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Russian and Soviet Studies in the United States: a Review. PUB DATE 72 NOTE 70P

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Russian and Soviet Studies in the United States: a Review. PUB DATE 72 NOTE 70P DOCUMENT RESUME ED 130 519 PI. 008 090 AUTHOR Starr, S. Frederick; Boisture, J. Bruce TITLE Russian and Soviet Studies in the United States: A Review. PUB DATE 72 NOTE 70p. AVAILABLE FROM American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Ohio State University, 190 W. 19th Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210 ($3.50) EDRS PRICE HF-$0.83 HC-S3.50 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Area Studies; College Curriculum; Cultural Awareness; Cultural Education; Curriculum Planning; Ethnology; Higher Education; *History; Language Enrollment; Language Instruction; Language Programs; Language Research; Language Teachers; Modern Language Curriculum; Modern Languages; Politics; Professional Training; Research Needs; *Russian; *Russian Literature; Second Language Learning; Slavic Languages;- *State of the Art Reviews; Teacher Education IDENTIFIERS *Soviet Studies ABSTRACT This study was prepared to provide a convenient compendium of data for those participating in a conference on "Russian and Soviet Studies in the United States" heli. at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, Neu Jersey, in May, 1972. The purpose of the conference and of the study was to assess the state of teaching and research on the U.S.S.R. in the United States and to suggest means of improving them. The study is based on extensive interviews with leaders of the field of Soviet studies, on a review of the files of leading funding agencies, and on quantitative data on the field compiled by scholarly organizations in the field. Sharp declines in both Russian language and area studies have been registered during the last four years, and these declines are greater than the general decline in language enrollments. The broad picture revealed by the study includes two basic features: (1) the increasing concentration of major libraries and documentary resources in a few leading centers after a period of expansion at dozens of libraries and archival collections around the United States; and (2) the increasing decentralization of scholarly expertise on the U.S.S.R., to the extent that competent researchers are located at dozens of institutions in the United States. In addition to calling for a general renewal of support for training and reaserch in the area, the study stressed the need for a greater degree of coordination of scholarly efforts. (Author/CFH) Documents acquired by ERIC hiclude many informal unpublished materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort to obtain the best copy avaliable. Nevertheless, items of marginal reprooucibility are often encountered and this affects the quality of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is not responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original. s SCOPE OP INTEDE4T NOTICE 1 Ill ERIC Facility AN au.smd ON document .t.pIO11wno -to. In ma indgenont. shut decums.4 IS IMO .0 intecest V the Cleattog- houses twoltd tO the 119M,14414)1. 149 should collect them ip41140 &cultsa4tew, Russian and Sovtet Studies in the United States uS DEPARTMENTOF HEALTN, Eta/CATION& WELFARE RATIONAL INSTtTuTE oP EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS SEEN REPRO. %/CEO EXACTLY AS RECEIVE0 PROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN ATIRO IT POPFTS OP VIEW OR OPHFIONS STATEO 00 NOT NECESSARILY %SORE- SENT OFFICIAL RATIONAL INSTITUTE OP SOIXATION POSITION OR POLICY 2 r RUSSIAN AND SOVIET STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES; A REVIEW May, 1972 .11 S, Frederick Starr with J. Bruce Boisture This report was prepared at the request of Professor George F. Kerman of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Its first purpose is to provide a con- venient compendium of data, most of it heretofore avail- able but widely dispersed, for the benefit of those participating in a "Conference on Russian and Soviet Studies" held at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Hay 12-13, 1972. Its second purpose is to present these same. data to other specialists in the field, as well as to interested members of the public. The authors wish to express their gratitude to those numerous scholars and officials who have so kindly shared with them their xnowledge and experience. They are also indebted to the Rockefeller Foundation for its supportof the research on which the report is based. Finally, two notes on the con- clusions sprinkled throughout the study: first, their pur- pose is not so much to prescribe a course of action as to stimulate discussion on issues where action will be neces- sary; second, it goes without saying that for these con- elusions the authors alone bear responsibility. