Russian

The Russian program at Swarthmore College aims to give students the key to the nation that Winston Churchill in 1939 called “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Historically, the Russian people have made enormous contributions to world culture in music, literature, the arts, film, engineering and the sciences. With its sheer size and wealth of natural resources, today’s increasingly aggressive and powerful Russia is an important global player, for better or worse, making the study of Russia’s language and culture of continuing strategic importance.

Learn more here.

Check out this testimonial from one of our students: "WHY I LOVE STUDYING RUSSIAN AT SWARTHMORE (AND WHY YOU SHOULD TOO)"

Check out our fall courses!

Explore Courses

The Victor Tsoi Wall in Moscow's Arbat District

Tian Shan Mountains in Spring, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Chapel under construction in Poporechnoe, Kazakhstan

Moscow State University by night (Charles Aprile '18)

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Why Study Russian?

1. Russian is the language of the largest country on the planet, spanning 11 time zones across Europe and Asia.
2. With over 270 million speakers worldwide, Russian is the 6th most widely spoken language on the planet.
3. Russian remains the lingua franca of central Asia, and is one of only six official languages at the UN.
4. Russian is designated a Critical Language by the State Department, which means more funding to study the language and more opportunities in the public sector.
5. Russian culture! It's the language of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich, Tarkovsky, Eisenstein, Maleevich, Kandinsky, Chagall...and so many others!

Russian Language Table

*Language Tables will be held virtually for Fall '20!*
Please contact tyordan1@swarthmore.edu for more info.

Native speakers are welcome to attend!

Student Projects

Crime and Punishment: Russian Narratives of Incarceration and Captivity. The Nobel Prize-winning poet Joseph Brodsky once wrote, “A prison or concentration camp is society’s extension.” With its broad historical perspective, this course in turn illuminated numerous aspects of Russian culture through an examination of its prisons, of its narratives of individual and collective captivity, and of related social conflicts from the medieval ages to the post-Soviet era. As part of our efforts to understand the collection of texts that makes up Russia’s long tradition of prison narratives, students in Swarthmore College's Russian 037: Narratives of Incarceration and Captivity have designed a StoryMap. With the exception of some editorial revisions, all commentary in the StoryMap has been produced by students in RUSS037.