Teaching Russian at University in Times of War

Impressions from Austria

Abstract

This short article deals with the status quo of Russian as a foreign language (RFL) teaching at universities in Austria – two years after the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. To this end, the article summarizes the results of personal interviews with RFL teachers working at Austrian universities and discusses the challenges and effects of the war on RFL teaching. Finally, the article also makes recommendations to outline possible new ways of teaching RFL (at university level) in the future.