Department of North European and Baltic languages

The Department of North European and Baltic languages teaches Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian and Swedish.

The Department’s top priority is constant development while preserving the established traditions. The members of the faculty are the authors of most compelling textbooks and readers. Many of them, including the younger generation of the Department’s members, participate at conferences as interpreters and translate various fiction books as well as special literature.

The faculty are actively involved in research activities in linguistics and literature studies, history, economics, law and international relations within the abovementioned regions. The members of the faculty organize and participate in international conferences on foreign language and cross-culture studies, translation, and international relations, and encourage students to participate in various events.

The Department constantly upgrades its academic programs and works on textbooks and proficiency course books on political, economic, legal and military translation. Every year the MGIMO students are given an opportunity to study respective languages as a part of their extra curriculum.

The Department has a number of multimedia classrooms that allow for the use of the most advanced teaching techniques.

The Department aims at providing as many students as possible with the opportunity to study abroad according to the language they learn. This includes summer schools and top universities of Northern Europe, the Baltics, the Netherlands and Belgium.

The Department has its own half a century long history. Scandinavian, Finnish and Dutch languages have been taught at MGIMO for several decades. From 1951 to 1965 a faculty of teachers with expertise in translation and interpreting was formed. High standards of teaching have been the Department’s trademark ever since.

The Department of North European and Baltic languages was founded on January 23, 1983 and at the time was named the Department of Rare languages of Western Europe. Later it became the Department of Scandinavian, Finnish, Dutch and Greek languages. In 1995, the Department began to teach the languages of the Baltic countries — Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian. Later on the Department embarked on teaching Afrikaans. The Department got its current name in 2016.
The Department was headed by Alexander S.Novakovich, Alexander I.Uskov and Anatoly N.Chekansky. Now it is run by Associate Professor Olga Krasova, PhD in Linguistics.

Throughout its history, the Department has prepared many specialists in international relations with excellent language skills, who have become prominent Russian diplomats, including Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary.

Head of Department

Olga Krasova Olga Krasova

Ph.D. in Linguistics, Associate Professor.


Contacts

+7 495 225-37-25 (inner 13-59)
Room: 2140
scand@mgimo.ru