sarajop

Seconding opinions about Bolton, as well as Grabowicz (big name in Ukrainian). On the purely Russian side, both Stephanie Sandler and *especially* Daria Khitrova are doing fascinating work.

Sentence one: What does "nuanced understanding" mean? Be specific in your statement. Sentence 2: innovation is overused. We all know that imagination, rationality, and experimentation are important to science, so this has the feel of a filler sentence. Sentence 3: "scale new heights" is a cliche. Don't tell us you've realized its your passion, show us why that's happened. All in all: Your writing is pretty, but this has the feel of a filler to me. Make sure that every word explains something that the audience didn't know coming in to the statement.

KingNikolai1 : if you're at all interested, at Harvard we're building quite a little community of grad students interested in Orthodoxy. I'd definitely apply here if you want to follow those interests. I don't know about the Kansas program, but Oxford really depends on who you get given as an adviser. We also have Michael Flier here, who deals in semiotics and orthodoxy, and seems right up your alley. Reznicek: You certainly, certainly need a lot of Russian if you're interested in Slavic - unless you're a language genius/a native speaker 2 years of Russian isn't going to cut it in a competitive program. (There are a few programs that might take someone with Polish or Czech but not Russian, but it is going to be very challenging to find a job after that.) As to other languages: many programs are lax about the French/German requirement, but some sort of demonstrated competency in a language other than Russian or English would help. I wouldn't be terribly concerned about the job prospects in that if you're in it for the money, any humanities Ph.D. is a bad plan.

I applied to UT Austin last year, and yeah, in review means they're looking at it. Make sure they get that last recommendation though.