The Institute of East European Studies was established within the Faculty of Philology at the University of Lodz on November 1, 2025, as a result of the restructuring of the Institute of Russian Studies, which had been part of the university’s organizational structure since 1945. It comprises two units: the Department of Literature, Culture and Communication, and the Department of Translation and Linguistics. The Institute hosts two student research societies: the Cultural Studies Research Society and the Linguistics Research Society.

Research conducted by staff of the Department of Literature, Culture and Communication focuses on issues related to literary theory, the history of East Slavic cultures and literatures from the Middle Ages to the 21st century (including Church Slavonic, Novgorodian, Ukrainian, Russian, and Belarusian), literary culture, culture from a semiotic perspective, and the evolution of cultural systems in Eastern Europe. The unit also carries out studies related to teaching East Slavic languages and develops textbooks and other teaching materials.

The Department of Translation and Linguistics conducts research in the fields of text semantics and stylistics, contrastive linguistics, intercultural communication, new media communication, cognitive linguistics, phraseology and phrasematics, cultural linguistics, as well as literary and cultural translation.

Staff of the Institute of East European Studies at the University of Lodz implement research projects funded by, among others, the National Science Centre and the National Programme for the Development of Humanities of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, and participate in international and interdisciplinary project teams, such as: NCN OPUS 24 project: Hamartolus Re-Discovered. The Byzantine Chronicle of George the Monk from the 9th Century in the Light of Previously Unpublished Greek and Church Slavic Manuscripts, led by Zofia A. Brzozowska (2023–2027); NCN MINIATURA 7 project: The Functioning of the Latin Alphabet in Kazakhstan, led by Ivan Smirnov (2023–2024); NPRH project: The Literary Culture of Łódź up to 1939, co-implemented by Anna Warda (2015–2023); NPRH project: In the Shadow of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Russian Imperial Myth? The Kyiv Synopsis – A Monument of the Ukrainian Language and East European Historiography from the 17th Century. Edition, Polish Translation and Scholarly Study, co-implemented by Zofia A. Brzozowska (2023–2027); NPRH project: Everyday Life in an Industrial City in the Light of Łódź Press Columns from 1863 to 1918, co-implemented by Anna Warda (2024–2029).

The Institute’s staff publish single-author monographs, textbooks, dictionaries, and articles in Polish and international academic journals and multi-author monographs. They organize and participate in international conferences and collaborate with researchers from numerous academic centers in Poland and abroad, including Giessen, Regensburg, Melbourne, Ottawa, Tbilisi, Bucharest, Riga, Daugavpils, Istanbul, Aydın, and Ostrava. Cooperation with Russian institutions was terminated after the outbreak of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The Institute of East European Studies at the University of Lodz edits the scholarly journal “Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Rossica” (current MNiSW score: 40). The journal is indexed in several international databases, including DOAJ and the Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL). Its editorial board and international advisory council include scholars from the University of Ottawa (Canada), V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine), Justus Liebig University Giessen (Germany), Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest (Hungary), Appalachian State University, Boone (USA), Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen (Bulgaria), Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra (Slovakia), University of Helsinki (Finland), Mykhailo Drahomanov Ukrainian State Pedagogical Institute in Kyiv (Ukraine), Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgaria), Free University of Tbilisi (Georgia), Institute of the History of Religion of the Romanian Academy of Sciences in Bucharest, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), University of Latvia in Riga (Latvia), and Abai Kazakh National Pedagogical University in Almaty (Kazakhstan).

The Institute’s undergraduate program offers the following specializations: Russian language with English, Russian language in business and tourism, Russian language with Ukrainian. The graduate program includes a specialization in Translation Studies and Specialized Languages.