Russian Studies and Classics

Russian Studies and Classics is a combination that rewards those who want to engage with the long arc of European civilisation, from ancient Greece and Rome through to the modern world's largest country. Russian is one of the major world languages, spoken across an enormous geographical space and the medium of one of the greatest literary traditions in any language. Classics opens the ancient Mediterranean world through Greek and Latin, offering access to texts and ideas that have shaped Western thought for two millennia.

At the University of Edinburgh you will develop substantial competence in Russian alongside serious engagement with its literature, history, and culture. The classics strand gives you access to the languages, literature, philosophy, and history of ancient Greece and Rome, read in the original texts. The two disciplines are more complementary than they might first appear: both involve the demanding intellectual work of reading across linguistic and cultural distance, both require attention to how meaning is constructed and transmitted, and both raise questions about how societies remember, mythologise, and misread their own pasts.

This four-year full-time programme gives you time to build genuine depth in both disciplines. Edinburgh's strong research environment and international connections mean you will be studying in an intellectually serious context where both Russian and classical studies are taken seriously as scholarly fields.

Graduates go on to careers in diplomacy, journalism, international organisations, think tanks, academic research, the civil service, law, and publishing. The combination of linguistic range, analytical precision, and cultural depth is highly valued in competitive professional environments. Many continue to postgraduate study in Russian studies, classical studies, European history, or related fields.