million of America’s citizens. According to our anniversary motto, we dedicate the series to the “Pursuit of Truth to Make Men Free” and in this spirit we shall approach all Slavic nations, large and small, with a deep sense of their fundamental equality, disregarding all Slavic imperialisms and colonialisms, and with a warm respect for their fine heritage, which has become a component part of our American culture and civilization.

Scholarly purposes of this sort, which respect the culture of the Slavic peoples apart from political dominations, and the avowal to study changes of Slavic culture in the New World, bid fair to mark a new era for such studies.

Leading American colleges as a whole have introduced Russian into their curricula. Most courses are taught by men trained while in American government service during World War II, who have continued their preparation in graduate programs at one of the longer established Slavic departments.[42]

Much of the recent development in Slavic scholarship must be credited to the work of the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies. Started before World War II by the American Council of Learned Societies, a committee was established in the Slavic area, based on the prototype which existed to aid the reorganization and development of studies in Chinese. Later the Social Science Research Council established a committee for the development of Slavic studies in the social sciences. The committees of these organizations combined to form the Joint Committee, which was able to secure large subsidies from foundations for the development of courses, faculty salaries and scholarship grants.

The initiative of this committee, working with influential and alert university officials, has aided the expansion of wartime area studies into institutes, organized programs and centers of research and training. This approach to academic organization is, in a sense, borrowed from European university organization which used institutes, such as the Slavic Institute in Prague, as a means of coordinating the activities of previously isolated chairs. In the United States, where the organization of courses led to the establishment of cohesive departments, the institutes became a means of coordinating departments which were in different faculties, sometimes in isolation and even competition, especially in courses on national cultures which almost of necessity impinge on history.

In addition, the institutes had a more practical side, for along with the development of pure research, they aspired to supply trained men and women for special technical work in both government and civilian enterprises. We can scarcely summarize this activity better than by quoting the purposes of the Russian Institute as reported in the Announcement of the Faculty of Philosophy of Columbia University, for 1957 (p. 146):

The Russian Institute, established in 1946 with the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation, has two major objectives: the development of _research_ in the social sciences and the humanities, as they relate to Russia, and the training of a limited number of well-qualified Americans for scholarly or professional careers, as Russian-Soviet specialists in business, in finance, in journalism, in various branches of government service, and in academic research and teaching in the social sciences and in literature. It is believed that such prospective specialists should acquire (a) a broad and thoroughly integrated knowledge of Russia and the Soviet Union; (b) command of a well-developed specialty in a selected academic discipline, as applied to that country; and (c) a broad training in the more general aspects of this selected discipline. To this end, each candidate for the two year certificate will pursue certain survey courses on Russia, while giving special emphasis, within the Institute, to one of five fields: Russian history, economy, government and law, foreign relations, the social and ideological aspects of literature. At the same time, the candidate will be expected to follow outside the Institute, a parallel program of work in the graduate school or department of the University that is most closely allied with his Russian specialty within the Institute.

All of these institutes, wherever they have been founded and whether they are Institutes, Studies or Programs have been faced with the same fundamental dilemma: how is the term “Russia” to be defined? A certain number of scholars, who have been labeled by Professor Lev Dobriansky of Georgetown University as the “Russia Firsters,” have stubbornly insisted that it was their duty to devote themselves to the study of Russia in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. the consideration of Russian culture, history and economics without regard to the linguistically and culturally heterogeneous character of the old Russian empire. To students of this school, every person within the old Russian empire is a Russian, whether their studies concern economics or concentration camps. They refuse to separate the statistics in any way that might show increased pressure on the non-Russian peoples by the Soviet government. They feel themselves free to do this, even though Stalin himself after World War II specifically attributed the victory of the Soviet Union to the loyalty of the Great Russians, i.e. Russians in the narrower sense of the word.

This attitude, despite the prominence of its supporters, has been steadily opposed by those students who stress the cultural and linguistic differences which existed in the old Russian empire as well as in the modern Soviet Union. These students emphasize the similarities between the Russian and Soviet concepts of dominance of the Great Russians, and argue for a proper recognition of the oppressed nations of the USSR who sought their independence during the Revolution and have since been restrained by force of arms to adopt Communism. They accordingly see in the restoration of the political independence of these nations the best answer to the Communist menace to freedom. This viewpoint has been expressed by Professor Roman Smal-Stocki, and by James Burnham, formerly of the Department of Philosophy of New York University, who in all his writings has stressed the need to eliminate the new Russian Communism.

