Issue being prepared

Call for papers

Dear colleagues,

We are currently beginning preparatory work on issue 1/2026 of the peer-reviewed journal Opera Slavica (Journal for Research in Slavic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures). This journal, indexed in ERIH PLUS, is published in electronic and printed form (we are preparing a gradual transition to an exclusively electronic version). The issue will be open to not only texts on purely linguistic and literary subjects but also to papers with significant interdisciplinary overlap.

The upcoming issue will contain a section focused on a particular theme, followed by other papers and articles. For issue 1/2026 the editorial board has chosen the theme of Transformations of Slavic Studies.

We are seeking to publish studies, discussion pieces, review articles, news items, and reviews. The recommended length of texts is as follows:

• research papers: 20,000–45,000 characters with spaces,
• discussion and review articles: max. 36,000 characters with spaces,
• news and reviews: min. 3,600 and max. 18,000 characters with spaces.

We will continue to accept texts written in any Slavic language, as well as in English and German.

If you would like to contribute to issue 1/2026, whether with an article focused on the mentioned theme or with a text about something else, we invite you to submit an abstract of your text (study, discussion or review article) approximately 1,000 characters in length to the editorial board at by 15 February 2026.

We will be accepting manuscripts, which should follow the formatting and style instructions contained in the author guidelines available on the journal’s webpage, until 15 April 2026. Reviews and news can be submitted on an ongoing basis to the same address.

Thank you for your interest in our journal, and we look forward to your submissions.

On behalf of the editorial board,

Roman Madecki, editor-in-chief

 

Appendix:

Abstract of the theme of issue 1/2026:

Transformations of Slavic Studies

The thematic block concerns the position of Slavic studies as a broad scientific discipline in the first quarter of the 21st century. It should follow up on similar discussions that have taken place since the year of the “great turning point” in 1989-90, especially since the second half of the 1990s and in this century. The Covid pandemic, the development of digital tools, and the war in Ukraine have been the subject of various discussions in relation to Slavic studies on several occasions. All of this could and perhaps should be reflected in the scientific concept of Slavic studies as a scientific and academic discipline. It is probably necessary to base ourselves on debates that have been held about Slavic studies at any time in the past, but especially in the last 35 years. In the first phase, there was talk of the new political situation in Slavic countries, mostly satellites of the former USSR, the consequences of the wars over Yugoslavia's legacy, and the collapse of the USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia: at that time, the previously closed Pandora's box was opened and relations between nations and states (USSR, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, etc.) were changing – sometimes radically. It opened up as a burning problem of national minorities and the right to self-determination. It was about opening traditional philology to other sciences by strengthening the areal aspect, which was not new and was based on various, often contradictory sources, but it was in Brno that their methodology was perhaps most thoroughly developed, which gave rise to areal studies with a philological core. In the second phase, which we captured in the jubilee year of MU 2019, a “defensive” strategy is evident. The overall radical deterioration of international relations on the verge of the Third World War complicated the situation of Slavic studies even more and the geopolitical importance of Slavic studies decreased—this also has its internal, but mainly external, reasons. On the contrary, the spectrum of methodologies that have had a profound impact on Slavic studies has expanded, as have a number of opinions, tendencies, and practices that have affected both Slavic linguistics and literary studies, as well as their overlaps.

Suggestions for sub-topics of the block:

• Rises, falls, crises and catharsis of Slavic studies in the 20th century, changes in the social and scientific position of Slavic studies in the 21st century, possibilities of expertise and use in social sciences and political practice,
• The character of Slavic studies as a complex field, changes in its internal structure and individual disciplines, the problem of power in Slavic studies (1990–2024),
• Czech Slavic studies and its position in the world, its changes since the 1990s,
• New methods of researching Slavic languages in the 21st century,
• New methods of researching Slavic literatures in the 21st century,
• Areal aspects of Slavic philology,
• Profile of a young Slavicist of the first quarter of the 21st century: continuity and discontinuity, Methodology of teaching Slavic languages and literatures,
• New approaches in philological-area/area-philological studies,
• The problem of the publishing reality of todayʼs Slavic studies—periodicals and non-periodical publications, prestigious databases, grant projects, the real level of scientific Slavic studies today.