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction: An Overview of Funding 1 II. Training 6 A. Language Training 7 I. Russian 7 2, Other Soviet Languages 11 B. Area Training 12 1. Institutions 12 2, Evaluation 16 C. Immediate Goals and Future Planning 19 1, Immediate Goals: Area Training 20 2, Immediate Goals: Language Training 21 3, Long Range Goals and Future Planning 22 Research A. Support Facilities 32 I. Bibliography 33 2, Data Banks 36 3, Archives 36 4, Publishing 37 5, Scholarly Exchanges 38 6, Libraries 41 7, Research Centers 44 B. Research Projects 48 C. Research Prioriies 53 IV, Conclusions 57 Appendix I 63 Appendix II 66 4 1 I. INTRODUCTION AN OVERVIEW ON FUNDING Russian and Soviet studies might easily be overlooked amidst the vast budget of America's so.called "knowledge in. dustry". They are but one component of the larger field of foreign area studies, and those area studies as a group claim at best a modest share of the resources devoted to education and research in the humanities and social sciences.An approximation of the total bill for the fiscal year 1971 would be on the order of 59,9 million dollars (See Appendix I), the cost of about 36 miles of interstate highway.1 This figure covers matters of no small significance. We depend on this sum to maintain facilities with which to acquaint Americans with the Russian language, to prepare the nation's teachers of Russian and Soviet studies, to groom specialists on the Russian area for posts in government and industry and to carry out fundamental research on Soviet society, culture, and government. Given the prominence of the Soviet Union in world affairs today, the importance of these functions can scarcely be exaggerated: together they provide American society with the knowledge and expertise to deal effectively with all aspects of one of the most power- ful and complex nations on earth. Fc.r a decade and a half the size of the national in- 5 2 vestment in Russian and Soviet studies has been a topic of public concern. Area studies developed after World War II with the help of investment by the federal government and foundations. After INS,Joundation_investment was curtailed and federal . It had s2522EX...in 1968 was put on an..... annual and emergency basis. Llways been assumed that the institutions would eventually have to cover these costs, but when the time came to do so the universities themselves were in straiiitened circumstances, which are unrelieved to this day. Meanwhile, the debate has 2 continued at many levels. Three problems combine to render it extremely difficult to assume a well-informed position in such disdussions. First, is the fact that funds are derived not from two sources alone but from four. Although National Defense Education Act (NDEA) funds have received the bulk of public attention since Sputnik, that source, on the average, has never provided more than about 13% of the budgets of the major centers of Russian studies 3 and none for secondary centers; the rest derives from founda- tions and especially from state revenues and internal institu- tional resources, which constitute the backbone of support for the field as a whole. Second, is the difficulty arising from the dispersal of these monies among literally hundreds of institutions of the most diverse sorts. And third, in the field of knowledge production, as Fritz Machlup put it, "no possible measure of output can be conceived that would be logically separate from a measure of input."4Stated simply/ 6 3 it is all but impossible to measure what you get for your money. The principal concern of the following review is not to demonstrate the need either to raise or lower total expendi- ture on the field as t whole. On the contrary, decisions taken at that level of generality are bound to result in misdirected energy and waste. Instead, let us divide the total field into its constituent parts and consider the present performance and needs of each separately. There are numerous aspects of Soviet studies and one can conceive of many categories under which to arrange them. The distinction which we would like to stress is between those functions which serve primarily the needs of training, and those which relate first to research. Under training would be in- cluded anything involving the-communication of present know- ledge and skills to students or to the public at large, while research would cover all efforts directed towards expanding that knowledge or the analytic means through which it is ac- quired. These headings provide the major divisions of this report. In making such a distinction we do not intend to weaken, let alone deny, the ideal of the teacher-scholar. Rather, such categories simply take cognisance of the fact that most specialists derive funds for teaching from one set of insti- tutions, and for intensive research from another, or at least from another budget. Both functions can and probably should be combined in the same person, but for purposes of analysis it is desirable to distinguish clearly between them. Such a distinction might be drawn at all levels, and particularly in those institutions which setpriorities in the field.
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