The Russian Institute, established in 1946 with the assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation, has two major objectives: the development of _research_ in the social sciences and the humanities, as they relate to Russia, and the training of a limited number of well-qualified Americans for scholarly or professional careers, as Russian-Soviet specialists in business, in finance, in journalism, in various branches of government service, and in academic research and teaching in the social sciences and in literature. It is believed that such prospective specialists should acquire (a) a broad and thoroughly integrated knowledge of Russia and the Soviet Union; (b) command of a well-developed specialty in a selected academic discipline, as applied to that country; and (c) a broad training in the more general aspects of this selected discipline. To this end, each candidate for the two year certificate will pursue certain survey courses on Russia, while giving special emphasis, within the Institute, to one of five fields: Russian history, economy, government and law, foreign relations, the social and ideological aspects of literature. At the same time, the candidate will be expected to follow outside the Institute, a parallel program of work in the graduate school or department of the University that is most closely allied with his Russian specialty within the Institute. All of these institutes, wherever they have been founded and whether they are Institutes, Studies or Programs have been faced with the same fundamental dilemma: how is the term “Russia” to be defined? A certain number of scholars, who have been labeled by Professor Lev Dobriansky of Georgetown University as the “Russia Firsters,” have stubbornly insisted that it was their duty to devote themselves to the study of Russia in the traditional sense of the word, i.e. the consideration of Russian culture, history and economics without regard to the linguistically and culturally heterogeneous character of the old Russian empire. To students of this school, every person within the old Russian empire is a Russian, whether their studies concern economics or concentration camps. They refuse to separate the statistics in any way that might show increased pressure on the non-Russian peoples by the Soviet government. They feel themselves free to do this, even though Stalin himself after World War II specifically attributed the victory of the Soviet Union to the loyalty of the Great Russians, i.e. Russians in the narrower sense of the word.