DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 130 519
AUTHOR
TITLE
PUB DATE
NOTE
AVAILABLE FROM
EDRS PRICE
DESCRIPTORS
IDENTIFIERS
PI. 008 090
Starr, S. Frederick; Boisture, J. Bruce
Russian and Soviet Studies in the United States: A
Review.
72
70p.
American Association for the Advancement of Slavic
Studies, Ohio State University, 190 W. 19th Avenue,
Columbus, Ohio 43210 ($3.50)
HF-$0.83 HC-S3.50 Plus Postage.
*Area Studies; College Curriculum; Cultural
Awareness; Cultural Education; Curriculum Planning;
Ethnology; Higher Education; *History; Language
Enrollment; Language Instruction; Language Programs;
Language Research; Language Teachers; Modern Language
Curriculum; Modern Languages; Politics; Professional
Training; Research Needs; *Russian; *Russian
Literature; Second Language Learning; Slavic
Languages;- *State of the Art Reviews; Teacher
Education
*Soviet Studies
ABSTRACT
This study was prepared to provide a convenient
compendium of data for those participating in a conference on
"Russian and Soviet Studies in the United States" heli. at the
Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, Neu Jersey, in May, 1972.
The purpose of the conference and of the study was to assess the
state of teaching and research on the U.S.S.R. in the United States
and to suggest means of improving them. The study is based on
extensive interviews with leaders of the field of Soviet studies, on
a review of the files of leading funding agencies, and on
quantitative data on the field compiled by scholarly organizations in
the field. Sharp declines in both Russian language and area studies
have been registered during the last four years, and these declines
are greater than the general decline in language enrollments. The
broad picture revealed by the study includes two basic features: (1)
the increasing concentration of major libraries and documentary
resources in a few leading centers after a period of expansion at
dozens of libraries and archival collections around the United
States; and (2) the increasing decentralization of scholarly
expertise on the U.S.S.R., to the extent that competent researchers
are located at dozens of institutions in the United States. In
addition to calling for a general renewal of support for training and
reaserch in the area, the study stressed the need for a greater
degree of coordination of scholarly efforts. (Author/CFH)
Documents acquired by ERIC hiclude many informal unpublished materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every
effort to obtain the best copy avaliable. Nevertheless, items of marginal reprooucibility are often encountered and this affects the
quality of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS).
EDRS is not responsible for the quality of the original document. Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from
the original.
s
SCOPE OP INTEDE4T NOTICE
-
1 Ill ERIC Facility AN au.smd
ON document .t.pIO11wno
to.
In ma indgenont. shut decums.4
IS IMO .0 intecest V the Cleattoghouses twoltd tO the 119M,14414)1.
149 should collect them ip41140
&cults
a 4tew,
Russian
and Sovtet
Studies in
the United
States
u S DEPARTMENTOF HEALTN,
Eta/CATION& WELFARE
RATIONAL INSTtTuTE oP
EDUCATION
THIS DOCUMENT HAS SEEN REPRO.
%/CEO EXACTLY AS RECEIVE0 PROM
THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN
ATIRO IT POPFTS OP VIEW OR OPHFIONS
STATEO 00 NOT NECESSARILY %SORESENT OFFICIAL RATIONAL INSTITUTE OP
SOIXATION POSITION OR POLICY
2
r
RUSSIAN AND SOVIET STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES;
A REVIEW
May, 1972
.11
S, Frederick Starr
with
J. Bruce Boisture
This report was prepared at the request of Professor
George F. Kerman of the Institute for Advanced Studies
in Princeton. Its first purpose is to provide a convenient compendium of data, most of it heretofore available but widely dispersed, for the benefit of those
participating in a "Conference on Russian and Soviet
Studies" held at the Institute for Advanced Studies on
Hay 12-13, 1972. Its second purpose is to present these
same. data to other specialists in the field, as well as
to interested members of the public. The authors wish
to express their gratitude to those numerous scholars
and officials who have so kindly shared with them their
xnowledge and experience. They are also indebted to the
Rockefeller Foundation for its support of the research on
which the report is based. Finally, two notes on the conclusions sprinkled throughout the study: first, their purpose is not so much to prescribe a course of action as to
stimulate discussion on issues where action will be necessary; second, it goes without saying that for these conelusions the authors alone bear responsibility.
3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
An Overview of Funding
I.
Introduction:
II.
Training
Language Training
A.
I.
Russian
2,
Other Soviet Languages
B.
Area Training
1.
Institutions
2,
Evaluation
C.
Immediate Goals and Future Planning
1,
Immediate Goals: Area Training
2,
Immediate Goals: Language Training
3,
Long Range Goals and Future Planning
Research
Support Facilities
A.
I.
Bibliography
2,
Data Banks
3,
Archives
4,
Publishing
5,
Scholarly Exchanges
6,
Libraries
7,
Research Centers
Research Projects
B.
C.
Research Prioriies
IV,
1
6
7
7
11
12
12
16
19
20
21
22
32
33
36
36
37
38
41
44
48
53
57
Conclusions
Appendix I
63
Appendix II
66
4
1
I. INTRODUCTION
AN OVERVIEW ON FUNDING
Russian and Soviet studies might easily be overlooked
amidst the vast budget of America's so.called "knowledge in.
dustry".
They are but one component of the larger field of
foreign area studies, and those area studies as a group claim
at best a modest share of the resources devoted to education
and research in the humanities and social sciences.
An
approximation of the total bill for the fiscal year 1971 would
be on the order of 59,9 million dollars (See Appendix I),
the cost of about 36 miles of interstate highway.1
This figure covers matters of no small significance.
We depend on this sum to maintain facilities with which to
acquaint Americans with the Russian language, to prepare the
nation's teachers of Russian and Soviet studies, to groom
specialists on the Russian area for posts in government and
industry and to carry out fundamental research on Soviet
society, culture, and government.
Given the prominence of
the Soviet Union in world affairs today, the importance of
these functions can scarcely be exaggerated:
together they
provide American society with the knowledge and expertise to
deal effectively with all aspects of one of the most powerful and complex nations on earth.
Fc.r a decade and a half the size of the national in-
5
2
vestment in Russian and Soviet studies has been a topic of
public concern.
Area studies developed after World War II with
the help of investment by the federal government and foundations.
After INS,Joundation_investment was curtailed and federal
.
s2522EX...in 1968 was put on an.....
annual and emergency basis.
It had
Llways been assumed that the institutions would eventually have
to cover these costs, but when the time came to do so the
universities themselves were in straiiitened circumstances,
which are unrelieved to this day.
continued at many levels.
Meanwhile, the debate has
2
Three problems combine to render it extremely difficult to
assume a well-informed position in such disdussions.
First,
is the fact that funds are derived not from two sources alone
but from four.
Although National Defense Education Act (NDEA)
funds have received the bulk of public attention since Sputnik,
that source, on the average, has never provided more than
about 13% of the budgets of the major centers of Russian studies
and none for secondary centers;
3
the rest derives from founda-
tions and especially from state revenues and internal institutional resources, which constitute the backbone of support
for the field as a whole.
Second, is the difficulty arising
from the dispersal of these monies among literally hundreds
of institutions of the most diverse sorts.
And third, in the
field of knowledge production, as Fritz Machlup put it, "no
possible measure of output can be conceived that would be
logically separate from a measure of input."4
6
Stated simply/
3
it is all but impossible to measure what you get for your
money.
The principal concern of the following review is not to
demonstrate the need either to raise or lower total expenditure on the field as t whole.
On the contrary, decisions taken
at that level of generality are bound to result in misdirected
energy and waste.
Instead, let us divide the total field into
its constituent parts and consider the present performance
and needs of each separately.
There are numerous aspects of Soviet studies and one can
conceive of many categories under which to arrange them.
The
distinction which we would like to stress is between those
functions which serve primarily the needs of training, and those
which relate first to research.
Under training would be in-
cluded anything involving the-communication of present knowledge and skills to students or to the public at large,
while
research would cover all efforts directed towards expanding
that knowledge or the analytic means through which it is acquired.
These headings provide the major divisions of this
report.
In making such a distinction we do not intend to weaken,
let alone deny, the ideal of the teacher-scholar.
Rather, such
categories simply take cognisance of the fact that most
specialists derive funds for teaching from one set of institutions, and for intensive research from another, or at least
from another budget.
Both functions can and probably should
be combined in the same person,
but for purposes of analysis
it is desirable to distinguish clearly between them.
Such a distinction might be drawn at all levels, and
particularly in those institutions which setpriorities in
During the past year, for example, discussions
the field.
have been held in which training and research have been
treated as competing interests,
they are
when in reality, of course,
quite distinct, but complementary.
Were this
distinction to be more thoroughly institutionalized, it could
well lead to a more harmonious and balanced development
of the field.
8
FOOTNOTES: INTRODUCTION
1.
Based on total mileage and projected total cost of the
National Defense Interstate Highway System, as reported
in U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, 68:9 (March 2, 1970), P.34.
2.
For a review of this general issue see Irwin T. Sanders,
A Crisis of Dollars: The Funding Threat to International
Affairs in U.S. Higher Education, Education and World Affairs,
New York, 1968, p. 31 f.
3.
Information supplied by the Office of Education, Institute
of International Studies. Total NDEA Title Vi support for
Soviet and East European Language and Area Centers, 1959-1972;
Center budgets, fiscal year 1969.
4.
Fritz Machlup, The Production and Distribution of Knowledge
in the United States, Princeton, 1962, p. 44.
9
6
II. TRAINING
Ir4niag taken in the broadest sense, is the largest
single element in foreign area studies in general and Russian
studies in particular.
The total sum devoted to language prep-
aration and general teaching at all levels, from grade schools
to graduate programs, is approximately eighty-five_percerEt
of the total Russian and Soviet studies budget,
From the
training programs come most specialists who later engage in
fundamental research.
The same programs prepare those who
will make known the discoveries of fundamental research to
the educated public at large.
By its nature, training in Russian and Soviet studies
is especially difficult to assess.
Compared to research, it
takes place in far more diverse institutional settings, from
inner city schools to the Foreign Service Institute,
In
addition, the range of tasks under the heading of training
in Russian studies is extremely broad, with introductory
language classes at one extreme and the preparation of teachers of graduate level Soviet economics at the other.
