CENTER "SEFER"
CENTER FOR JUDAIC-SLAVIC STUDIES, INSTITUTE OF SLAVIC STUDIES OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Love and Marriage in Slavic and Jewish Cultural Tradition (December 11–12, 2025, Moscow)
Dear colleagues,
Dear colleagues, we invite you to participate in the annual conference, which is the part of a long-term project on the comparative study of Jewish and Slavic cultures. The conference Love and Marriage in Slavic and Jewish Cultural Traditions will be the twenty-nineth in a series of annual meetings of scholars working on the international project "Slavic Culture and Jewish Culture: Dialogue, Similarities, Differences" since 1995. This project is carried out by the Center for Judaic-Slavic Studies of the Institute of Slavic Studies, RAS in collaboration with various scientific and public organizations interested in cultural dialogue.
The research on the topic "Love and Marriage in Slavic and Jewish Cultural Traditions" aims to explore the similarities and differences in how these concepts are approached within the respective national traditions. Key areas of investigation will include:
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The relative weight of emotional, social, and financial-economic factors in the decision to marry.
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The degree of involvement (and influence) of the family and religious law in marriage and divorce.
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The distribution of roles between the participants in the relationship.
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The conceptions of the roles of women and men within the family and society.
Important aspects of this topic also encompass the restrictions, prohibitions, and prescriptions related to the choice of a life partner and subsequent family life, as well as the obligations and norms concerning the betrothed and/or married couples. The system of symbols (material, verbal, ritual, etc.) associated with the concepts of love and marriage will also be examined.
A further set of questions to be discussed, drawing on historical, ethnographic, literary, and folklore sources, includes conceptions of forbidden love, condemned relationships, intimate relations with members of a different faith, as well as same-sex unions and premarital relations. Topics that address these issues from a comparative perspective and within a broad chronological framework are particularly welcome.
The conference is interdisciplinary, welcoming presentations from historians, philologists, folklorists, ethnographers that reflect comparative aspects of the issue.
We kindly ask you to submit your applications, topics, and abstracts (up to 500 words) by October 20, 2025, via the online form.
Participant selection will be conducted by November 1, 2025.
The organizers will consider holding presentations via Zoom for participants from other cities. The organizing committee is unable to cover travel and accommodation expenses for remote participants. The best materials from the conference are expected to be published in the annual “Slavic Culture and Jewish Culture: Dialogue, Similarities, Differences” (Scopus).
The languages of the conference are Russian and English.
We would be very happy to see you at the conference—as speakers, discussion participants, or guests!
Sefer Team
Svetlana Amosova (ISS RAS)
Olga Belova (ISS RAS)
Irina Kopchenova (ISS RAS, Center "Sefer")
Victoria Mochalova (ISS RAS, Center "Sefer")
Ekaterina Zakrevskaya (ISS RAS)
Mikhail Vasiliev (IOS, Center "Sefer"RAS)
