Traces of the past and prospects for the future: Linguistic and cultural practices in Estonia

International Summer School. Tartu, Estonia, 02 – 10 July 2026

The aim

  • The main objectives of the summer school are to develop students' proficiency in Russian at the B2–C1 level and intercultural communication skills, provide them with field knowledge about Estonia, and establish academic contacts with colleagues across Europe.
  • Participation in the project will be an important step in shaping a new generation of specialists with the skills to work in a multilingual and multicultural academic environment, which is essential for strengthening international ties and developing European science and education.

Schedule

Day9:00- 10:0010:00-11:4511:45- 12:1512:15-14:0014:00- 15:3015:30-18:0018:00- 19:3019:30-
02.07.2026arrivingdinnerfree time
03.07.2026breakfastlanguage practicumbreakculture. Local cities and villageslunchExcursion in Tartufree time
04.07.2026bus excursion to Ida Virumaa (Narva, Sillamäe)
05.07.2026excursion in the ERM
06.07.2026breakfastlanguage practicumbreakculture. Local artlunchMeeting with an artistfree time
07.07.2026breakfastlanguage practicumbreakculture. Local university and school education systemlunchExcursion to the University Libraryfree time
08.07.2026breakfastlanguage practicumbreakculture. Linguistic situation in the Baltic regionlunchVisit to a schoolfree time
09.07.2026breakfastlanguage practicumbreakculture. Local folklore and literaturelunchStudent symposiumdinnerfree time
10.07.2026breakfastdeparting

Scientific Council of the School

Elena Kurant (Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland)
Anna Krasnikova (E-Campus University, Italy)
Maurizia Calusio (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy)
Sergey Troitskiy (Estonian Literary Museum, Estonia)

Teachers

Dr Elizaveta Sosnovtseva, PhD, Lecturer in Russian at the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Tartu, specialist in modern Russian grammar and Russian language history. Has experience in teaching Russian to foreign students. Her native language is Russian.
Dr Nikolay Kuznetsov, PhD (Uralic Languages), researcher at the Department of Folkloristics of the Estonian Literary Museum and a lecturer in Finno-Ugric languages at the University of Tartu. His research interests include Permian linguistics – especially the morphosyntax of the Komi language – as well as Komi folklore and culture more broadly. He is a bilingual native speaker of Komi and Russian.
Dr Sergey Troitskiy, PhD, Senior Researcher in the Department of Folkloristics, Estonian Literary Museum. His research interests include the history and theory of Russian culture, the Russian avant-garde, folk culture, humor studies. His native language is Russian.
Dr Elena Freda Piredda, PhD, teacher of Russian at the Faculty of Linguistic Sciences and Foreign Literatures at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan. Has experience in teaching Russian to Italian-speaking students and has co-authored and co-edited some Russian language textbooks for Italians.
Dr Anna Bonola is a Full Professor of Slavistics and the Director of the Department of Linguistic Sciences and Literatures at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan). Her research focuses on both theoretical and applied Russian linguistics, including lexicon and syntax, Russian for specific purposes, Russian-Italian parallel corpora, and the application of artificial intelligence in Russian language teaching. In recent years, she has also explored the linguistic analysis of Russian literary texts, with a particular focus on the prose of Vasily Grossman.
Dr Valentina Noseda is a tenure-track researcher in Slavic Studies at the Department of Linguistic Sciences and Foreign Literatures at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, Italy. Her research focuses on corpus linguistics and the application of corpus-based methodologies to Russian-Italian contrastive analysis, the study of verbal aspect, and the teaching of Russian as a foreign language. In collaboration with the University of Bologna, she is involved in the expansion of the Italian-Russian parallel corpus within the Russian National Corpus.