Let us,
therefore, review separately the two major components of
training
language preparation and area studies -- and con-
clude with a consideration of future training needs,
10
e
e"
7
A.
1.
"LANGUAGE TRAINING
Russian
Few assumptions about the Russian studies field as a
whole seem more firmly rooted in public thinking than the be-
lief that since the National Defense Education Act of
1958 the study of Russian has become general throughout the
country.
Nor is this view confined to non-specialists.
Funding bodies no longer consider Russian to be on the "critical list" of underdeveloped foreign languages, and have
shifted the focus of their attention to other more exotic
tongues of Africa and Asia.
The following data for the years 1960 to 1970 indicate
that the gains have been far less impressive than may be
supposed4.
REGISTRATION IN RUSSIAN AT ALL
U.S. INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING
1960
1965
1968
1970
Enrollments
30,570
33,710
40,696
36,189
Index (1960= 100)
100
110.3
133.1
118.4
Index; all enroll- 100
ment in higher education (1960:100)
154.2
209.7
236.8
Spot checks at
major institutions indicate that the de-
cline shown here continues in 1971-2.
11
8
)
r
I
..-,
In the high schools the decline of study of the Russian
.
language has been even more dramatic than in higher education.
All enrollments
(Grades 7 -12)
1965
1968
1970
32,027
28,605
22,872
Fourteen states in 1970 reported no students studying Russian
at the secondary level, while another nine reported fifty or
less; of these states, eleven were in the Plains and the
South.
In higher education twelve states, all in the Plains
and the South, teach fewer than one hundred students.
The
only three states with more than two thousand students studying Russian in secondary school in 1970 were New York,
Pennsylvania, and Illinois.
Of these, New York and Pennsyl-
vania, along with California, are the leaders in college
level teaching of the language as well.
Clearly, then, the
opportunity to study the Russian language is very unequally
distributed across the country at all levels of education.
One of the very few institutions that is teaching
more R4ssian today than five years ago is the Unil.ed States
government.
True, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) in
Arlington has not expanded its activities and is still turning out only ten.trainees per annum tc .-..atisfy the needs of
all civilian branches of the federal government.
But the
Defense Language Institute at Mi.aterey is produciv
12
over
2
five hundred graduates a year after a lull in the late 1960/s,
and projects nearly a thousand by 1973.3
Given the fact that
the immersion program at this institution provides in a year
what an academic program
can provide in only five or more
years, these figures are the more significant.
A feature of Russian language training is the low rate
of carry-over from high-school programs into college language
programs, and from college to graduate school.
cise data on this phenomenon do
Though pre-
not exist, it has been ob-
served by Joe Malik, Jr., Secretary-Treasurer of the American
Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
(AATSEEL) and by Richard D. Lambert, author of a Itssort on
Lan ua e and Area plagava commissioned by the Office of
Education.4
For numerous reasons, pupils who start Russian
in high schoilare little inclined to continue it in college.
Hence, the number of students who ever reach advanced courses
is especially small.
This is reflecttd in the small number
of Americans of non-Russian background who have achieved
interpreter level competence through channels other than the
Army school at Monterey.
In brief, Russian language training is in a pronounced
decline which shows no signs of abating.
The full impact of
this trend will be felt during the next three to five years
as the number of arm-trained language specialists increases
vis-h-vis those trained in schools and univeristies.
13
Without
n
/0,;(014:447
/- /
-t4.11
24 Mertka) /d7
tiit Pt/ixaik
144,:c
,
tAtt
,w4(
-10
r.:ct
e/
avtempting to elucidate the many factors contributing to this
trend it would be well to.point out one of its important
aspects, namely, the extent to which this is a development
peculiar to the Russian language.
Experience at many campuses
has shown that the abolition of language requirements affects
Russian less than other major languages.
Nonetheless, among
the five leading modern languages studied in the United States,
Russian has shown the least total growth since 1960 and the
sharpest decline since 1968:5
INDEX OF GROWTH (1960=100)
French
German
Italian
Russian
Spanish
1965
1968
1970
162.4
146.4
205.7
110.3
173.7
169.6
148.0
272.5
133.1
204.2
157.0
138.6
307.3
118.4
217.7
11m."1110
.11111IMII
174.7
171.6
.111=1.1
159.9
Total
PERCENT OF GROWTH BETWEEN SURVEYS
1960-63
French
German
Italian
Russian
Spanish
Total
32.1
25.0
51.4
9.7
38.0
0.11
31.3
1963-65
23.0
17.1
35.8
0,5
25.8
1966-68
1968-70
4.4
1.1
32.5
20.7
17.6
-7.4
-6.3
12.8
-11.1
9.2
-1.8
6.7
=11=1.
21.8
It is interesting, at the same time, to see that the nine
less commonly taught foreign languages (Arabic, Chinese,
Hebrew, Polish, etc.) all registered from 40 to 500% growth
14
11
in the decade 1960-1970, though, of course, beginning at lower
bases.
6
Today, Russian is a smaller compopnt of Voreign
language inst.action than it was at the time of Sputnik.7
PERCENTAGE DISTRIBUTION OF
THE FIVE LeADING MODERN LANGUAGES
1960-70
French
German
Italian
Russian
Spanish
1960
1966
1968
1970
38.4
24.6
39.0
22.6
2.4
3.6
32.6
37.3
20.8
2.9
3.9
36.2
19.8
36.1
38.1
1.9
6.1
30.0
To concluile, Russian is as yet unable
3.4
3.6
compete success-
fully with the major languages offered in American schools,
nor is it maintaining the growth levels of the "exotic" tongues.
Having signed out of the critical ward, it can not yet
live a normal life on the outside.
2.
Other Soviet Languages
Of the two-hundred secondary languages and dialects of
the U.S.S.R., nine are taught in the United States:
Armenian,
Chuvash, Estonian, Georgian, Kirghiz, Latvian, Lithuanian,
Ukrainian and Uzbek.
8
Total registration in these languages
at undergraduate and graduate levels in the autumn of 1970
was 124 students.
Of the languages of the U.S.S.R. proper
only Armenian and Ukrainian had more than six students in
15
12
In addition, Turkish and Rumanian are
training in 1970.
taught to 170 and 13 students respectively, giving some access
to related languages and dialects in the U.S.S.R.
9
To be sures these figures do not comprise the entire
corps
of Americans trained in the exotic languages of the
U4S.S.R.
Radio Liberty has on its staff specialists in a
total of seventeen minority languages and many of these people are American citizens.
Furthermore, there are many sons
and daughters of immigrant parents who have learned minority
tongues at home.
Perhaps tor this reason the NDEA and NDFL
programs have devoted scant attention to the non-Russian
languages of the Soviet republics.
In 1970 NDEA centers were
training only 27 of the 127 students of these languages,
the
reStbeing supported at non-center institutions.
B.
1,
AREA TRAINING
Institutions
Arec studies programs exist at undergraduate and graduate schools and to a very limited extent in high schools and
government institutions,
They have as their purposes a)
general educations b) the preparation of men and women for
careers requiring a broad acquaintance with the life and
culture of Russia and the U,S.S.R., c) the training of
future teachers of Russian area studies, and d) early prep-
16
13
aration of future research specialists.
Programs leading to
the BA and MA serve the first of these functions, while MA
and PhD programs serve the latter three.
Degree granting programs in Russian area studies exist
on eighty-three American campuses,
10
Sixty-three of these
operate almost entirely on state and private funds, while
twenty receive subsidization ranging from $26,000 to $186,000
each (or from 6% to 36% of their budgets) from the NDEA
program.
11
avit
NDFIfiare available in principle to all insti-
tutions teaching languages, but are in fact received at only
taenty-two.
Exhaustive statistics on the numbers of degrees awarded
at each level existonly for the twenty NDEA centers.
Though
these institutions granted 70% of Ithe PhDs in the area for
1969,
12
their proportion of total training in Russian studies
would probably decline at the MA level and still more markedly
for BAs.
Output at the twenty NDEA centers at all levels
for the decade after 1960 was 5,666 BAs, 2,514 MAs and 737
PhDs, which constitutes the single largest group of area
specialists prepared by all NDEA programs.
The number of
degree recipients at these institutions rose steadily to
1970, a trend which was paralleled on most of the other 63
campuses with Russian area programs.
Even though NDEA in-
stitutional grants fell for two years before fiscal 1972,
the combined total budgets for all Title VI centers have
17
14
registered a slight growth, suggesting a firm commitment to
area studies by at least some of the host universities,
At the sams time, strong evidence that Russian area
study programs have reached a critical juncture cannot be
ignored.
To some extent the high enrollments since 1969
are illusory, since they reflect interests generated by
language study before that time. The reduction in language
study is bound t,-) reduce the pool of students from which
area specialists can be drawn in the future.
This, along
with other factors, has already contributed to a sharp drop
in enrollments in Soviet area courses at ten of the twenty
NDEA centers.
In 1970-1971 total NDEA enrollments (excluding
language) fell by four percent from the previous year, but
at ten of the centers the decline was
6403 Soviet
ani
East European studies, incidentally, were the only area
programs patronized by NDEA to show any decline at all.
Those institutions lacking a firm commitment to Soviet
area studies and to the language training that makes them
possible will experience similar difficulties as soon as the
reduction in Russian language study is felt.
Either they will
maintain their programs at the superficial level which foreign
language illiteracy necessitates, or they will pare them down
as serioUs demand declines.
Some institutions, such as the
State University of New York, which reduced the staff of its
International Studies Division from fifteen to two, seem
18
15
already to have taken a decision on this matter.
Otliers can
be expected to do so as circumstances dictate.
2.
Evaluation
Turning now to the substantive aipects of Soviet area
studies, it is well ai the outset to take note of the success
of major centers in integrating language study into their
programs.
Richard Lambert, in his comparative study of all
foreign arga programs in the nationsfound that graduates in
the Soviet and the East Europe area (mostly Russian) were
relatively better equipped linguistically than those of other
world regions.
Furthermore, on the whole the graduates arc
relatively well travelled in the nations whose life and cul-.
ture they study.
