CREEES History

After World War I, Stanford University emerged as a leading US center of Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies. The Hoover Institution, founded in 1919, began amassing one of the richest archives for contemporary Russian and East European politics and history in the world, and it was matched by the strong Stanford University Library collection. In the early 1940s, the University devoted its resources to supporting the formal academic study of the area with the creation of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the hire of scholars of talent and promise in the history, economics, politics, languages, and literatures of Russia and East Europe.

Stanford’s Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREEES) has supported the research interests of this continually growing community of faculty and students. Funded by endowments from institutional grants and individual donors, annual operational support from the University, and Title VI funding, the Center has been active in expanding the area studies curriculum, promoting language study, supporting community outreach activities, hosting renowned area specialists for guest teaching, lectures and conferences, developing endowed lecture series and conferences, and training an annual cohort of master’s-level students. The Center’s intensive, interdisciplinary Master of Arts degree program, considered one of the nation’s finest, boasts more than 200 graduates since its founding in 1973.

The Center belongs to a growing network of international studies at Stanford: In 1987, Stanford opened the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), which became a tremendous resource for scholars interested in Russian, East European & Eurasian studies. The Institute’s Forum on Contemporary Europe, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and Center on International Security and Cooperation devote considerable resources to the study of the region, with an emphasis on influencing policy making. In 2005, CREEES joined the newly created Division of International, Comparative and Area Studies (ICA) and began active collaboration with other area studies centers, including the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. CREEES leverages Title VI funds with its own endowments, grants, and gifts, as well as matching funds from over 30 departments and research institutes, to provide diverse and distinguished training and outreach programs. We are particularly proud of our intensive one-year program in area studies, the breadth and excellence of our faculty and their commitment to public service, our library and archival resources, and our educational outreach series of conferences, lectures, film series, and concerts on campus. We are excited about our plans to institutionalize a scholarly exchange program with Koc University (Istanbul, Turkey) and our co-sponsored teacher-training workshops, including a new Community College teaching and curriculum development program in global human rights.