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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2019
In the years since the end of the Second World War American interest in Russia has steadily grown, and Russian studies in the United States have expanded at a rapid rate. In 1956, as the first decade of postwar development in this field drew to a close, a number of those concerned with Russian studies became convinced that a review of the record and a new look at the goals to be sought in the study of Russia would be beneficial. A general assessment of Russian studies in the United States was therefore made by the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies, a body of scholars engaged in research and teaching relating to Russia and Eastern Europe appointed jointly by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council.
1 Ruggles, Melville J. and Mostecky, Vaclav, Russian and East European Publications in Libraries of the United States (Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, Slavic and East European Series, Vol. XX, 1959)Google Scholar.
2 Fisher, H. H., ed., American Research on Russia, with an introduction by Philip E. Mosely (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Black, C. E. and Thompson, John M., eds. American Teaching About Russia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Roberts, Henry L., “Exchanging Scholars with the Soviet Union,” Columbia University Forum, I (Spring, 1958), 28–32 Google Scholar; Black, C. E. and Thompson, John M., “Graduate Study of Russia,” The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. XXX, No. 5 (May, 1959), 246-54Google Scholar; “Report on Graduate Education in Russian Studies,” Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the Association of Graduate Schools in the Association of American Universities (1958), pp. 96-105; Byrnes, Robert F. and Thompson, John M., “Undergraduate Study of Russia and the Non-Western World,” Liberal Education (Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges), Vol. XLV, No. 2 (May, 1950)Google Scholar, !68-83; “Conference on Russian Studies in Secondary Education,” Bulletin of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals, XLIII (March, 1959), 117-215; Robert F. Byrnes, ed., The Non-Western Areas in Undergraduate Education in Indiana (Bloomington; Indiana University Publications, Slavic and East European Series, Vol. XV, 1959).
3 These and subsequent statistics are based on the larger graduate programs in Russian studies, primarily Columbia and Harvard.
4 The members of the Joint Committee since its founding as a committee of the American Council of Learned Societies in 1938 have been: Abram Bergson, 1951—; C. E. Black, 1950—(Secretary, 1950-53, Chairman, 1953-57); Robert F. Byrnes, 1957—(Secretary, 1957—); Percy E. Corbett, 1948-50; Samuel H. Cross, 1938-46 (Chairman, 1939-46); William B. Edgerton, 1951— (Secretary, 1953-57, Chairman, 1957—); Merle Fainsod, 1948— (Chairman, 1950-53); Marvin Farber, 1946-48; H. H. Fisher, 1950-56; Waldemar Gurian, 1951-54; Chauncy D. Harris, 1954—; Charles Jelavich, 1957—; George F. Kennan, 1951-52; Robert J . Kerner, 1948-50; Philip E. Mosely, 1938-51 (Secretary, 1938- 46, Chairman, 1946-50); George R. Noyes, 1938-48 (Chairman, 1938-39); Henry L. Roberts, 1957—; Geroid T. Robinson, 1938-50; Alfred Senn, 1938-48; Marshall D. Shulman, 1957—; Ernest J . Simmons, 1943— (Secretary, 1946-50); S. Harrison Thomson, 1948-51, 1954—; Rene Wellek, 1948-56; Francis J. Whitfield, 1946-48; Sergius Yakobson, 1950—.
5 The Joint Committee has worked closely with Mortimer Graves, executive secretary to 1957, and Frederick H. Burkhardt, president since 1957, of the American Council of Learned Societies; with Pendleton Herring, president, and Bryce Wood, staff associate, of the Social Science Research Council; with the Committee on World Area Research of the Social Science Research Council, in which Geroid T. Robinson represented the Russian field; with the editors of The American Slavic and East European Review, Samuel H. Cross (1941-46), Leonid I. Strakhovsky (1946-47), Ernest J. Simmons (1947-1950), and John N. Hazard (1950—); and with the Inter-University Committee on Travel Grants, headed by Schuyler C. Wallace, Chairman (1956—), and William B. Edgerton (1956-58) and David C. Munford (1958—), Chairmen of the Screening Committee.
6 On June 1, 1954 an ad hoc Subcommittee on East European Studies of the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies presented a report on problems confronting East European studies in the United States; on November 15-17, 1957, a conference on “The American Concern With East Central Europe” was held in New York City under the auspices of the Program on East Central Europe of Columbia University; and a comprehensive Bibliography of American Publications on East Central Europe, 1945-1957 edited by Robert F. Byrnes (Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, Slavic and East European Series, Vol. XI, 1959) is now available.