14
The large quantities of students to re-
ceive first hand exposure to the U.S.S.R. must be attributed
in part to the expanded possibilities for tourism there.
But the quality of their introduction to Soviet life is a
measure of the work of the International Research and Exchange Board and of the eighteen summer study tours origin.
ating on American campuses and staffed by qualified specialists.
15
Together, such programs perform the valuable task
of presenting the Soviet Union to students in the most concrete terms possible.
Three qualifications might be entered on the general
success of the irea programs.
19
First, the very unequal dis-
16
tribution of teaching personnel among the various disciplines
renders it all but inevitable that certain aspects of Russian
and Soviet studies should be stressed at the expense of others.
To a far greater extent then any other world area, Russian
studies are dominated by history and by language and litera.
ture.
This fact, nofed by Ivo J. Lederer (among others) in
his Report of the Committee on the Future, (1968),16 is drama..
tically presented by the figures on the
discinar7
composi-
tion of the membership of the American A3sociation for the
Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS),17
History
Literature and Language
International Relations
Political Science
Economics
Geography
Law
Sociology
Education
Philosophy
Anthropology
Arts
Journalism
Religion
Demography
Psychology
Archaeology
Natural Sciences
39.7%
16.6
14.0
11.3
4.4
2.0
1.6
1.6
146
1.6
44C
.6
.4
.3
.2
.2
2,3
Library
100.0%
Since all but 13% of these specialists hold academic posts,
we may take this as a fair profile of the manpower pool for
Russian and East European area studies.
The trends which
it discloses would only be reinforced with the addition of
20
,'
17
those fifteen hundred members of the American Association of
Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages (AATSEEL)
who are not also members of AAASS.
The overwhelming majorLty of specialists in the Russian
area are thus clustered around the concerns of history, poll..
tics, literature, and linguistics.
It is natural and indeed
beneficial that this should be the case, or, at least, that
it should have been the case until now.
For a knowledge of
the language, literature and history of a people provides an
invaluable foundation upon which to base further studies.
But alone they are not capable of providing the fully rounded
understanding of the U.S.S.R. which area studies trainees
have a right to expect, nor can concentration on these areas
at the exclusion of others be salutary even for these disciplines themselves.
This one-sidedness has been a subject for concern in
the field for nearly a decade but improvement has been slow
in coming.
Figures on the disciplinary foci of current
graduate students indicate that no major changes at the faculty
level can be expected for at least three to four years, ar.d
it will require several years after that for the first students of these young specialists to emerge.
Though the In-
ternational Research and Exchange Board (IREX) is working
vigorously to stimulate interest in sociology, social psychology, anthropology, etc., the fruits of that campaign may
21
not appear until even farther in the future.
A second qualification to the generally impressive record of Soviet area training programs is that for the most
part they are not truly Soviet but narrowly Great Russian
in scope.
above.
Linguistic aspects of this problem have been noted
Let,us here simply take note of the fact that existing
knowledge on the national and ethnic sub-groups of the U$S,S.R.
has yet to be adequately incorporated into the textbooks and
course syllabi in use in most training programs.
The forma-
tion of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies
three years ago, andpore recently, of the Association for
the Study of the Nationalities (U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe),
as well as the nationalities programs at the University of
Washington, UCLA, and in Columbia's Program in Spviet Nationalities Studies, all may lead to improvements in this situation, but this will depend on the extent to which these and
other such bodies perceive their task in terms of influencing training in Soviet area studies.
Until they do, trainees
will be denied contact with an important and to some extent
unique.aspect of Russia's historical development, and of the
Soviet Union's present social structure.
A third qualification to the success of area training
has been the failure to adjust programs to actual career
needs.
Over 7,000 people have completed doctorates in the
Russian-Soviet area, each of them devoting from one to six
19
years to highly specialized research dissertations.
Of these people
scarcely a quarter have published anything at all and by no means all
of these consider themselves to be primarily research scholari.18
The vast majority of PhD recipients have retrained themselves as
Soviet area generalists in order to make their contribution as
teacher:a.
The long dissertation is doubtless an excellent preparation for the
.scholar.teacher,
but it is a costly burden for those whose deepest
interests lie in communicating existing knowledge to students at our
burgeoning colleges and universities.
The direct and indirect costs
of supporting just the two final years.of dissertation research over
the past decade and a half may reach ten million dollars.
A promising alternative to this pattern may lie in the Doctor of
Arts degree newly instituted at Ohio State University.
designed to prepare teachers for advanced levels,
This degree,
will require high
attainments in area and discipline study but not the lengthy dissertation.
The experiment may prove worthy of emulation if area studies expand
significantly in junior colleges and other two.year institutions.
C.
TRAINING: IMMEDIATE GOALS AND FUTURE PLANNING
To alter.the development of the field so as to meet
23
20
these needs and others which may arise in the future will
require certain adjustments in the present pattern of resource allocations.
Some of these modifications are extremely
modest and would require no gross additions to present funds
for training.
Other demands may appear later, however, which
could only be met by more basic changes in the overall level
of training support.
It is therefore important to consider
here both short term measures to satisfy immediate demands
and also those means by which longer range needs may be identified and met.
1.
Immediate Goals:
1.
Area Traizim
THE PRIMARY SHORT RANGE NEEDS IN AREA TRAINING
ARE TO INTRODUCE A BROADER RANGE OF DISCIPLINARY FOCI INTO THE CURRICULA AND TO BROADEN
RUSSIAN STUDIES TO INCLUDE OTHER NATIONALITIES
OF THE U.S.S.R.
AT PRESENT, THE IREX PROGRAM
OFFERS THE MOST PROMISING CHANNEL TO MEET BOTH
OF THESE,
ENCOURAGEMENT MIGHT BE GIVEN TO IREX
AND ITS MAJOR FUNDING SOURCES TO EXPAND EFFORTS
TO TRAIN PERSONS IN NEGLECTED DISCIPLINES, AS
WELL AS TO PROMOTE NATIONAL AREA STUDIES.
2,
SINCE THE LEAD TIME BETWEEN IRIX TRAINING AND
CURRICULAR CHANGE MAY BE AS GREAT AS FIVE YEARS,
21
OTHER EFFORTS SHOULD BE MADE FOR THE IMMEbIATE
FUTURE.
ENCOURAGEMENT MIGHT BE GIVEN TO INDI-
VIDUAL TEACHERS IN THE SOVIET AREA TO TAKE A
SEMESTER TO "RETOOL" EITHER IN A RELATED DISCIPLINE OR IN THE STUDY OF A NON-RUSSIAN REGION
.OF THE U.S.S.R.
THE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
COMMITTEE OF THE AAASS
MIGHT MAKE KNOWN SOURCES
OF SUPPORT FOR SUCH RETRAINING, AND MIGHT EX'PLORE THE POSSIBILITY OF SPECIAL FUNDS FOR THIS
PURPOSE.
2 .
Immediate Goals: Lagjae rrainin
1.
LEAVING ASIDE FOR NOW THE NUMBERS OF LANGUAGE
TRAINEES NEEDED, LET US NOTE THAT WITH THE DROPS
IN ENROLLMENT THE PER CAPITA COSTS OF TRAINING
GIVEN THIS, AND GIVEN THE FACT
ARE RISING.
THAT RUSSIAN IS THE MOST DEMANDING OF THE FIVE
MAJOR LANGUAGES TAUGHT IN THE UNITED STATES, IT
MIGHT BE TIMELY TO CONSIDER THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
A COOPERATIVE "RUSSIAN LANGUAGE CENTER" TO PROVIDE
ONE SEMESTER OR YEARLONG IMMERSION COURSES
FOR STUDENTS FROM A NUMBER OF PARTICIPATING INSTITUTIONS.
19
PATTERNED ALONG THE LINES OF THE
MONTEREY SCHOOL, SUCH A CENTER WOULD ASSURE THAT
25
22
THERE WOULD BE A BODY OF CIVILIAN.TRAINED.LANGUAGE
EXPERTS, WHATEVER NATIONAL ENROLLMENT TRENDS MAY
BE.
STUDENTS WOULD MOVE THERE FOR A FIXED PERIOD
WITH THE REASONABLE ASSURANCE (Ntili LACKING IN MANY
LANGUAGE PROGRAMS) OF EMERGING AT THE END WITH A
SOLID GROUNDING IN THE LANGUAGE.
3,
Long.:Range Goale and Future Plannini
It ie impossible to make well informed decisions at
any level on the future development of the field of Russian
and Soviet studies without complete and reliable information
of two sorts.
First, data on present manpower resources
must be available, and second, projections on future manpower needs must be made, if only in general terms.
Such information is so critical that without it one is
at a loss to evaluate Russian and Soviet area.training to
date.
Note has been made of the recent sharp decli
in
Russian language study, and the parallel reductions in area
training.
Are these to be regretted?
Should measures be
taken to reverse these trends?
Considerable evidence of an impressionistic nature can
be harbored to argue that present demand has in fact been
satisfied, and that it would be vain to encourage expansion
of training in any quarter.
Three fourths of the alumni of
26
23
the BA lani.age program at Indiana University are emOloyed in
posts which do not tap their .Zussian skills while half of the
an alumni of Boston College's MA program in Russian studies
are now working in banking and industry.
Some of the latter
group are surely calling on skills and knowledge gained during graduate study.
'Even if they were not, one would have
no grounds for doubting the personal benefits which their
studies brought them, any more than one would in the case
of the 'Indiana BAs.
But in neither case was societal demand
great enough to atTract them to careers that would utilize
their area skill, and if such demand existed at all it was
too weak to compete successfully with alternatives.
As
evidence that the current demand has been satisfiedtone
might also cite thos.. United States PhDs teaching in Canada
and Australia and the difficulty experienced by many other
recent PhDs in finding employment at the level for which
they were trained.
In the absence of information to the contrary, we are
inclined to give credence to this evidence.
But such im-
pressions do not constitute data upon which policy could or
should be based,
Where, then$ is such data to be found?
Seven organs presently collect information on the
current state of Russian and SoViet area training.
The
2,400 member AAASS regularly pui:lishes lists of doctoral
dissertations in the field.
It does not, however, prepare
27
Zit
similar registries by discipline of MA and BA trainees, nor
does it have the facilities to follow up on careers even of
PhDs.
