Philological Department

The story having originated from the Department of Philology since the time of  the Gomel Pedagogical Institute formation. In 2009 the Department celebrated its 80th anniversary, for these years its name was changed from the Literature and Linguistics Department, then Literature Department, then Department of Philology, to Department of Philology.
Philological Departmentis one of the oldest and largest ones at the university. It consists of five chairs: the Belarusian Language chair, Belarusian Literature chair, Russian chair, Slavonic and General Linguistics chair, Russian and World literature chair; Belarusian Culture and folklore chair. The specialists of these chairs work at the Department of Philology and other departments of Gomel State university as well. They are staffed with highly qualified personnel. Among them eight doctors of science, 38 candidates of philological sciences and seven professors. The departmets of History and Foreign Languages are the offsprings of the Department of Philology.
The Departmenttrains highly qualified specialists at the branches of Linguistics, Literature and the Computational Linguistics. The graduates of the Department join the ranks of scientists, writers and local historians, working at research centers, universities, museums, archives, offices, the media, government and governance and various social organizations.
Nowadays the Departmentprovides training by the following specialties and specializations: Belarusian Philology; Belarusian Philology with an additional specialization as the English language, Belarusian Philology with an additional specialization as literary work in newspapers and magazines; Russian Philology; Russian philology with an additional specialization as Belarusian Language and Literature, Russian philology with an additional specialization as Computational Linguistics. In 2009 - 2010 educational year it began training at specialities named "Belarusian philology","Russian Philology","Literary and editorial work" and "ComputationalLinguistics".
To provide educational and methodical process a linguistic laboratory was created, also Polish Studies Room, Chinese Studies Room were founded, The Regional Centre for Russian Studies was established, the student folklore research laboratory, a computer class were opened.
The department provides various activities for its students. Students enjoy participating in the competitions for the best reader, Slavonic culture evenings, folklore festivals held not only at the Department but also at the Slavonic and city regional libraries. The club of poets, prose writers and critics (named Krynitsa (a water Spring) has been working at the department for many years. Its participants pubish the collections of their literary works regularly. Student academic folklore laboratory headed by Doctor of philology   V. Novak is not only a center for systematization ofmaterial collected during folkloric-ethnographic expeditions, and it is an active promoter of the spiritual heritage in the Polesye region.
The Department regularly holds meetings with prominent representatives of science and culture, creative teams of the city, region and republic,as wel as with leading scientists of the universities of the republic and foreign countries.
The departmentscholars conduct research in the history, lexicology, lexicography of the Belarusian language, culture and stylistics,the history of the development of culture, ethnography and folklore of Belarus, the new phenomena in contemporary Belarusian literature, literary criticism and literary traditions of the sister, etc. The results are discussed at the annual International and Republican theoretical and practical conferences on topical issues of Belarusian and Russian linguistics, folklore and culture, problems of literary criticism.
There are made major research schools in the area of linguistics and literature which are headed by Pr.A.A. Stankiewicz , Pr. I.F. Steiner, Pr. V.I. Koval, Pr. R.M. Kozlova, Pr. A.F. Rogalev,Pr. V.S. Novak. The annual scientific journal "The News of the Gomel State university" is prepared and edited by the staff of the department.
Postgraduate courses are provided in the field of Belarussian and Russian languages, Belarussian and Russian literatures. In 2001 it became possible to obtain a doctor's degree in the field of Belarussian Linguistics.