A further requirement of this in a historical survey is expressed by a Russian in speaking of the failure of the anti-Communist movements during the Civil Wars:

Those who were adverse to the new (Communist) regime could thus be divided into two very different groups; one comprising the property-owning classes (who had been deprived of their all by the Bolsheviks), the officers, the civil servants and all those devoted to the ideals of the Russian State as constituted before the October Revolution; the other, the national separatist groups, which desired complete separation from Russia. It is easy to see that, no matter how antagonistic these two groups might be to Communism, their aims were absolutely dissociated. The unity of the Russian State could only be reestablished in one of two ways: either by a restoration of the Monarchy or by federation. Neither alternative appealed to the anti-Bolshevik groups; and this circumstance explains the absence of cooperation in the Civil War which broke out in many parts of the country in 1918. It must be noted also, that the majority of the population, the peasantry, stood entirely aloof from the activities of both groups, and remained during the initial stages of the Civil War absolutely neutral.[43]

With the practical elimination of the monarchist influences, the line is still drawn with the greatest bitterness between the so-called Russian democratic elements who insist upon the unity of Russia and the representatives of the non-Russian peoples, especially the Ukrainians, Baltic, Caucasian and Turkestanian nations. During the first post-war years this latter tendency was little regarded in the American universities and even now is less well represented than it should be; but recent years have seen the publication of several studies such as John Reshetars’s _Ukrainian Revolution_ and John A. Armstrong’s _Ukrainian Nationalism_ (1939–1943).

The same division can be seen in the distribution of aid, in the early years, of the work of the East European Fund, Inc., which was created by the Ford Foundation and has done much valuable work. In its later years it has given more money to aid in the preparation and publication of works by Ukrainian, Byelorussian and other scholars and is publishing a series of Ukrainian texts, either original works or books suppressed by the Soviet government. But all of these publishing activities fall far short of the work of the Chekhov Publishing House which has issued over 100 Russian books and received for this, grants (up to 1954) totaling $1,238,000. However, on the average, as shown by the Fund’s report for 1954, the grants to the several Ukrainian and Byelorussian (Whiteruthenian) scholarly and relief institutions have never been more than a third, at most, of that contributed for similar Russian purposes, in spite of its stated position of refraining from “favoring or supporting any single Russian political grouping.” The report shows how the Fund has tended however to see more value in the Russian projects than in the Ukrainian and Byelorussian (Whiteruthenian).[44]

Gradual changes of attitude can also be noted in the American-supported publications of the Institute for the Study of the USSR in Munich, which is intended as a means for assistance to refugee scholars from the USSR, and in the various American radio and other organizations intended to aid in the fight against Communism, such as the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism. It is to be noted also in the policy of George Kennan, formerly of the State Department and now connected with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who is considered an outstanding American authority on the USSR. His entire policy of “containment” has long been based on the same idea of Russian unity as expressed by his uncle, George Kennan (See Chapter III).

To supplement these and similar tendencies in the study of the satellite states menaced by Communism, there has been established in New York another series of organizations to secure American help, to furnish scholarly opportunities for displaced scholars from the countries liberated after World War I and to assist in training new students. This is the Mid-European Studies Center. Its counterparts in Europe are Radio Free Europe and in the university field in the United States, the Mid-European Studies Program at Columbia University. This is more or less on the pattern of the Russian Institute and it is but one example of the efforts that are being made to develop interest in the culture of the satellite states, which, save for the efforts of their compatriots in the United States, have been largely neglected.

A point often raised regarding studies in this area is the limitation placed upon them by the American distrust of Communism which has expressed itself in many Congressional investigations as well as the public and private attempts to root out from the various important fields open or secret Communists or fellow-travellers. This point is raised by Professor James F. Clarke of the University of Indiana:[45]

In more recent times a similar blind emotional reaction to Communism as well as partisan evaluations of the Soviet Union have constituted a threat to the free and rational expansion of East European studies. Today, college students, teachers, and administrators interested in the area dominated by Communism, while they may not yield to anti-Communist hysterics, must at the same time heed its potential effect on parents, taxpayers, legislators, trustees and employers.