A sample of its membership indicates that only 3%
teach in high schools, so the AAASS as presently constituted
would have difficulty reaching the full field.
The Associ-
ation of Teachers of'Slavic and East European Languages is
also interested in collecting certain information from its
membership, but this group, 'too, includes few high school
teachers.
Another source of data is the Institute of International
Studies of the Office of Education.
Its information is
comprehensive for the centers which it supports, but since
such centers are only a small (and diminishing) part of the
field, data on them alone will necessarily be quite inadequate.
More complete are the holdings of the Educational
Resources Information Center (ERIC), though these data tend
not to be sufficiently disaggregated for more detailed uses.
The American Association of State Colleges and Universities
(AASCU) maintains files on foreign area studies which could
be consulted in the future, and the American Council of
Education (ACE) is also forming an Office of International
Education which will compile data on existing programs at
its member campuses.
Comprehensive information on language training is
regularly released by the Foreign Language Survey Bureau
28
25
of the Modern Language Association (MLA).
In their icope and
accuracy these are probably among the most satifactory data
on any aspect of the Russian and Soviet fields, and should
be more fully utilized by the profession.
1.
IT IS STRIKING THAT NO GROUP CrtiCERNED SPECIFICALLY
WITH SOVIET STUDIES REGULARLY ASSEMBLES AND PUBLISHES
COMPLETE STATISTICAL INFORMATION ON THE PRESENT
STATE OF TRAINING IN THE FIELD.
GIVEN THE IMPOR-
TANCE OF SUCH INFORMATION FOR PLANNING DECISIONS AT
ALL LEVELS, WE BELIEVE IT SHOULD BE BROUGHT TO.
GETHER AT REGULAR INTERVALS (PREFERABLY EVERY
THREE TO FIVE YEARS), AND THAT THE PROPER ORGAN1.
ZATION FOR CAPRYING OUT THIS ASSIGNMENT IS THE
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SLAVIC
STUDIES.
The absence of serious projections on future manpower
needs has been a conspicuous feature of the pioneering phases
of all area studies in the United States.
Now, when a change
of only five percent in the number of degrees awarded per
annum Can affect the manpower pool by well ever a hundred
persons, it is no longer possible to do without estimates on
needs.
It is unjust to the trainees themselves and unwise
from the standpoint of resource use to provide training
without the likelihood of jobs.
29
26
Availa0aprojections of future manpower demands are
whol/y inadequate.
The academic world is the single largest
consumar of manpower in.area studies, but no disaggregated
estimates for.its future needs exist.
The only projections
of any eort available are those for 1980 drawn up by the
National Center for Educational Statistics, which indicate
the following:
EARNED DEGREES
1970-71_1_1980-81
20
1970-71
198081
BA: social science and
humanities
674,140
1,075,800
social sciences
166,010
306,070
21,840
34,530
179,940
325t040
20000
38,200
5,420
9,730
17,350
42,640
social sciences
3,960
8,510
foreign languages
1,010
1,800
foreign languages
MA: social sciences and
humanities
social sciences
foreign languages
PhD:social sciences and
humanities
Besides their excessive generality, these figures tell little
about actual staff needs.
Figures on primary and secondary education are even
30
27
less helpful.
Nor would data from state education associa-,
tions alone suffice for projections, since federal policy
may well produce dramatic changes at this level in the
near future.
Indeed legislation has already been drafted
which would extend foreign studies into the curricula of
primary and secondary schools across the country
.21
Should
this be enacted, the demand for BAs, MAs and DAs -- but not
PhDs -- would doubtless soar.
The second major consumers of manpower in the Soviet
area are industry and bankingtwhich to date have absorbed
some 19% of all degree recipients at reporting NDEA Soviet
and East European centers.
22
Once more, any projections
would be extremely tentative, although one can anticipate
that growth in this sector would increase demand mainly
at the BA and MA levels.
The third main consumer.of manpower trained in the
Soviet area is the federal government, with 13% of all degree recipients from NDEA Soviet and East European Centers.
A survey on future staff needs has been undertaken by Dr.
Richard Thompson, Director of the Division of Foreign
Studies in the Institute of ILternational Studies,
Such
information has never before been systematically compiled,
I.
IN LIGHT OF THIS SITUATION, IT WOULD BE WELL TO
CONSIDER WHETHER PROJECTIONS ON FUTURE MANPOWER
SHOULD NOT BE COMPILED AT REGULAR INTERVALS OF
31
28
FROM THREE TO FIVE YEARS BY A QUALIFIED BODY WITHIN
THE PROFESSION, PROBABLY THE AAASS, IN COORDINATION WITH FEDERAL, STATE, ACADEMIC AND OTHER BODIES.
SUCH ESTIMATES, ALONG WITH DATA ON PRESENT STAFFING
:LEVELS, WOULD THEN BE PUBLISHED AND MADE AVAILABLE
TO FUNDING BODIES, THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR TRAINING
PROGRAMS, SPECIALISTS IN THE AREA, AND FUTURE
STUDENTS,
2,
IF THE AAASS WERE TO ASSUME RESPONSIBILITY FOR
COORDINATING AND DISSEMINATING INFORMATION IN THIS
AREA, AS WELL. AS FOR COLLECTING STATISTICS ON
EXISTING PROGRAMS IN THE FIELD, IT WOULD HAVE TO
DEVOTE RELATIVELY MORE ATTENTION THAN AT PRESENT
TO THE NEEDS OF TRAINING.
TO THIS END IT MIGHT
1) ESTABLISH DIRECT CONTACT WITH TEACHERS AT THE
SECONDARY LEVEL, 2)
DEVELOP FURTHER ITS ORGANI-
ZATION AT THE STATE AND REGIONAL LEVEL, AND 3)
PROMOTE THE DEVELOPMENT OF GROUPS PATTERNED AFTER
OHIO'S FLEDGLING CONFERENCE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL
TEACHERS IN THE SOVIET AND EAST EUROPEAN AREA.
3,
IF THE OFFICE OF EDUCATION SHOULD IN THE FUTURE
UNDERTAKE MAJOR PROGRAMS TO INTRODUCE RUSSIAN
LANGUAGE AND AREA STUDIES AT THE PRIMARY OR
SECONDARY LEVEL, IT SHOULD AT THE SAME TIME MAKE
PROVISIONS TO SPONSOR THE TRAINING OF ANY NEW
32
....."...... ..~..arma....., ... **V.., ......., .... --
.
....... . ....ow- a
+
29
SPECIALISTS THAT SUCH PROGRAMS WOULD REQUIRE.
i
33
1
1
i
i
30
1,
Richard I. Brod, Modern Language Association of America,
"Survey of Foreign Language Registrations and Student
Contact Hours in U.S. Institutions of Higher Education,
Fall 1970 and Summer 19717U,S, Departvent of Health,
Education and Welfare, Office of Education, Insti*
tune of International Studies, March 1972, Table Do.x.
2,
Based on preliminary data from an unpublished "Foreign
Language Survey" of high school enrollments in Russian
supplied by Richard I. Brod, MLA.
3.
Information'supplied by Col. Kibbey M. Horne, Commiu.4ant,Defense Language Institute, West Coast Branch,
Presidio of Monterey.
4,
In both cases impressions on this subject were conveyed to the authors in personal conversation.
5,
Richard I. Brod, "Foreign Language Survey" p, x,
Table D.
6,
Ibid., p, ix, Table E.
7,
lb.i.d p, ix, Table C.
9.
Information on languages taught from "Courses to be
Offered at NDEA Language and Area Centers, 1971-72,"
Institute of International Studies, August 1971, and
supplemented with data from non-NDEA centers and MLA.
9,
Ibid., pp, 31-32, Table 16.
10. International Council for Educational Development,
Area Studies on U.S. Campuses: A Directory. New York,
March, 1971. p. 61.
11. Information supplied by Office of Education, Institute
of International Studies, for fiscal year 1969.
12, PhDs at NDEA centers from chart titled "Degrees Awarded
at 107 NDEA Language and Area Centers, 1959-1970."
Total PhDs in the field approximated for 1969 from
Jesse Dossick, "Doctoral Dissertation on Russia, the
Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe Accepted by American,
Canadian and British Universities", Slavic Review.
v, 29:4,
13, DerAred from chart titled "Enrollment at 107 NDEA Language and Area Centers, Fall 1967-70," Institute of
International Studies, U.S. Office of Education, April,
1971,
34
31
14. Richard D. Lambert, La.11&,gekttid A143.es Pitt( .orams
Rtview. Preliminary drait, 1972. On 1.nguIstio
FiFilion, see p. III-35, Table 3.30.
On frequency of
travel, see p. 111-26, Table 3, 26.
15. Constance A. Bezer, ed., Soviet Union and Eastern Euro e:
Financial Aid Exchan es Lan: a e and lravel ro rams
t.us,
reliminary urvey
o
p
16. Ivo J. Lederer, chmn.
IUCTG Committee on the Future,
ovIeInionsnatnrn,opes.n'i:I.e.ruary
1961. p. 13.
17. Membership statistics supplied by George Demko, former
Executive Secretary, AAASS, and Leon Twarog, Executive
Secretary, AAASS. Figures on the disciplines of FAFP
applicants from 1954 to 1972 are even more lopsided,
4ith 940 of 2256 applicants from History, 619 from
Political Science, 156 from International Relations and
only 7 in Social Psychology. FAFP, "Social and East
European Studies, Statistics on Applicants," p. 4.
18. See below, "Research," fn.l.
19. The Tolstoy Foundation has made a similar proposal to
create such a program at its premises in Valley Cottage,
New York. See its "Project for the Development of an
Institute for the Intensive Study of the Russian Language."
New Federal Projections." The
20. "Higher Education, 1980:
Chronicle of Higher Education. 6:28 (April 17, 1972)7-171)7-1.
21. This program has already been considered in Congress and
discussed before professional groups. Institute of International Studies, Monthly Report, February, 1972, p. 1.
A pending Ethnic Studies Bill would have a similar effect.
22. Information on career choices of NDEA Soviet and East
European Centers graduates supplied by the Institute of
International Studies, U. S. Office of Education.
