Dr. habil. Krisztina Menyhárt

Habilitated Associate Professor, Head of Department

Email: menyhart.krisztina@btk.elte.hu
Phone: +36 1 411 6500 / 2192, 5706
Address: 1088 Budapest, Múzeum krt. 4/D, II. floor, room 207; ground floor, room 15

Dr. Anna István
Department Secretary, Erasmus+ Coordinator, Website Editor

Email: istvan.anna@btk.elte.hu
Address: 1088 Budapest, Múzeum krt. 4/D, room 208

Instagram: szlav_filologiai_tanszek
Facebook: ELTE BTK Szláv Filológiai Tanszék

About our history

When the former Royal University of Budapest reopened its doors in 1849, the Faculty of Humanities started offering lectures on the topic of Slavonic studies under the title Lingua et literature slavica. The origins of Slavonic studies in Budapest coincide with the beginning of these studies in Vienna, as Fran Miklošič also founded the Faculty of Slavonic Studies at the University of Vienna in 1849. The first Slavist of the Faculty of Humanities in Budapest was József Ferenc, while the first professor and a key Slavonic studies pioneer in the academic sense was Oszkár Asbóth, who began his career as a private university professor and served as head of the Department of Slavonic Studies until his death in 1920. His areas of interest included the linguistic connections between Hungarian and Slavonic languages, as well as the variation of Slovenian used in Prekmurje. Thanks to his position as head of department, the university gained a new standalone department: the Department of Croatian Studies, which existed up until 1938. The first head of the Department of Croatian Studies was Ede Margalits, originally from Zagreb, who also spoke Hungarian well.

Western Slavonic languages (and the Slovak language in particular) began to receive increasing attention from 1921 onwards with the appointment of Slavist János Melich as professor. Melich concentrated on western Slavonic languages and paid particular attention to the Slovak language and culture. In the 1930s, Melich introduced the training of secondary school teachers of Slovak language and literature. As Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, and later as head of the Teacher Training Institute, he helped reform the faculty’s teacher training programme. After Melich retired in 1941, István Kniezsa was appointed head of the department. Kniezsa successfully lobbied to establish research groups, in addition to the study of the Russian language, which had become the dominant language and subject at the university. These research groups would be focused on the oldest surviving Slavonic language texts, the collection of Slavonic dialects spoken in Hungary and the editing of dialect atlases. These groups produced several monographs on the dialects of Slovak settlements within Hungary and the Magyarországi szlovák nyelvjárások atlasza (Atlas of Slovak dialects within Hungary). Other areas of interest were the study of geographical names and personal names, and the precise analysis of Slavonic loanwords within the Hungarian language.

After WWII, the Department of Slavonic Studies – first led by István Kinezsa until his death and then by László Hadrovics from 1965 – also offered a Serbo-Croatian programme. Besides the head of the department, lecturers on the programme included István Póth and Iván Mokuter. Hadrovics continued in the footsteps of his predecessors regarding etymological research, he was very interested in Croatian linguistics, and he also achieved impressive results in the field of Hungarian linguistics.

In the academic year 1951/1952, the Bulgarian section was formed, and Bulgarian language teaching began at the university. The department’s first teacher was lector Totka Marinova, a native speaker from Bulgaria; then in 1953, Teréz Nagypál developed the department’s curriculum and joined the teaching staff. Subsequently, they were joined by Lenke Csíkhelyi, Elvira Katus and Julianna Pandur. The current department consists of linguist Mária Dudás, literary scholar Krisztina Menyhárt and lector Georgi Velev.

The Czech programme was established in the mid-1950s. Its first distinguished lecturer was László Dobossy, who covered Czech topics with a Czech–Hungarian comparative approach, wrote several mini-monographs and was also the editor of the Czech–Hungarian Dictionary (Cseh-magyar nagyszótár). After his retirement, courses on Czech literature were taken on by Ludmilla Hankó B. and Veronika Heé. The current staff consists of linguist Tamás Tölgyesi, literary scholar István Vörös and lector Milan Orálek.

