Dartmouth to Inaugurate Russian Studies Program

$50,000 grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York to assist new Department of Russian Civilization offering first inter-divisional major in the College's history

STARTING NEXT FALL, the Dartmouth undergraduate will have a greatly expanded opportunity to learn about Russia. In one of the most important curriculum developments in recent years, the College will inaugurate a new Department of Russian Civilization, offering an interdivisional program of Russian studies for the major student and a number of courses for general election. Of special interest among the latter is a new one-semester "Introduction to the Soviet Union."

Uncommon in scope, perhaps unique, for an undergraduate college, the program has received the financial support of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which has made a $50,000 grant to assist Dartmouth in its educational experiment for a three-year period. Part of this grant will be devoted to the training of personnel and to the enlargement of the Baker Library collection in the Russian field.

Although Russian has been taught at Dartmouth since 1918 and courses dealing with imperial and Soviet Russia are also offered, the new program for the first time makes it possible for the Dartmouth undergraduate to major in this field. The expanded and coordinated program is the result of more than two years', work by a special faculty committee appointed by President Dickey in the fall of 1948. It also is the culmination of efforts over a longer period to develop a teaching staff and library resources to support the integrated study program now offered.

The planning committee, in its statement of purpose, declared: "In view of the existing relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, knowledge of the Soviet system is an essential part of the educational experience of American college graduates. As citizens, they must be prepared to make judgments and provide leadership on crucial issues involving the Russian people, with whose culture and political behavior they are relatively unfamiliar. The committee believes that Dartmouth has a responsibility to increase understanding in this vital area."

The major in Russian Civilization will be the first inter-divisional major ever offered at Dartmouth. In addition to members of the faculty teaching courses in the Russian language and literature, professors from the social science departments of history, government, economics, sociology and geography will give individual courses and share in the teaching of the new "Introduction to the Soviet Union" and senior-year seminars.

"The major program is not designed to develop the sort of area specialist more properly trained by the graduate department of a university," President Dickey emphasizes. "Rather, it has been the objective of the committee's study to develop a program which will fit into the context of the general education program of the undergraduate liberal arts college." However, out of the Russian Civilization major are expected to come men with a high otential for further work and effective careers in the field.

Required of majors and also open to general election is the intensive Russian language course which was started this year. This course, meeting nine hours a week and carrying double credit, gives the equivalent of two years of college Russian in one year. Linguaphones and conversational practice with a native-born teacher supplement classroom instruction. In requiring all Russian Civilization majors to take this intensive course, the planning committee acted on the belief that "knowledge of the Russian language is an indispensable instrument for effective study of Russia" and should be made one of the foundation stones of the Dartmouth program.

The one-semester introductory course, required of all majors and open for general election by sophomores, juniors and seniors, will deal primarily with contemporary Russia, and instead of attempting a broad survey will intensively consider a few topics of greatest significance. With relevant historical background, it will take up Marxist ideology, the USSR political and economic structure, and foreign relations. Audio-visual aids will be used and guest lecturers will join the collaborative teaching staff in presenting a variety of points of view in this complex field of study.

Fifteen courses in all are planned for the Russian Civilization curriculum. Like the introductory course, three other new courses—"Soviet Literature" and the senioryear seminars—will place emphasis on present-day Russia. Courses reorganized and broadened for the program are History 27, "The Foreign Policy of Imperial and Soviet Russia"; Government 22, "Government, Politics and Diplomacy of Soviet Russia"; and Geography 19, "Geography of the Soviet Union." Economics 22, "Comparative Economic Systems," which devotes about six weeks to the Soviet economic system, and Sociology 56, "Conflicts in Modern Civilization," which gives substantial attention to Soviet ideology, will be continued in their present form. On the humanities side, continuing courses are "The Russian Revolution," "The Russian Classics" and the intermediate and advanced Russian language courses.

The curriculum laid out for majors by the planning committee has the intensive language course, "Introduction to the Soviet Union," Russian history prior to 1917, and the two senior seminars as requirements common to all men electing the Russian Civilization major. The major then branches in two directions. Men whose greater interest is in the social sciences will take three courses from the group dealing with government, foreign policy, economics, geography, Soviet ideology, and the Russian Revolution, plus one course from the humanities group consisting of third-year and fouth-year Russian, the Russian classics, and Soviet literature. For the humanities specialists the requirements are three courses from the latter group and one from the social sciences. The senior seminars and thesis round out the program.

To serve as the first chairman of the new Department of Russian Civilization, President Dickey has named Dimitri von Mohrenschildt, Professor of Russian History and Literature, who first joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1942 as Visiting Lecturer. Editor of The Russian Review and a former Fellow in Slavic Studies at the Hoover Institute at Stanford, he will teach the courses in history of Russia to 1917. the Russian Revolution, and the Russian classics, and will help teach the two inter- divisional courses, as will all members of the eight-man staff.

The intensive language course and the new course in Soviet literature are to be taught by John N. Washburn '46, Instructor in the Russian Language and Literature, who took his Dartmouth degree with highest honors in Russian and for four years, 1946-50, did graduate work at the School of Advanced International Studies and at the Russian Institute of Columbia University. He has been teaching

the intensive language course this year. John C. Adams, Professor of History, an authority on the Balkans, will teach "The Foreign Policy of Imperial and Soviet Russia." He is a specialist on Yugoslavia, in which country he has studied and traveled extensively.

The course in "Government, Politics and Diplomacy of Soviet Russia" will be taught by H. Gordon Skilling, Assistant Professor of Government, a specialist on Czechoslovakia. A Ph.D. from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies of the University of London, he studied at Prague from 1937 to 1939 and returned to Czechoslovakia in 1948 on a grant from the Social Science Research Council. Last year he was a Senior Fellow at the Russian Institute of Columbia University.

Trevor Lloyd, Professor of Geography, an authority on the geography of the Arctic, will teach "Geography of the Soviet Union." Formerly Canadian consul in Greenland, he is now on leave to make a special study of the geography and administration of Greenland for the Danish government.

Raymond W. Jones, Professor of German and Instructor in Russian, who has taught Russian at Dartmouth since 1918, will give the third- and fourth-year language courses.

Earl R. Sikes, Professor of Economics, will continue his course on "Comparative Economic Systems," a subject on which he has written a standard textbook. Rees H. Bowen, Professor of Sociology, will similarly relate his existing course on "Conflicts in Modern Civilization" to the Russian program. Both professors will also teach in the collaborative courses.

The native-born conversationalist in the intensive language course is Mrs. Nadezhda Koroton, Assistant in Russian, who came to Dartmouth last fall. Mrs. Koroton taught Russian language, literature and history courses in her native land for 14 years and after World War II taught Russian in Germany. She and her daughter came to America in 1949 under the auspices of the International Refugee Organization.

Professors Adams, Jones,. Sikes, Skilling and von Mohrenschildt were members of the Russian Civilization planning committee, which included also John G. Gazley, Professor of History, and Professor Donald H. Morrison, Dean of the Faculty, who served as chairman.

RUSSIAN CIVILIZATION TEACHERS: Prof. Dimitri von Mohrenschildt, chairman of the new department watches as Mrs. Nadezhda Koroton and John N. Washburn '46 make a tape recording for the intensive', language course.