95
32
III. RESEARCH
We have tried to indicate the benefits to be gained
from considering the functions of training and research as
related but quite distinct for purposes of evaluation and
planning in the field.
No precise estimate of the number of
American specialists engaged in expanding our knowledge of
Russia and the U.S.S.R. can be made, but it is only a small
proportion even of the group to have receilled advanced
training.
If the list of scholars to publish articles or
have books reviewed in major journals for a three year period
is any indicator, the total for all disciplines may not be
much more than four hundred.
1
Perhaps twenty.five to forty
per cent of these are at present Title VI centers and the
rest are scattered among university and research facilities
across the country.
2
If advanced training continues at
present levels, the number of people prepared for research
will continue to rise until the 1990s, at which time new
enrollees will only replace thcse retiring.
In this brief review of research on Russia and the
Soviet Union, three general issues will be considered: 1)
support facilities, 2) research projects, and 3) priority
setting.
Conclusions and suggestions appear after each
section.
36
33
A.
SUPPORT FACILITIES
Though research in the social sciences and humanities
requires no laboratories, in most fields extensive support
facilities are essential.
These facilities include libraries
and data banks, centers, exchanges, archives and bibliographies.
The past decade has seen intensive efforts to develop each of
these-areas, with the result that in most cases they are now
comparable to and in several cases superior-to analogous
facilities for other area studies fields.
1.
Bibliograyhy
The need for adequate bibliographic resources has long
been recognized in the Soviet and Russian-fields, and has
been the subject of discussion at the Greyston Conference
(1966), by the Coordinating Committee on Slavic and East
European Library Resources and in the Bibliography and
Documentation Committee of the AAASS.
3
Numerous resources
have come and gone in this field, including the Library of
Congress Monthly Accession List., the AISIS, and the publi-
cations of the soan.to be defunct Slavic Bibliographic and
Documentation Center in Washington.
Others, such as the
MLA Bibliography, continue to cover certain fields adequately,
while still others, such as the American Bibliography for
Russian and East European Studies, have been permitted to
37
34
lapse only to be revived later.
Given the proliferation of
printed matter, it is obvious that the problem of bibliography will continue to loom large in the future.
Further-
more the fact that 61 doctoral dissertations were completed
in the United Kingdom and Canada between 1960 and 1966, and
that significant voluMes of major research are appearing in
the Federal Republic of Germany, in Italy and in France,
gives to the problem an international dimension which it
may 'have lacked heretofore.
The following three issues seem especially critical
at present:
1) TO REGULARIZE FUNDING FOR THE CONTINUED
PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY
FOR SLAVIC AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES, NOW
FINANCED ON AN EMERGENCY AD HOC BASIS.
2) TO REVIEW THE BIBLIOGRAPHIC PROBLEM IN GENERAL IN ORDER TO PREVENT COSTLY FALSt STARTS
IN THE FUTURE, AND PARTICULARLY TO ASSESS
THE NEED FOR AN INTERNATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
INCLUDING WESTERN EUROPE AND NORTH AMERICA.
3) TO EXPLORE THE NEED FOR REVIVING THE PUBLICATION OF EXTERNAL RESEARCH, USSR AND EASTERN
EUROPE,
PUBLISHED FORMERLY BY THE OFFICE OF
EXTERNAL RESEARCH OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT
AND INCLUDING
ALL NON-CLASSIFIED RESEARCH
38
iliMEMM.
BY THE U.S. GOVERNMEnT.
2.
Data Banks
Computerized data banks are increasingly a feature of
advanced research in the social sciences.
national
They facilitate trans-
comparisons as well as complex studies on one
region or issue involving diverse and voluminous data.
For
the Soviet field there exist several collections of computerized data, including those at the Inter-University Consortium
for Political Science Research in Ann Arbor, the Berkeley
Archival Retrieval Service (BEAR), the Population Research
Center at Princeton and UNESCO, not to mention of course,
those held by individual scholars or by the various classified governmental data banks.
James N. Rosenau, in his review of International Studies
and the Social Sciences (1971), found general agreement among
social scientists that neither the quantity nor the quality
of computerized data is adequate for present needs in the
fields.
5
This is especially true for the Soviet area, where
broad discrepencies exist in both the types and volume of
computerized information.
This situation discourages re-
search of this sort at a time when serious concern has been
shown for the state of social science research on the U.S.S.R.
TO CORRECT THIS SITUATION WE WOULD SUGGEST THAT A
39
36
THOROUGH REVIEW OF EXISTING DATA BANK FACILITIES
FOR THE U.S.S.R. BE UNDERTAKEN AND THAT, ON THE
BASIS OF THE CONCLUSIONS OF THAT REVIEW, RECOMMENDATIONS ON MEANS OF DEVELOPING AND UTILIZING THESE
FACILITIES BE FORWARDED TO SCHOLARS IN THE FIELD
AND TO RELEVANT' INSTITUTIONS.
AN APPROPRIATE
BODY TO INITIATE SUCH A REVIEW MIGHT BE THE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND DOCUMENTATION COMMITTEE OF THE AAASS.
3.
Archives
Archival material constitutes an important component
of the documentation for many of the historical, literary
and social sciences.
In recognition of this fact, Patricia
Grimsted has completed a study of Archiscrit
Re ositories in the USSR:
Moscow and Lenin rad,
6
and has
undertaken a similar volume on regional archives of the
USSR.
These worthy compilations by no means complete the
task of registering archival holdings pertaining to Russia
and the U.S.S.R.
Indeed, they only serve to make more
obvious the need for adequate guides to archival holdings
in the West.
It may well be that this issue cannot be resolved for
Russian and Soviet materials without first dealing with the
broader bibliographic problem of which it is a part.
40
None-
37
theless, the efforc by IREX to collect data on microfilm
copies of Soviet archival documents held by former exchange
participants represents a constructive first step.
It is to
be hoped that these data (if rot the films themselves) will
eventually be entrusted to the Library of Congress or the
National Archive, and that they will be periodically supplemented in the future.
STILL MORE IMPORTANT WOULD BE TO BEGIN THE MASSIVE
TASK OF PREPARING A CONCISE INDEX TO MAJOR RUSSIANSOVIET MATERIALS IN AMERICAN AND WEST EUROPEAN
COLLECTIONS.
If an international commission could be formed which would
include those specialists in France and England who have already begun work in this direction, it may well be possible
to hasten the day when western archival materials would be
fully exploited by scholars.
Two likely sources of funding
for such an undertaking would be the NationarEndowment of
the Humanities and the r:ouncil of Library Resources.
4.
Puklisjikng
The extent and quelity of facilities Zor publication
is a fair indicator of the level of development of a field
of study.
By that mt.asure, Russian and Soviet Studies have
reached a position of strength.
41
Besides the perennial ten-
sion between area and disciplinary interests, the leading
journals adequately reflect the level of work in the field.
University and trade presses look favorably on works dealing
with Russia and the U.S.S.R., and the major research centers
have maintained excellent house series thanks to favorable
arrangements with publishers.
Indeed, it is unlikely that
a competent work of article or book leugth would not find a
publisher today.
Only three possible problem areas exist: 1) translations;
2) Russian and Soviet language publications; 3) short monogrAphs.
The cost of Russian translation remains high compared
to that of other leading foreign languages taught in the
United States.
Although the differential is not vast --
about $3 per 1,000 words
it is sufficient to raise the
cost of a translated volume in Russian to 20% above that for
a work of the same length in French, German, Spanish or
Italian.
Only long-term changes in Russian language teach-
ing will affect this, although subsidies might have a beneficial short-term impact.
The difficulty of publishing books or sections of
books in cyrillic script has caused no major concern to date
due to the accessibility of cryillic presses in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia.
terest in forming such a facility
42
However, should inin this country increase,
39
the Publishing Committee of the AAASS might investigate the
possibility of a joint undertaking by several university
presses together.
Of far greater moment is the need for subsidization of
short monographs of from forty to two hundred pages in length.
At present it is virtually impossible to publish works of
this length, and rising printing costs foreclose all prospects of the situation improving.
Formerly, the American
Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research
Council gave modest publication grants to lower the cost of
books, but these have been discontinued, as have the Columbia
Center subsidies.
Today, there is no major funding agency
which regularly includes publication aid in its grant.
Xt
might therefore be timely
TO CALL UPON FOUNDATIONS AND OTHER FUNDXNG AGENUES
TO CONSMER THE CREATION OF SPEUAL PUBLUATXON
GRANTS FOR WORKS XII THE FORTY TO TWO HUNDRED PAGE
RANGE, AND THROUGH THE PUBLUATXONS COMMXTTEE OF
THE AAASS TO EXPLORE MEANS OF ESTABLISHUG AT A
MAJOR CENTER A MONOGRAPH SERXES FOR WORKS OF THXS
LENGTH.
S.
Sdholarly Exchanges
The opportunity of conducting research in the U.S.S.R.
has contributed significantly to the development of the
43
40
Russian and Soviet studies in this country.
Nearly a thousand
er..cans have taken advantage of this opportunity and have
worked in an expanding range of Soviet research institutions
for periods of several months to two years.
In addition, the
Fulbright-Hays program has sent from one to two specialists
per annum to Finland'or Western Europe to pursue work in
Soviet area studies.7
The organization of all American-Soviet
exchanges was in 1968 concentrated in IREX, whose leaders
have worked to perpetuate and broaden existing possibilities
for scholarly exchange.
Few organizations engaged in promoting scholarly contact with other nations can claim such widespread support
from their respective fields as IREX, and few have done as
much to earn that support.
It might be well, then,
TO RECOMMEND TO THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND
FOUNDATIONS WHICH CONTRIBUTE TO THE MAINTENANCE
OF IREX THAT THEY PLACE THEIR SUPPORT ON A MORE
LONG TERM BASIS, SUBJECT TO PERIODIC REVIEW.
A second form of scholarly contact with the U.S.S.R.
has only recently been inaugurated with the establishment
by the Amr.xcan Historical Association and the U.S.S.R.
Academy of Sciences of semi-annual joint historical seminars
on topics of mutual interest.
Though these week-long semi-
nars are not intended for American specialists on the U.S.S.R.,
they do provide a format which might profitably be emulated
44
41
by Soviet area specialists through their respective disciplines.
