In the post-Crimea international arena, the Russian-speaking populations outside of the Russian Federation have once again become a central focus of journalistic enquiries and political analysis. Loyalties and identities of Russophones in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, where they are numerically the largest, and in Latvia and Estonia, where they make proportionally large share of the population, are under scrutiny.

14th annual national graduate student conference presented by REES and GOSECA (Graduate Organization for the Study of Europe and Central Asia).

The nineteenth century saw the explosion of questions: the Eastern, social, Jewish, Polish, worker and many other questions were hotly discussed in representative bodies, at treaty negotiations, and above all in the daily press. Over the course of the next century, these would be conglomerated into still bigger ones—the European, nationality, social, and agrarian questions—even as they fractured into countless smaller ones, like the Macedonian and Schleswig-Holstein questions, and made their way into various fields of human endeavor (there was cotton, oyster, and even a sugar question).

International Career Toolkit Series will be hosting an event this Friday at 12:00-1:30 p.m. in WWPH 4217. Usha E. Pitts will be giving a talk entitled "Careers in Diplomacy". The U.S. Department of State is one of the few employers who will pay you to live and work abroad without requiring a specialized skill. It hires Americans over the age of 20 from all walks of life. If you are attracted to public service and want to live abroad, come learn more about Careers in Diplomacy from Usha Pitts, a diplomat with 19 years in the Foreign Service.

REES graduate student Kathryn Loops gave a presentation about Russian life, language and culture to elementary students at Jubilee Christian School who were starting an instructional unit on Russia.

REES graduate student Kathryn Loops delivered presentations on Russian culture and current affairs to gifted classes at three schools in the Hempfield Area School District (Wendover, Harrold, and West Hempfield Middle Schools).

The Undergraduate Research Symposium (formerly "Europe: East and West") is an annual event since 2002 designed to provide undergraduate students, from the University of Pittsburgh and other colleges and universities, with advanced research experiences and opportunities to develop presentation skills.

Presentation to a high school World Cultures class on how ordinary people engaged with a totalitarian regime in their everyday life during the Communist period in East Central Europe.

Presentation to elementary school students on Ukrainian culture and holiday traditions.

REES students will present crafts, food, and information on holiday traditions from Russia and Eastern Europe at the Carnegie Museum's "Holidays Around the World" event.