It is the opinion of the present writer that such arguments serve merely to cover the failure of the scholars to interpret the complications of the Soviet mode of thought to an American audience. The Aesopian language in which so much of the current Communist propaganda is couched, both for home and foreign consumption, and the belief that truth is what is best at the moment for the Communist Party, have laid a responsibility upon students of Eastern Europe, a burden not borne by the more established subjects where the sources are less subject to deliberate falsification. In addition to this, certain men who followed, during World War II, the tendency to gloss over the cruelties of the Soviet Union on behalf of mutual understanding and a misinterpreted liberalism now find it difficult to disavow some of their most tendentious writings. This by no means implies that they are either Communists or fellow-travellers but they deliberately closed their eyes to unpleasant situations, and now shrink from admitting the full truth.

As we have noted above, few, if any, of the outstanding scholars of Slavic have accepted Communist ideas. The burden of Communist infiltration in the past, and in the present, has been in departments and subjects that might be considered most immune to them, especially some of the natural sciences which have only recently become subjects for international intrigue and spying. For this reason, the fears of being labeled a Communist are far less vital than the pressure that has been exerted at many different periods to present Communism as a liberal doctrine that is in harmony with American ideals. It is this misplaced liberalism that has been responsible for what the author of the article quoted calls “anti-Communist hysterics.”

In addition to this, any objective study of the Communist-dominated world is rendered impossible, if the supplemental goal is to promote mutual understanding. This of course is an object of study when the system of two distinct peoples is founded upon the same general principles, and when words are used on both sides with similar meanings. In a study of the Communist world, far more can be effected by a rigorous emphasis on the differences than can be gained by soft-pedaling and concealing them.

Another important factor that has worked against the increase of students in the East European field has been the nature of the opportunities which are offered to students. Immediately after the liberation of the Slavic countries, after World War I, there seemed to be a chance that students who acquired some knowledge of Slavic could put it to use in their ordinary vocations. Those opportunities for employment abroad that loomed so large in the calculations of students of Spanish proved to be conspicuously absent in view of Communist actions.

The spurt that occurred after World War II came to an end when the Iron Curtain descended over almost the entire Slavic world, at least so far as the average student was concerned. Men who had received some instruction while in the Armed Services were able to take advantage of the GI Bill of Rights and continue their studies. Yet most very soon found that unless they intended to become real specialists, they would not have the opportunity to use their knowledge.

The colleges and universities needed more men in view of the widespread conviction that Russian, especially, was a proper and necessary subject. Yet the field was relatively limited and did not require many generations of post-graduate students to adequately staff the departments. The chief opportunity besides teaching was government service and this absorbed the greatest number. But, for those who did not care for government work the range of opportunities soon became restricted.

Most of these men and women, who are today specializing actively, are persons who have received fellowships of some kind or value from one or another of the larger foundations (the Rockefeller, Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation). As in other branches of scholarship, and even the sciences, or those humanistic subjects which almost insure teaching positions, these fellowships and scholarships play a more important part in the economic life of the graduate student than ever before and any increase or decrease in them is reflected almost immediately in the number of students. The result has been a steady but perceptible drop in graduate students during the past years. This has not been a bad sign in reality, even though it may superficially seem a lack of interest.

We can be very sure, the world and human nature being what it is, that there will be no such reaction against foreign languages as there was during and after World War I. There are already signs that the number of students has dropped to the point where it will remain stationary, or from which it will perhaps rise slightly, during the next years.

The study of Slavic and East European subjects has followed a very definite pattern in the last ten years with its shifts of emphasis reflecting the changes that have taken place in that part of the globe. It has followed political and economic relationships of the United States and we can be confident that it will continue to do so.

Thus, since the beginning of World War I, the picture of Slavic and East European studies in the United States has changed markedly. The prospects today are far brighter than they ever have been. The foundations have been laid and it only remains to build a superstructure to fit into American life and at the same time present a consistent and coherent picture of what that American life, and Slavic studies, really need. The first period of test is over. Now is the time to present Slavic scholarship to the American public and the scholarly world in such a form that it can be assimilated and incorporated in the intellectual life of the nation, and at the same time take account of the possibilities offered by the large section of the population with Slavic traditions.