1. Making Slavic research materials published in Japan more accessible from abroad.2. Establishing a new research network and promoting Japanese-Slavic comparative studies through it.The first task involved the conversion of bibliographical catalogues of Slavic research papers to electronic format and incorporating them into a common database. In 2006, we made that database available on our website together with a specialized search engine. We have also been preparing for our participation in the XIV International Congress of Slavists to be held in Macedonia later this year. We have organized a delegation, held research meetings and discussed future joint undertakings at home as well as ways to promote Japanese Slavic research abroad.In pursuing our second objective, we offered assistance to young researchers from Slavic countries striving to obtain degrees in Japan. We created opportunities for them to report on their own research in 2005 by arranging meetings and discussions. We also strengthened our cooperation with researchers engaged in Japanese language education in Slovenia, shortly after its accession to the EU. Again, this was done through a specially organized research me

Alongside the radical political change in the Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the last decade, we have seen various forms of ethnic awaking and the reorganization of ethnic consciousness among these peoples. The present study has aimed to investigate the on-going process of these changes, particularly in relation to the etho-national conflicts and movements raging in such a extent in the Eastern Europe as never since the World War II.Sources were collected mainly through face-to-face interviews with people in order to approach the manifold and dynamic aspects of their ethnic consciousness. The objects of interviews, which were carried out in Russia, the Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania and Canada, fell into three groups : 1) different social and age groups of a target nationality ; 2) peripheral groups and those who are in a close contact with different nationalities and 3) emigrants or exiles segregated long from a main group. In addition, data were also collected from neighboring nationalities in terms of their attitudes toward a target nationality.On the basis of the data the following interim conclusions have been so far yeilded. The ethnic consciousnes

This project was formed to achieve two objectives :1.To plan the Japanese delegation to The Thirteenth International Congress of Slavists and to establish and maintain relationships with foreign scholars.2.To survey studies being done concerning Slavic languages and literatures in Japan and examining future subjects in this field.Concerning #1 :In 2002 each group decided who to send and what to be presented at the congress. Our workshop constructed an outline in October. Following, Nakajima, (chief of the Japan Slavists' Association) gathered papers for the congress and also coordinated with the host country head office. The collections of essays, including the papers for the congress, were published in March 2003. The congress was held in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in August 2003 where five speakers Yumi Nakajima, Akihiro Sato, Keiko Mitani, Shinichi Murata, and Ichiro Ito were sent together with the group's leader Junichi Sato. Every foreign scholar highly evaluated all presentations made by these five speakers. As Japan was the only country in Asia to send a delegation to the congress, the executive committee encouraged our active participation in the future.Concerning #2 :In 2002 and

Our research group, which brings together a host of excellent scholars working in the field of Slavic Studies, appraised current academic trends and set new research directions and objectives, to be pursued at a time following the turmoil caused by the collapse of former Yugoslavia and the structural changes that the European Union has recently gone through. We intensified the exchange between researchers in and outside Slavic countries and improved the existing network for sharing academic achievements, while contributing the results of our own research to publications aimed at the general reader

研究組織に属する多くのメンバーが、２０１５年８月に幕張で開催された国際中欧・東欧学会国際大会に参加し、当該研究テーマに関わる多くの研究発表を行った。またこの学会にロシアのロシア・フォークロア研究家タチヤーナ・キリューシナ氏を招聘し、研究交流を行い、またキリューシナ氏は九州の山村で民衆文化の調査を行った。また本研究組織に属する多くのメンバーが本特定課題研究費の交付によって本年度８月から９月にかけて北ロシア・トイマ地区での民俗調査を行った。  

 前年度に引き続き「ロシア・東欧の民衆文化における聖ゲオルギオス表象の変容」についての文献研究を進めた。また交付された研究費によって内外の関連研究文献を収集した。２０１６年度春期には特別研究休暇を利用してクロアチアにおいて当該テーマに関するフィールド・ワークを行う予定である。 また本年度には、早稲田大学大学院文学研究科紀要に「ブルガリア・フォークロアにおける「聖ゲオルギオスの竜退治」－キリスト教伝説と民間暦ー」を執筆した。