What shapes Polish national identity? The answer is complex and personal, but one key element is the Polish national narrative. This includes the heroes and pivotal events taught in schools, the places central to the nation’s collective memory, and the language and beliefs that frame its worldview. A national narrative goes beyond history: it is […]

This extensive list of web resources to assist students learning the Russian language was developed by SRAS and is now hosted on Folkways, part of the SRAS Family of Sites! Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, we will earn an affiliate commission if you […]

Catholic Mass in Poland is not only a religious ritual but also a reflection of the nation’s history, culture, and identity, shaped by centuries in which Catholicism anchored Polish society through partitions, war, and communism. Today, around one-third of Poles attend Mass weekly and 71% identify as Catholic, making Poland one of Europe’s most religious […]

Kupala is an ancient Slavic holiday celebrating the summer solstice, or midsummer. Once part of a series of annual rituals, it marked and was believed to sustain agricultural cycles—essential to early human survival. Held as vitally important, these pagan traditions remained deeply rooted even after Christianization, technological change, and centuries of oppression tried to dislodge […]

What shapes Sebian national identity? The answer is complex and personal, but one key element is the Sebian national narrative. This includes the heroes and pivotal events taught in schools, the places central to the nation’s collective memory, and the language and beliefs that frame its worldview. A national narrative goes beyond history: it is […]

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Each entry below, divided by category, features an English word or phrase in the left column and its Polish translation in the right. In the center column for […]

Serbian holidays show how civic and religious identity are often interchangeable in Serbia. Religion enters into almost every holiday listed below. Many of these holidays focus on family and tradition, but many observances focus on the sacrifices that Serbs have made in wars and battles ranging from the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 to WWI […]

Bulgaria’s earliest inhabitants were the Thracians. Originally nomadic herders, they settled in Bulgaria’s fertile, well-watered lands. There, they cultivated wheat, barley, and grapes, raised sheep, horses, and goats, and collected honey. Later, the arrival of the Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians in the Balkans further enriched the local culture and diet. Notable examples include fermented dairy and […]

Serbian cuisine is heavy on meat, dairy, and grains, a product of the nation’s geography and history. Serbia’s mountainous south lends itself to pastoralism and the earliest Serbs were mostly herdsmen. The Ottomans, who dominated Serbia from the 14th-19th centuries, were more interested in Serbia’s fertile river valleys, concentrated in the north. Serbs and their […]

Easter breads such as kulich, paska, choreg, and nazuki are delicious Easter traditions. Easter is by far the most important religious holiday for those practicing Eastern Christianity. In addition to church services and egg dying, the holiday is also marked across the cultures by ritual bread baking. Despite the wide geographic area covered by Eastern […]

The Talking Phrasebook Series presents useful phrases and words in side-by-side translation and with audio files specifically geared to help students work on listening skills and pronunciation. Below, you will find several useful phrases and words. To the left is the English and to the far right is the Serbian translation in both Latin and […]

Below, Tajik blogger Roxana Burkhanova describes, in Russian, the place of St. Petersburg in Russian culture. She discusses the city’s history as well as its literary heritage, its nightlife, and even how people from Petersburg speak their own, slightly different dialect of Russian. The text was originally written in 2015 and thus references times before […]