Russian & Eastern European Studies

War and revolution. Dictatorship and democracy. Empires and nations. Ideological orthodoxy and cultural experimentation. Ethnic diversity, racism and genocide. Grand achievement, great atrocity and near unimaginable suffering. The term “Russian and Eastern Europe” evokes a host of dramatic, and often paradoxical, associations.

The interdisciplinary curriculum of Russian and Eastern European Studies will allow you to develop a broader understanding of this culturally rich and politically crucial region from a variety of perspectives. Through courses in history, culture, politics, economics and language, the program offers an opportunity for you to gain background essential to understanding contemporary issues ranging from Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, to current German-Russian cooperation in the construction of a Nord Stream Gas Pipeline and the future of the European Union.

Program Type
Major, Minor

Areas of Study

Offered through the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Russian and Eastern European Studies will encourage you to appreciate the region’s dramatic past, its strategically important present and its uncertain and contested future. You will learn how to: 

  • Evaluate sources

  • Understand and compare different points of view

  • Contrast competing systems of government

  • Find potential shared interests or sites of common ground. 

  • Analyze literature, art and film and how to link cultural expressions to big questions about power and human nature. 

In its study of both institutions and ordinary individuals, the program will encourage you to grow as a citizen as well as a scholar and to broaden your perspective on and curiosity about the wider world.

Requirements

A REES major requires 10 courses (if double-majoring) or 14 courses (if a single major). Students should be prepared to address how their choice of major fits their intellectual experience and future plans.

The REES minor is particularly well-suited for upperclass students whose interests evolve over time, or who discover the field unexpectedly, after declaring a major or who wish to give various courses they have taken greater coherence by building a minor curriculum around them.

  1. Students must complete at least six courses from at least three different fields with the important note that language classes and literature classes taught in English within the same department are allowed to count as if they were from different fields. (In other words, an English-language course in Russian literature can count separately from Russian language study).
  2. The REES minor does not require language, but language study is strongly encouraged. Language courses in Russian Studies, German Studies or any relevant language from eastern Europe can count toward the minor.
  3. Maymesters and Study Abroad courses can count with approval from the head of REES and the director of CIS.
  4. Classes that involve a significant component of work (such as a major assignment or research project) in a REES-relevant topic or area may count with the approval of both the course instructor and the head of REES.

As with every minor at Holy Cross, only two courses are allowed to double count for both a major and a minor program.

Sample Courses

Course Catalog
  • Europe & Superpowers:1939-1991
  • Germany in Age of Nationalism
  • Germans, Jews and Memory
  • The Politics of Post-Communism
  • European Political Parties
  • Madness in Russian Literature
  • Tales of Desire
  • Fairytale: Russia & the World
  • 20Th/21st Century Russian Literature
  • Metropolis Berlin
  • Economics of European Union
  • Comparative Economic Systems
  • Beethoven and His World
  • Utopian & Dystopian Worlds
  • Art in the Modern World, 1780 to 1940

Opportunities

Alexander Hamilton Debate Society

Started in 2019, the Alexander Hamilton Society is the only foreign policy-based club on campus. As part of a national organization, the club hosts events that bring speakers to campus, including top government officials and scholars who discuss foreign policy and national security issues — frequently ones related to REES.

Student Clubs & Organizations

Guest Lectures

Students in the REES program have the opportunity to meet in a small group, with faculty, at various times during the academic year to discuss current events. REES sponsors guest lectures of interest to students and faculty, and co-sponsors a variety of events with Peace and Conflict Studies, as well as the Russian Studies, German Studies, History and Political Science programs.

German Klub & Russian Club

The Holy Cross German Klub meets frequently to listen to music, play games, drink coffee and celebrate with mocktails. Club activities are conducted primarily in German. The German Studies Program also hosts historically significant parties to mark holidays such as Oktoberfest or Maifest, German movie nights, dinners, lectures, concerts and field trips.

The Holy Cross Russian Club is one of the most enthusiastic student organizations on campus. Students work closely with faculty members to plan, organize, and run the Russian Film Series, trips to restaurants and Russian cultural events, student performances and celebrations. Club activities are conducted primarily in English and are open to English speakers.

Events Calendar

Maymester in Moscow

Holy Cross faculty supervise an intensive six-week language study in Moscow every summer at the Russian State University for the Humanities (RGGU), for both students with no prior knowledge of Russian and those who have completed a year or two of college study. RGGU is a top university located near the center of Moscow. The city’s rich cultural and historical destinations are easily accessible either by foot or by Moscow’s celebrated metro system. The Moscow program offers students the opportunity to dramatically improve their Russian language skills while they immerse themselves in the everyday life, the arts and culture and the history and political life of today’s Russia.

Maymester in Central Europe

Holy Cross faculty lead an intensive six-week study of the Holocaust every summer called “History, Memory, and the Holocaust.” The course takes students to various sites in Central Europe, including Vilnius, Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Prague and Berlin, where they study both the historical events of World War II and the Holocaust and the ways those events are remembered and commemorated today. Students will visit former ghettos and Jewish heritage museums, explore bustling cities and hidden cemeteries, travel to labor camps and death camps and talk to curators, descendants of survivors and ordinary citizens. They will examine various primary sources in literature and culture, study photos and read eyewitness accounts of death and survival. No language expertise is required.

Summer German Language Study

The Goethe Institut offers four-week language study courses at various cities in Germany. The DAAD German Academic Exchange Service offers scholarships to students and graduates. Sophomores or upper-level students who have completed at least GERM 101/2 can apply.

Learn More About Offered Scholarships

Study Abroad in Germany

Holy Cross participates in a fully immersive, yearlong study abroad program for undergraduates at the University of Bamberg.

Study Abroad Programs

Outcomes

REES graduates have gone on to work in business, law, education, government and national security/foreign policy. Whatever their career path, REES graduates benefit in their jobs from skills they have learned through their interdisciplinary work: how to analyze complex information, understand and compare different points of view, provide deeper context to contemporary events, research difficult problems and reflect on questions of power, human nature and artistic expression of interest to us all.