A third area of scholarly exchange would entail joint
xesearch projects with Soviet scholars, and is considered
below under "Research Projects."
6.
Libraries.
No support facility is more essential for basic research
than libraries.
During the past decade enormous strides have
been made in library development at all levels.
Universities
have assigned major funds to build research collections,
while other academic institutions have formed smaller train.
Ing libraries.
The NDEA program has aided twenty institutions
in expanding their holdings, and the Library of Congress's
National Program for Acquisitions and Cataloguing (NPAC)
has enabled libraries of all sizes to save substantial funds
by using a centralized cataloguing service.
During the three
years of its existence the Slavic Bibliography and Docu-
mentation Center published New Slavic Publications and other
materials to aid smaller libraries in using limited resources
as effectively as possible.
Exchanges have been arranged
between various American libraries and the major institutions
in the Soviet Union.
Andofinally, a group of competent
specialists in Soviet bibliogrpahy has developed in the
staffs of the major coll_ctions.
45
112
The challenge of the 1970s will be to continue this
effort so far as'possible, at the same time making intelligent alternative plans where changed conditions require
them.
The changed conditions include 1)
a general increase
in the cost of books printed in the U.S.S.R., 2) a pronounced
increase in the rate of new publications in the humanities
and social sciences in the U.S.S.R., 3)
a substantial in.
crease in the cost of processing new acquisitions at all
U.S. libraries, 4) the unwillingness of the centralized
foreign acquisitions office for Soviet libraries to expand
further the exchange of books with American libraries,
5) the ending of certain indirect library subsidies from
foundations and the focusing of NDEA library support at
probably only five or six institutions, as compared to the
present twenty.
Let us consider the last factor in detail.
At present,
NDEA Title.VI centers spend from $3750 to $220,000 per annum
for acquiring and processing new books in the Soviet and
East European area.
Although actual NDEA library contri-
butions rarely exceed 15% of the total Title VI center
budgets, at most institutions the substantial local investment in library resources is justified on the basis of the
total NDEA commitment to the Russian area.
Hence, the like-
ly drop ir. iibrary budgets when NDEA funds are withdrawn
may be far more substantial than simply the amount of the
46
143
present NDEA library contribution.
The impact of all the factors cited above will soon lead
to greater concentration of major library resources than at
present.
It is essential to meet this situation in a constructive
manner.
1.
At the very least, it will be necessary:
TO ENCOURAGE ALL BUT THE LARGEST LIBRARIES TO
FOCUS THEIR ACQUISITIONS IN AREAS OF OUTSTANDING
STRENGTH, AND TO COORDINATE FURTHER ACQUISITIONS
AND USE IN ACCORDANCE WITH SUCH SPECIALIZATION.
2.
TO URGE CONGRESS TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS TO ENABLE
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 1) TO CONTINUE AND EX.
PAND ITS NATIONAL PROGRAM FOR ACQUISITIONS AND
CATALOGUING,
8
AND 2) TO UNDERTAKE THE PUBLICATION
OF THE CYRILLIC UNION CATALOG, AS WELL AS ADDITIONS
TO THE C.U.C.
NOT INCLUDED IN THE MANSELL EDITION
OF THE PRE-1956 NATIONAL UNION CATALOG.9
At the same time, it may be deemed advisable:
TO DESIGNATE A LIMITED NUMBER OF RUSSIAN AND SOVIET
COLLECTIONS AS NATIONAL RESOURCES, ACQUISITIONS AT
WHICH SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO DROP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
THE PLIGHT OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC
LIBRARY IN THIS REGARD IS PARTICULARLY DEPLORABLE,
NOTWITHSTANDING THE RECENT GRANT OF U00,000 TO
THAT INSITUTION BY THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE
47
44
HUMANITIES.
THE IMPORTANCE OF MAINTAINING THESE
COLLECTIONS SHOULD BE EMPHASIZED IN PRESENTATIONS
TO PUBLIC AND PRIVATE FOUNDATIONS BY AREA AND DISCIPLINE ORGANIZATIONS, AS WELL AS BY INDIVIDUAL
SPECIALISTS.
A further area of concern involves acquisitions in the nonSlavic languages of the U.S.S.R., particularly those of
Central Asia and the Caucasus.
10
In the Library of Congress
and all other libraries surveyed for this report, acquisitions
in these languages are handled by Orientalia divisions, where
they are assigned a low order of priority.
Given the large
number of Soviet publications in the non-Russian languages,
this is greatly to be regretted.
These comprised 22% of all
books and brochures printad in 1966 and fully 51% of books
in the humanities published in 1967 (though only 16% of
works in science and tec1.nology).
10
If study of the national
areas is to increase it is important:
TO MAKE KNOWN TO THE MAJOR LIBRARIES THE NEED FOR
SYSTEMATIC PROGRAMS OF ACQUISITIONS IN THE MINORITY
LANGUAGES OF THE U.S.S.R.
7.
Research Centers.
It is generally agreed that research progresses best
in an environment that includes abundant source materials
48
45
and colleagues who share one's own interests.
A major ob-
jective in Russian and Soviet studies should be 1) to identify such centers of research, 2) to secure their continued
support, and 3) to open them to as many qualified personnel
from the field as possible.
Various measures could be employed to identify centers
of Russian and Soviet studies.
A common tendency has been
simply to take the list of twenty NDEA Title VI centers.
However, these institutions were initially defined as "centers" not because of any research which they were fostering
but because they each possessed, or showed the potential
for creating, the resources necessary to train specialists
in the field.
The proliferation of degree-granting schools
and the diffusion of degree recipients among numerous institutions, many having only the most rudimentary support
facilities, further shows that a criterion based on train.
ing alone is i.adequate for identifying research centers
(Appendix II).
Such a criterion would necessarily exclude
all research centers that were not simultaneously graduate
Echools.
A more suitable measure of a research center would be
the size of its library holdings.
Besides constituting the
single most critical resource for expanding knowledge,
libraries are the most difficult component of a center to
bulld up tx nihilo. 'With limited resources
49
't is best
46
'Tizcsttd'identify the few largest library centers1 and to
be in the discussion of research centers from there.
We have been unable to determine precisely the relative
size of Soviet area library collections in the United States.
Suffice it to say that in 1972 the Library of Congress is
clearly the largest, with about twice as many titles as
Widener Library at Harvard and the New York Public Library,
which in turn have approximately one third more titles than
libraries in the next group,
11
The most comprehensive non-
university collections are those at the New YoPic Public
Library, the Hoover Institution, and, of course, the Library
of Congress.
Columbia and Harvard each have some six to eight one
year senior research fellowships for which anyone can apply,
The Hoover Institute also has recently inaugurated a fellowship program of similar scale.
In addition to these stipend-
bearing positions, several centers make their facilities
available to "associates"; Harvard's program of forty regular associates frOm the surrounding region is far the most
developed of these, but such arrangements exist at Michigan,
Washington, etc., as well.
These arrangements, one hopes, will
be expanded in the future, but thek today provide a national
resource for researchers from all academic and non-academic
institutions.
1) MAJOR LIBRARY FACILITIES AND PROGRAMS FOR THEIR
50
47
UTILIZATION SHOULD BE IDENTIFIED AND THEIR
SUPPORT PLACED ON AS STABLE A FOOTING AS
POSSIBLE.
2)
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IS THE ONLY MAJOR COLLECTION OF RUSSIAN AND SOVIET MATERIALS WHICH HAS
NO RESEARCH INSTITUTION FOR RUSSIAN AND SOVIET
SPECIALISTS CONNECTED WITH IT OR NEARBY.
TIME WHEN NDEA
AT A
'PORT IS BEING REDUCED, IT IS ALL
THE MORE IMPORTANT TO TAKE MEASURES TO INSURE
THAT SPECIALISTS ALREADY TRAINED IN THE FIELD
HAVE THE FULLEST OPPORTUNITY TO APPLY THEIR
SKILLS.
WE THEREFORE SUGGEST THAT CONSIDERATION
BE GIVEN TO THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A
RESEARCH CENTER IN WASHINGTON, D. C.
AT A
MINIMUM, SUCH A CENTER WOULD BE DEFINED IN TERMS
OF A LIMITED NUMBER OF DESKS AT OR NEAR THE
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AND CARRYING STIPENDS FOR
A SUMMER, SEMESTER, OR YEAR.
AT MORE ELABORATE
LEVELS IT COULD INCLUDE SEMINARS, JOINT PROJECTS,
ETC.
OBViOUSLY, NO SUCH PROJECT SHOULD BE UNDERTAKEN IF IT WERE IN ANY WAY TO JEOPARDIZE THE
CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT OF EXISTING LIBRARY-RELATED
CENTERS.
51
48
B,
RESEARCH PROJECTS
The record of grants for advanced Russian and Soviet
studies provides a convenient index to major projects,
Reviewing the chief funding agencies, we find surprisingly
few major grants made to the field,
Thus, the National
Science Foundation (NSF) for Fiscal Year 1971 authorized
one grant in economics ($42,000), two in geography (ca.
$40,000), and none in anthropology, social psychology,
psychology, political science or the history of science,
12
The National Endowment for the Humanities compiled a simi.
lar record in 1971, making only 2 of 126 research grants,
and 6 of 319 fellowship grants, to the Russian-Soviet
field,
13
Indeed, that body has recently subsidized studies
on eighteenth century France as heavily as all research
pertaining to Russia and the U,S,S,R.
Both the National
Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Institute bf
Mental Health (NIMH) are contributors to Soviet studies,
though neither institution has yet supported more than two
projects per annum ACLS is only supporting about one
project per year, through its general programs, though,
of course, that body also maintains an exchange with the
U,S,S,R, through IREX,
The Guggenheim Foundation has been
reasonably Active in the field* but its work is more than
oifset by the demise of the Fulbright-Hays program for
52
senior scholars in the Soviet area due to currency problems,15
It would be erroneous to conclude from these data that
the problem consists in the unwillingness of funding agencies
to support Russian and Soviet projects,
During fiscal year
1971, for example, the ratio of Russian area approvals to
applications at NSF was on the whole comp.arable to that for
all fields together, and in geography as high as 2:2.
