The Department of Slavic Philology is one of the oldest departments at Kyiv University, established in 1842. Its first head was V. Yarotskyi. The development of Slavic studies in the department is closely associated with the name of O. Kotliarevskyi. From 1882, for 36 years, the department was headed by T. Florynskyi.
In the early 20th century, the Department of Slavic Studies went through difficult times. The loss and emigration of scholars and students, radical Bolshevik reforms in education, and brutal repressions against the intelligentsia led to the decline of Slavic studies and the closure of the department.
A new chapter in the department’s history began after World War II when the renowned academician L. Bulakhovskyi became head of the reopened Department of Slavic Philology in 1946. In the following years, the department was led by Professor V. Masalskyi, Associate Professor M. Zarytskyi, and Associate Professor K. Zhytnyk. From 1987 to 2021, the department was headed by Professor O. Palamarchuk (PhD in Philology), under whose leadership it grew to be one of Ukraine’s leading centers for Slavic studies. The department offers a range of specialties and trains specialists in Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Slovene, Czech, and Croatian languages and literature. Slovak and Macedonian were also offered at various times.
The department currently employs four professors, six associate professors, four assistant professors, and two foreign lecturers. The teaching staff offers instruction in language and literature courses at all levels of Slavic studies, including Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD programs. Since 2021, Associate Professor O. Chmyr (PhD in Philology) has served as the department chair.
Since 2001, faculty members of the department have authored and published 12 monographs on contemporary issues in Slavic linguistics and literary studies, nearly 50 textbooks, manuals, and methodological materials, as well as around 800 scholarly articles. Additionally, they have compiled a series of translated dictionaries covering linguistic and other specialized terminology. The department actively introduces Ukrainian readers to the literary works of authors from various Slavic countries through translations from Czech (by O. Palamarchuk and B. Shelest), Polish (by T. Chernysh), Serbian (by N. Bilyk), as well as Slovene and Croatian (by O. Dziuba-Pohrebniak). Faculty members, including O. Palamarchuk, O. Antonenko, B. Shelest, T. Dotsenko, and O. Chmyr, have been commissioned multiple times to translate at the highest national level.
The department organizes annual International Slavic Readings in memory of Academician L. Bulakhovskyi and publishes the scientific journal Comparative Studies of Slavic Languages and Literatures: In Memory of Academician Leonid Bulakhovskyi, which releases two issues annually.
Lecturers and students of the department participate in international exchanges and academic mobility programs (Erasmus+) at universities in Bulgaria, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Croatia, and actively collaborate with the embassies of Slavic countries in Ukraine. With the support of the embassies, the department established several language and cultural centers focused on Slavic Studies, V. Karatkievich Belarusian Language and Cultural Center, the Center of Bulgarian Language, literature, history, and Culture, and the Center of Croatian Language and Culture.
Academic Staff Through the Years:
- Oksana Antonenko
- Bohdana Shelest
- Robert Bebeck