Slavic Studies

Welcome to the Slavic Studies research guide at Barnard! This guide supports Slavic language & literature learning at Barnard College.

Other helpful resources include:

• Slavic Studies Department at Barnard
• Russian, Eurasian, & East European Studies Research Guide at Columbia​
• University of Pittsburgh Libraries have a thorough list of web resources broken down for each Eastern European country, formerly called REESWeb

Postcard from Wikimedia Commons. Марина Цветаева . Односторонняя почтовая карточка СССР с оригинальной маркой. 1992 год. Дата подписания в печать - 11 июля 1991. Тираж 450 тысяч. Воспроизведен автограф Цветаевой.

While the Barnard-Columbia Slavic Department offers instruction in six Slavic languages and literature (Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Serbian/ Croatian/ Bosnian, and Ukrainian), this guide can be used as a base for any Slavic-related study.

Transliteration - the conversion of a text into a different alphabet - is necessary when researching topics on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia. 

Tip #1: Consult the official tables

Although newer CLIO records for Cyrillic materials are capable of displaying in the original Cyrillic script, a majority of records are transliterated into Roman script using the Library of Congress system. To locate older titles in Russian, you have to search using Roman characters. See screenshot below for an example of transliterated titles.

For non-Roman languages other than Russian, see the ALA-LC Romanization Tables Index, which has lists for each language.

Tip #2: Try variant spellings

Some publishers or authors may use other transliteration systems. This can especially come into play for names. You may see Tchaikovsky also spelled as Tchaikowsky, Čajkowskij, Chaĭkovskiĭ, or Чайковский. Dostoyevsky can become Dostoevskii, Dostoevskij, Достоевский. Uncle Vanya can be Diadia Vania, Dyadya Vanya, Дядя Ваня, etc.