The Aleksanteri Institute has conducted research and provided education in the field of Russian and Eurasian Studies since 1996, and in association with the Institute’s affiliation with the Faculty of Arts, the field also became one of the faculty’s disciplines. At the University of Helsinki, Russian and Eurasian Studies comprises a multi- and cross-disciplinary field that examines the development and history of contemporary societies within its geographical scope. The research and teaching profile of Russian and Eurasian Studies also looks at societies within its focal region in the context of wider global phenomena. This approach entails analysing how the studied region has been impacted by, for example, environmental changes, democracy, wellbeing, cultural revolutions, transnational security and the changing economy, as well as the role of the region itself in studying these phenomena.
Discipline coordinator: Anna-Liisa Heusala
The field of Eastern European Studies became a specialised discipline for the first time in 1996 when the Aleksanteri Institute was founded, and related teaching activities were launched in 1998. In 2017, the field was established as a discipline of the Faculty of Arts. To this day, Eastern European Studies forms a unique research and teaching entity at the national level. Geographically, the field is defined as comprising the eastern member states of the European Union, Western Balkan states and the eastern neighbour states of the EU (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia).
Eastern European Studies is a cross-disciplinary field that takes the wide temporal scope of social development into account, as well as the meaning and interrelations between different regions and societal dimensions. The field also strives for comparability with research in the fields of Russian and Eurasian Studies, and European Studies. Eastern European Studies focuses on analysing global phenomena, which it approaches through core themes like political systems and legal regimes, civil society, welfare state, transnational security, conditions for innovative economic development, environmental questions and cultural ruptures.
Discipline coordinator: Katalin Miklóssy