This department was established in 1995 and three graduate students are registered at present. Its aim is to study the Slavic languages and literatures in an integrated manner. Students are expected to acquire a general knowledge of several languages of the Slavic peoples and their literatures so as to understand their unity and diversity. Accordingly the department offers a balanced program of research and instruction not only in Russian literature in the nineteenth century, a mainstream of traditional Slavic studies in Japan, but also in other fields such as Slavic philology, modern Russian literature, Czech, Polish, South Slavic languages, and so on.