Greek studies at the State University of Saint Petersburg. A combination of research and teaching (full text in Greek)

Abstract

Modern Greek studies as an independent research domain and academic discipline are relatively new. However, important centers of Modern Greek linguistics and philology can be found not only in Greece or in Cyprus, but in other countries as well. Russia is no exception here. The oldest department of Modern Greek studies was founded in 1984 in Saint Petersburg (Leningrad) State University. The idea of the continuity of the Greek language, partly reflected in the title of our department (the Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies), is very important to us, and it has become a starting point for our educational programs and research projects. Thus, our students always start from Ancient Greek and Ancient Greek literature, and only then proceed to Modern Greek and Byzantine studies that are obligatory for all our undergraduates. This ideology together with special educational methods is a key factor that contributes to our positive results in teaching Greek as a foreign language. In this paper we describe our teaching methods and give a brief overview of our research projects that refer to various domains, such as historical and applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, field research, textual and literary criticism, Byzantine studies and translations.