For
IREXIs Exchange cf Senior Scholars (including ACLS- Academy
of Sciences) and also its Graduate-Student/Young Faculty
Exchange the ratio has climbed steadily since the late
1960s.
The fact that the numbers of applicants to the 1REX
exchange of senior scholars has declined in three years
from 69 to 44 and the5437 shows that the major change re.
oently has been on the side of demand, rather than supply.16
During the same years,the number of Guggenheim grants to
the Russian-Soviet area has fallen from eight to four and
then,to two in 1972, reflecting a decline both in the quanti.
ty and competitive strength of applicat3.ons,17
In short, there exists no overwhelming evidence that
funding resources for research are inadequate, but considerable evidence that existing sources are underused by
the field.
There would be little cause for concern over the
level of use of existing support funds if present research
53
50
were uniformly high in quality and diverse in character,
But as Herbert Ellison aoted in his address to the special
meeting called by the AAASS in Columbus on October 29, 1971,18
Soviet studies research has yet to reach beyond the boundaries
of separate disciplines and, we would add, beyond a limited
range of formats.
Several specialists have remarked to us on
a certain monochromatic aspect to much advanced research in
If this is actually the case, measures should
the field.
be taken to introduce a higher degree of diversity,
Indeed,
it is quite likely that the best means of stimulating the
field as a whole is deliberately to foster diversity in
the type and format of research.
This might be achieved in
four areas,
1,
range of disciplines,
The narrow range of dis.
ciplines in which advanced research is being conducted re.
fleets the composition of the field as a whole, and will
change only when that ccmposition changes.
The NIH, NIMH,
NEH, NSF, ACLS-SSRC, Guggenheim and IREX all consider their
charge at the level of advanced research to be the support
of the most promising applications, without regard to de.
velopmental interests of the fields,
Without changing this,
IT WOULD BE WELL FOR AN APPROPRIATE BODY, SUCH AS
THE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE OF THE AAASS,
TO MAKE KNOWN TO THESE AND OTHER FUNDING BODIES THE
PRESENT STATE OF RESEARCH IN THE FIELDS, SO THAT
54
51
PROPOSALS IN UNDERDEVELOPEr DISCIPLINES MIGHT
BE READ WITH SPECIAL CARE.
2.
short and long gauged projects.
Russian and
Soviet studies in 411 fields suffer from a "78 RPM syndrome", with the overwhelming majority of published research fitting neatly into the format of journal articles
orPhD length monographs, regardless of the character of
the project.
Two means of encouraging longer and shorter
gauged projects would be
a. TO INCREASE FACILITIES FOR PUBLISHING 40 TO 200
PAGE MONOGRAPHS. (See "Publications")
b. TO PROVIDE SCHOLARS IN THE FIELD WITH THE FULLEST
INFORMATION AS TO 1)
SOURCES OF FUNDS FOR LONG-
TERM PROJECTS,AND 2) FELLOWSHIP POSITIONS AT
MAJOR RESEARCH CENTERS.
3.
joint research.
The recent Deutsch-PlattmSenghaas
study concluded that the most significant achievements in
the social sciences over nearly half a century have tended
to emerge "from large teams of scholars working in major in-
tel1ect:41 emters."
19
While recognizing that such joint
research is quite undesirable in certain import,4:it areas,
and that most scholars and centers will probably continue
to prefer individual research, the opportunity for joint
projects in the Russian and Soviet field should be made as
great as possible.
Already the project on "Comparative
Communist Studies" has brought together several teamR of
researchers working simultaneously;
20
the East European
Project at the International Development Research Center
in Bloomington is doing the same in the field of economics,
and several efforts of similar scope are underway at Michigan, Berkeley and elsewhere.
By and large, however., such
endeavors have been confined to the fields of political
science, economics and demography.
A new program of the
Ford Foundation will make available funds for joint research
in all fields to study advanced industrial nations, and
Soviet scholars would do well to take advantage of this
opportunity.
21
Collaborative research can scarcely be
organized "from above", but every effort should be made to
make known existing opportunities for joint and inter .
disriplinary work involving the fields of history, anthropology, sociology, and literature.
A major focus of a,
new center in Washington aght well be to encourage such
projects.
4.
collaborative projects with Soviet scholars.
In
1968 the Committee on the Future reported to the IUCTG on
the desirability of collaborative projects involving
American and Soviet researchers.
22.
In January, 1971, re-
presenta'ives of the National Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration opened discussions with the Soviet Academy
56
53
of Sciences on cooperation in space research, and in May of
that year the Surgeon General of the United States met with
his Soviet counterpart to consider joint research on cancer
and heart disease.
Clearly, the time has arrived at which
collaborative research in other areas is a real possibility.
It is to be .hoped that the major research centers, the AAASS$
and other scholarly associations will actively promote such
research in the social sciences, history and literature, devoting particular attention to comparative studies involving
the U.S.S.R.
A first modest step would be the publicatims
of papers and discussion at the first Soviet-American .meet-
ing of historians in the autumn of 1972.
C.
RESEARCH.PRIORITIES.
In order to insure a more balanced development of research activity in the future it will be necessary to identify neglected areas and to state priorities.
It is quite
impossible to leave this simply to the informal exchange
of information and ideas among scholars, for, as the economist Fritz Machlup observed, "The field of knowledge production is, for the greater part, not guided by the market
mechanism."
23
This is not to imply that such priorities
should be imposed upon the field in any coercive manner,
or' in any way which would deny to individual researchers
54
their full freedom of choice.
But to the extent that prior-
ity-setting powers already exist in the area of Soviet and
Russien studies, they should be exercised deliberately and
fully.
The principal priority setting bodies at present are
1REX (through its Domestic Fellowship Program), the major
research centers, the Research and Development Committee of
the AAASS, and those foundations like Ford which seek to
stimulate the field through selective grants.
Formerly
the ACLS-SSRC Joint Committee fulfilled this function
24
but that group is now defunct and the ACLS grants which
remain are made without regard to the developmental needs
of the field.
The Office of Education can not properly be
included among priority setting bodies in research as its
activities pertain only to training:25
The above agencies have contributee immeasurably to
the promotion of research in the Russian and Soviet areas.
Yet there are good grounds for believing that the function
of determining priorities is still inadequately performed.
The resort to ad hoc commissions and impromptu meetings to
deal with such issues is evidence of this shortcoming, as
is the fact that significant decisions have been taken by
funding bodies (including 0.E1) with little direct input
from specialists, centers, and professional groups.
situation should be corrected.
58
This
O.
SS
One agency for accomplishing this is the Research and
Development Committee of the AAASS.
This body has recently
received a.three year grant to enable it to expand its activities to include the supporting of symposia and confer-
ences in neglected areas.
will not suffice.
26
However, such efforts alone
The following programs might be under-
taken as well;
1.
EACH YEAR THE SLAVIC REVIEW MIGHT COMMISSION A
REVIEW ARTICLE ON ALL NORTH AMERICAN AND WEST
EUROPEAN WRITINGS (MONO(RAPHS, ARTICLES, PhD
DISSERTATIONS) FROM THE PREVIOUS YEAR IN EACH
OF THE MAJOR AREAS OF RUSSIAN AND SOVIET STU)IES,
SUCH ARTICLES NEED NOT BE LONG, BUT SHOULD SEEK
TO CHARACTERIZE GENERAL RESEARCH TRENDS AND
NEEDS,
2.
EACH YEAR AT THE CONVENTION OF THE AAASS THE
R & D COMMITTEE MIGHT HOLD AN OPEN FORUM AT
WHICH ANYONE COULD PRESENT HIS VIEWS ON RESEARCH
NEEDS,
SUCH SESSIONS MIGHT BE BROKEN DOWN iNTO
SUB-SESSIONS ON LITERATURE, SOCIAL SCIENCES,
HISTORY, ETC.
3.
EVERY THREE TO FIVE YEARS THE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE COULD APPOINT SEVERAL SCHOLARS
FROM OUTSIDE THAT BODY TO WRITE A GENERAL ASSESS..
INCLUDING PRIORITY SUGGES-
MENT OF THE FIELD,
59
56
TIONS.
THESE ESSAYS COULD BE USED BY THE R $ D
COMMITTEE IN ITS WORK AND FOR ANY OTHER PRESENTATIONS BEFORE FUNDING BODIES.
ALTERNATIVELYISUCH
STUDIES MIGHT BE INITIATED BY LEADING RESEARCH
CENTERS.
60
57
IV, CONCLUSIONS
Section 11 of this report indicates that the "Sputnik
boom" in Russian and Soviet studies has definitely ended.
Sharp declines in both language and area training have been
registered during the past four years, and these declines
exceed in magnitude any general roll-back of student interest which may affect foreign studies as a whole.
Section IIX points out the many areas in which funda-
mental research and the support facilities which make re.
search possible have developed during the past decade, but
at the same time emphasizes the need for major efforts in
both areas.
Since the major proposals to emerge from this study
are indicated clearly throughout the text, it is not neces-if
sary to review them here.
Far more important than the
specific suggestions included after each division of this
report is the general conolusion towards which the entire
study points, namely, the need for a greater degree of co-
ordination at the national level
of all aspects of the
field of Russian and Soviet studies,
Whether in the form
of national manpower estimates and projections, the identification of research needs
or the development and utili-
zation of research facilities, a perspective that embraces
the entire nation should take precedence over any which
58
relates only to local interests.
The limited resources available
to the field necessitates this, as does the reduction of NDEA
involvement. No less is such a perspective called for by the
sheer size and complexity of Russian-Soviet studies today.
It
is to be hoped that such an outlook will inform all forthcoming
discussions and planning decisions.
62
59
FOOTNOTES
1.
III.
RESEARCH
This approximation is based on 1) a review of articles
published and books reviewed in the years 1967.1969 in
the following journals:
Slavic Review.
v. 26.284
v. 61-63.
American Political Science Review.
American Economic gvieW777-3/78-9,
a review of artioles by Americans published in
the years 1967.1969 (except as noted) in the follotang
journals:
2)
Candian Slavic Studies. v. 2-3 (l968.69).
Russian Review. v. 26.20,
Slavonic and East European Review. v. 45.47.
Survey. no. 62-72.
v. 15-17.