László Hadrovics was succeeded as head of the department in 1975 by Péter Király, who, following in the footsteps of Melich and Kniezsa, devoted special attention to Hungarian–Slavic relations and taught Slovak linguistics. The department’s staff also included Ferenc Gregor, who, in 1978 became the first professor of Slovakian studies in Budapest. Subsequently, courses on Slovak literature were taught by Anna Gyivicsán, while courses on linguistics were taught by Mária Zsilák. The current staff body consists of literary scholar Róbert Kiss Szemán, linguist Éva Császári, literary scholar Anna István, and lector Viktoria Kissová, teacher training course leader.

In 1987, the department was taken on by István Nyomárkay, who served as professor and head of the department until 2003. Nyomárkay’s main area of research was the study of Hungarian– South Slavic, and in particular linguistic connections between Hungarian and Croatian. The political events of the 1990s – the break-up of Yugoslavia – also impacted the life of the Croatian–Serbian section, leading to the establishment of independent Croatian and Serbian sections in 1992. István Lukács taught early and modern Croatian literature, while István Nyomárkay and Tamás Krékity, and later István Vig taught Croatian linguistics. The current staff consists of literary scholar Jolán Mann, linguist Előd Dudás and lector Rene Čipanj-Banja.

Serbian literature was taught by Péter Milosevits, while linguistics was taught by Predrág Sztepanovity. The current staff of the Serbian section consists of literary scholar Svetlana Borál, linguist Aleksander Urkom, and lector Izabella Dankó.

The Slovenian lectorate was opened in 1981, and the first lector was Vlado Nartnik. With the introduction of the Bologna Process, the Slovenian course was accredited alongside the previous Slavic courses; the first students enrolled in the autumn of 2006. The course literary teacher is Etelka Doncsecz, its linguist is György Rágyanszki, and its lector Mladen Pavičić.

In the academic year 1988/89, the department was expanded with a Macedonian lectorate. The first lector was Dimitar Pandev. Since then, interest in the Macedonian language has continued unabated. The current lector is Zlatko Panzov.

Since 2004, the department has been headed in turns by István Lukács, Róbert Szemán Kiss, Mária Zsilák and Krisztina Menyhárt.

Educational programmes

The six sections of the Department of Slavonic Studies (Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian) offer language, linguistics and literature BA and MA courses, but students can also choose from teaching majors and BA nationality specialisations. After completing their MA studies, students can apply to the Slavic studies programmes of the Doctoral School of Linguistics and the Doctoral School of Literature, where they can study linguistics, literature and culture. Mother tongue lecturers provide high-level language training in all of our courses.

Areas of research, projects

Our staff are also active researchers, and they place a great emphasis on Slavic-Hungarian linguistic, literary and cultural connections in their work. This work includes dialectology, comparative phraseological research, ancient and modern literature, sociolinguistics, lexicology and language history. The staff of our department have won several OTKA (Hungarian Scientific Research Fund) tenders. Several important works have been published and the research work conducted over the years has helped advance the careers of young colleagues. On behalf of EMMI, the staff, PhD students and former students of the Slovenian section prepared a Hungarian-Slovenian dictionary in cooperation with publishers Akadémiai Kiadó, which has been available since 2019 on the publisher’s website, szotar.net, after registration. The teaching staff of the Serbian section have prepared the Hungarian-Serbian dictionary, which will soon also be available at the above address. For several years now, our department has been organising the annual scientific conference entitled A tudomány mindenkié (Science Belongs to Everyone) in rural locations, and the lectures given there are published in conference proceedings. Within the Department of Slavonic Studies, between 2004 and 2025, István Lukács managed the book series entitled Opera Slavica Budapestinensia, which has grown into one of the richest and most vital academic series of Slavic studies in Hungary. In 2025, the Department of Slavonic Studies launched a new academic book series entitled Budapest Slavic Studies.

The distinguished members of the department are also members of the editorial board of Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, with Róbert Kiss Szemán as its editor-in-chief.

All department staff also participate in the interdisciplinary MA courses of Central European Studies and Balkan Studies of the Faculty of Humanities.

International and domestic professional relationships

The teachers and researchers of our departmental sections maintain wide-ranging professional relationships with the Slavonic institutes of foreign and domestic universities and academies, as well as with other professional organisations and national research institutes. They have prepared several joint tenders and are implementing joint projects.

Our students can apply for numerous foreign scholarships (CEEPUS, Erasmus, Visegrád Scholarship Programme), attend language courses and summer universities, as well as in the International Conference of Young Slavists in Budapest organised by our institute.