Past Events

This annual national competition provides US high school, middle school, and college students the opportunity to demonstrate their Russian language knowledge while meeting with other students of Russian and conversing with native Russian speakers. Students will receive recognition for their demonstrated language proficiency, improve their chances of getting international and study abroad scholarships, and enhance their professional resume. Saturday, March 25, 2023 | In-Person Participation
All students participating in the Olympiada of Spoken Russian must have a sponsor, who will register the student in advance of the event and chaperone the student at the event. Registration Deadline: Monday, February 20, 2023
To register your school, please complete the school registration form, and please use the student registration form to enter your students in the competition. Questions?
Olga Klimova | vok1@pitt.edu

This event has been canceled.

In the fifth installment of the Global Issues Through Literature Series (GILS), educators will convene to discuss Daria: A Roma Women's Journey, a full graphic novel based on fieldwork conducted in Eastern Europe highlighting some of the issues that Roma women face everyday. GILS is a reading group for K-16 educators to literary texts from a global perspective. Content specialists present the work and its context, and participants brainstorm innovative pedagogical practices for incorporating the text and its themes into the curriculum. This year’s theme is Graphic Novels in Global Context: Social Justice Through Illustration and Text. See registration for more information!

From 1941 to 1945, Germany aged a war of extermination on the Soviet Union. This war produced many images: in propaganda posters, the opponents emphasised their own strength while at the same time defaming the enemy as the spawn of evil; both sides attempted to create trust virtually, encouraging the enemy's soldiers to defect. Konrad Tschäpe will show how these images of the other were entangled and communicated with each other- despite the destruction, violence, and war crimes committed.

Impact Beyond the Ivory Tower is the fourth panel of the Decolonization in Focus Series. The Russian war in Ukraine has had innumerable impacts, from personal to political, local, national, and global. One of the many sea changes wrought by the war has been the reckoning within Slavic/Russian & Eurasian Studies over the outsized role Russia has played and continues to play in the field and what could and should be done about it. The invited panelists in this series will consider the relationships of power that have long dominated the region, how they have impacted the field of study, and what, if anything, could and should be done about it. The series will have six wide-ranging panels featuring speakers from various disciplines and institutions. Panelists and participants will be encouraged to consider why decolonizing Russian & Eurasian studies matters, how to implement concrete change in their classrooms, and how to conceive of the future of expertise within the field. All sessions will be convened using Zoom, live-streamed via YouTube, and recorded to be made available for later viewing.

In this session of the UCIS Career Toolkit, our guest is an editor for Yen Press with experience working with some of the biggest names in tech. Join us for this discussion of how you can find your own career in publishing and/or translation. Co-hosted by the Asian Studies Center.

Learn the history of Mărțișor and join the members of the Romanian Room committee to make your own and for your friends. Learn more about this Romanian tradition which falls on March 1 of every year during which the gifting of a red and white string attached to a small piece of jewelry or a flower is believed to bring health and luck to the wearer. Learn about mărțișoare and making them. You will also be able to purchase authentic mărțișoare, Romanian pastries, enjoy an exhibition of traditional Romanian costumes and shirts, and connect with members of the Romanian Room Committee.