When we consider the state of affairs as a whole on the eve of World War II it is apparent that no important university or college had established an adequate course in Slavic languages and literatures other than those which had done so by the end of World War I. This does not mean that the period between the wars was lost. The departments at all the major centers were better equipped than they had been twenty years before; they had larger libraries, better trained instructors and what is more, they were attracting more serious students. Further, there were, in the United States, a considerable number of men who had had personal experience and acquaintance with the Slavic and adjacent countries. There were real experts in almost every field of Slavic studies and there had been a large output of books on the languages, literatures and histories of the Slavic nations. Of course, Russian predominated. Yet it is noteworthy that during the twenties and thirties when American institutions were overrun with would-be Communists, the Slavic departments, which might have seemed the most vulnerable, somehow escaped with the least amount of trouble. They had not taken sides in the fervent polemics of the period that were carried on with more heat than light, and while there were a number of men who had studied or visited the Soviet Union, few, if any, had become seriously infected with Communism. They had, however, continued to repeat the old traditional formulas set out by Russian scholarship before the Revolution, arbitrarily neglecting all aspects of the nationality problem in the Soviets, treating Russia as a single unified country, without regard for the mixed elements of her population or the Soviet division of the republics by an official policy of differentiation between the peoples. The most unsatisfactory aspect of the period concerned the non-Russian Slavic tongues and histories. This was unfortunate, for it tended to give instruction in the major centers a Russian, if not Soviet, orientation, a fact which would cause repercussions in the following period. Among the Slavic communities, some leaders were beginning to understand better the peculiar problems of the American educational system, and though they had not yet come to cooperate actively, they were rapidly becoming aware that there was serious work being done. Their own institutions were improving. They were securing more American-trained teachers, even if they were members of the groups, and many second generation Slavs were rising to prominence. Thus, the period represented a marked deepening, rather than an expansion, of efforts. Slavic languages and history were no longer considered merely artificial and exotic; the way was cleared for a period of rapid expansion. CHAPTER 7 SLAVIC STUDIES SINCE 1939