JaierhicibrbucluriteOsteuro.as,
nrariaSM-64
v. 5. (1970).
Two other statistics give some idea of the potential
pool of research scholars from which these few hundred are drawn. The apprsiximete nunber of PhDs in
Russian and Soviet topics from 1930 through 1969, as
estimated frou Jess Dossickts listing of doctoral
dissertations, was two thousand.
(Dossick, Doctoral
Research on Russia and the Soviet Union. New-73;r7-7960.
ittaAT------rrineriTi=irisoaluw beginning with
v. 23 (1964).) And our estimate of tfie size of the
academic portion of the AAASS working in the RussianSoviet field is 1600, based on membership information.
provided by feorge Demko, former Executive Secretary
of the AAASS.
2.
A sample of AAASS membership shows that approximately
25% of AAASS members employed by academic institutions
are concentrated at NDEA Title VI centers. We have
assumed that the percentage of research scholars attached to NDEA centers is not less than the proportion of
all area specialists; it is probably somewhat higher.
3.
We are indebted to Roger E. Kanet, Chairman, AAASS
Committee on Bibliography and Documentation, for
copies of the recent reports of his committee and of
his essay "Some Problems with Current Methods of
Bibliography Management in Slavic and East European
Studies" from which we have drawn both information
and advice on this subject,
63
60
4.
For a thorough assessment of other bibliographic
materials produced by the Office of External Research
see Cyril Black, "Government Sponsored Research in
International Studies." World Politics, v. 22:4
(July 1970), pp. 582-696.
5,
James N. Rosenau. International Studies and the Social
Sciences. U. S. Department of HeaLth, EIucaton, nd
Welfare, Office of Education, Institute of International
Studies.
June 1971. p. 34.
6.
Princeton University Press, 1972.
7.
Statistics on Fulbright-Hays Program supplied by John
Paul, Institute of International Studies.
8.
Legislative authority for this program is contained
in the Higher Education Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-329),
Title II C9 Section 231.
9.
The authors wish to thank Joseph A. Placek, Head,
Slavic Division, University Library, University of
Michigan, for his help in detailing the future needs
of libraries and librarians in this field.
10.
Pechat SSSR za 50 let, Moscow, 1967,
P. A. Chuvikov.
Table 3, p. 171; also-Ezhe odnik Xngi SSSR, 1967,
rary, Princeton.
compiled by Zdenek David, Firestone
11.
Complete data on library holdings to 1967 are to be
found in Melville J. Ruggles, Vaclav Mostecky, Russian
and East Euro ean Publications in U.S. Librarigs,
ew or $ 1960. The response to a survey by thie authors
was insufficient to revise these figuris except for the
largest collections.
12.
We wish to thank Dr. Howard Hines and Dr. James Blackman
of the National Science Foundation for providing these
approximations of their grants in this field.
13.
We wish to thank Dr. William Emerson, NEH, for the data
cited here.
Of the 319 fellowships given in 1971, 28 were for
study in foreign areas; the distribution was:
Southeast Asia
17th-Y8th century France
U.S.S.R.
Wales
64
15
6
6
1
The topics of the six Soviet fellowships are also instructive; three were in literature, one in theatre,
and two in Russian history.
14.
Information on grants from these institutions is contained in their respective annual grant lists.
National Institute of Mental Health.
Research Grant Awards.
Public Health Service.
Institutes of Health.
Mental Health
Grants and Awards:
National
1$.
The Fulbright-Hays Fellowship Program for graduate
students and young faculty of course continues, but
the*senior program, operating only on PL-480 excess
currency funds, cannot offer support in the Soviet
Union.
16.
IREX "Exchange Programs with the Soviet Union
1958/59 -- 1972/73. American Applicants, Nominees,
and Participants," p. 1.
17.
Information on grant recipients is contained in the
Reports of the President and Treasurer, 1969 and 1970:
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; and the
pamphlet Fellowships: 1972, also from the Guglenheim
In 1969 the grants to the Russian-Soviet
Foundation.
field represented eleven percent of the total grants
to foreign areas; in 1970 six percent; and in 1972
only three percent. Of the fourteen fellowships,
six were for literature studies and six for history.
18.
A oummary of Ellison's address is contained in the
AAASS Newsletter, v. XI, n. 4 (Winter, 1971), at p.2.
19.
A sumnary of the Deutsch-Platt-Senghaas study may be
found in "Social Science Gains Tied to Big Teams of
Scholars." New York Times, March 16, 1971, p. 26.
20,
The Carnegie Corporation grant to this project supports
four sub-groups on the following topics: "The Political
Culture of Communism"; "Ecological Aspects of Communistic Revolutions"; "The Italian Communist Party"; and
See the project's periodica
"Soviet Society".
Comparative
(BuffalOTT.Y.)
21.
Ford Foundation, "Common Problems Research Competition."
62
22.
On Scholarly Exchanges and Relations with the Soviet
Union and Eastern EUrope. 1968,
17.
23.
Fritz Machlup. The Production and Distribution of
Knowledge in the United States. Princeton, 1962, p.
28.
24.
In addition to the use of development funds, the Joint
Comnittee in 1957-8 undertook a study of future tasks.
See Subcommittee on Review, "Graduate Training in
Russian Studies," March 10, 1958.
25.
The Language and Area Research Section of the Division
of Foreign Studies, Institute of International Educetion,(Office of Education) gives attention solely to
research to develop language and area studies texts
and materials on world areas for which such material
is not available.
26.
Information on the anticipated areas of activity of
this committee is contained in "A Proposal to the
Ford Foundation for a Three-Year Grant for Support
of the Development Activities of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies." (Ms.)
December, 1971.
66
63
APPENDIX I.
APPROXIMATE ANNUAL EXPENDITURE:
RUSSIA AND THE SOVIET UNION1
RESEARCH AND TRAINING ON
Noce:
These computations are an exerciSe in viewing the
Russian-Soviet field as a single national whole, rather than
an effort to develop absolutely precise cost figures.
1.
Salaries2
Higher education
Non-academic
43 291 000.
4 072 000.
47 363 000.
2.
NDEA Centers (less teaching,
NDFL, and libraries)3
3.
NDFL Fellowships
4,
Summer Language Programs
(Fedt1 contribution)
5.
High School Language Training5
6.
Defense Language Institute5
7.
IREX Domestic Fellowship
Program-Study
Doctoral Dissertation
.
5
159 000.
1 125
4
000.
530 000.
2
410 000.
692 000.
105 000.
SO 000.
155 000.
6.
9.
Fulbright -Hays Doctoral
Dissertation Research
145 000.
IREX Soviet Exchanges 4
(American side only).
256 350.
National Institute of Mental
Health
12 000.
11.
National Endowment for the Humanities
50 000.
12.
National Science Foundation
14 000.
13.
American Council of Learned
Societies
45
Guggenheim Foundation
20 000.
10.
14.
67
000.
64
15.
Ford Foundatione
(Slavic Biblio. 6 Documentation
Center)
80 000.
Carnegie Foundation
(CoMparative Communism Project)
80 000.
Danforth Foundation
35 000.
Library of Congress9
70 000.
NeW York Public Library
SO 000.
NDEA Canter Libraries
1 588 000.
$59 879 150.
1.
Due to the incompleteness of available data, it was
impossible to use the accounts only of a single year.
Therefore each item was estimated for either fiscal
year 1969 or fiscal year 1970.
2.
The estimate of the total salary bill of area specialists
was produced in the following way.
A.
Area specialists.
AAASS membership in the Russian-Soviet field
2100
(approx.a)
AATSEEL "
" 1800
- overlap of membership with AAASS
- 300
- high school teachers, AATSEEL
- 350
it
se
1150
-325 U
aApproximations throughout based on
information provided by AAASS and AATSEEL.
B.
An approximate percentage of AAASS members not affiliated with academic institutions of 15% was derived by balancing
Lambert's figure on non-academic specialistsb and our own estimate from a sample of
AAASS membership. Applying this proportion
to AAASS membership, we approximated the
academic and non-academic portions of the
specialists.
315 non-academic
1785 academic (AAASS)
r150 AATSEEL
2935 academic
b
.
Rldhard D. Lambert, Re
--414.412_LtaelEELATi
Area Study Programs. p.
68
65
C.
Average salary and aenefit figures for each
group were used to approximate total cost of
salaries for all Russian-Soviet area specialists.
3.
NDEA and NDFL information
.aken from budget information for fiscal 1970 supplied by the Institute
of International Education, Office of Education.
4.
The federal contribution is the only portion of this
expenditure which can Le measured adequately from
existing data.
5.
Estimate of high school teaching cost is based on prelimincxy results of the MLA ceasus of high scnool
Russian enrollmentst 1970-71, and the following cost
foimula:
number of student.:I/100
nutber of teachers
number
Toll cost m number of teachers x $10,500
of students.x $5.
6.
This is a very rough estimate based on per capita
training cost for alllaeguages combined and number
of students in Russian, for fiscal 1971.
7.
Contribut.i.ons of various foundations and government
institutions and agencies have been estimated using
direct reports to the authors, published lists of
grants, aasd annual reports. Error is almost cez...
tainly
the side of underestimation in all cases.
8.
Most of the Ford Foundation grants to the field of
Russian and Soviet studies am accounted for in the
budgets of the recipients, and enter our estimate
under those cntries.
9.
For both the Library of Congress and the New York
Public Lib.Aary, the expenditures given here are for
acquisitions only, and are only est wtes. In the
case of the Library of Congress, on-y direct acquisitions are included, and mt the cost of the
exchange rmogram with the Lenin State Library.
69
4
RUSSIAN AND SOVIET STUDIES
IN THE UNITED STATES
Typographice Errors To Be Noted
1.
Title page:
2.
Table of Contents:
3.
Page 2:
4.
Page 57:
"the identification of research needs,..."
5.
Page 58:
"The limited *resources availaLle to the field necessitate .his, ..."
6.
Page 59:
1.
correctly, The Institute for Advanced Study..
III.C.: Priorities
"straitened circumstances." (1st parAqraph).
2)
(3rd paragraph)
Canadian Slavic Studies
.111.
George Demko, former Executive Secretary of the AAASS.
70