Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies

Our SEEES collections, covering all the territories of the former Soviet Union, are among the strongest in the nation. Historical strengths are in the Balkans (former Yugoslavia), especially Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as in Armenia and 20th-century Russian belles lettres. Highlights of the latter include materials by and about Vladimir Nabokov, including the papers of Drs. Fan and Stephen J. Parker, Boris Pasternak, and Joseph Brodsky, who taught at U-M from 1972 until 1981. We’re also proud to house the archives of the legendary Ardis Publishers, founded at U-M in 1971.

We strive to align our collections with the research and teaching priorities of the many departments and centers they support, such the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, the Center for Armenian Studies, the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREES), and the Copernicus Center for Polish Studies (CCPS). 

While print materials remain the primary format for scholarly publishing in the region, we keep our collecting on pace with the rapidly growing market of electronic resources that we’re seeing in many SEEE countries. East View’s e-book platform, many primary source databases, and the media monitoring service Integrum Profi are a few such resources. 

Across formats, we are currently focusing collection efforts on historically marginalized and at-risk minority populations and languages. Materials from and about Mongolia and the many Mongolic peoples of Russia and Central Asia constitute one concrete example, bolstered by a Summer 2023 acquisition trip to Mongolia.