Study plan

Student will pass the state examination till the end of the fourth year of his/her study if he/she has fulfilled all the study requirements except of finishing his/her dissertation and its outline . In case the state examination is undertaken together with the dissertation defense, it should precede the defense. For the dissertation defence, the thesis in the length of minimum 180 and maximum of 360 thousand characters should be provided, together with outline of the thesis and presentation of the dissertation in the length of max. 15 minutes. State doctoral examination and defense takes place in front of the commission consisting for these means of at lease five internal and external members of the subject-area board, that might but do not need to include opponents of the dissertation.
Questions for the examination are chosen from broader topic areas: 1. historical, political and culturological aspects of the studied area; 2. methodology (theory of cultural areas, historiography). State examination verifies the student's ability to participate in specialized discussion, and orientate himself in methodological concepts and historic, cultural, and political problems of the area he is studying, their interpretations and analysis.

It is the student's duty to work systematically on his/her scientific project aiming at finishing his/her dissertation. In his/her dissertation he/she offers original outcomes of the research. Thesis must prove his/her competence in a specialized field to conduct, complete and present outcomes of the area research and its appropriate methodological background.
Advisor manages specialized preparation of student, during consultations he inspires and methodologically leads the student's activities in the sphere of source study and possible field research, as well as in the sphere of text preparation and formulation of the dissertation outline.
As a part of the common faculty ground, the PhD candidate will attend lectures of Philosophy for doctoral studies 1 and will take two examinations in foreign languages: doctoral English or German (recommended for students of the Central European area) examination and other Slavic language examination, different from his/her mother tongue and the language he/she studied for his/her master's degree.
The PhD candidate must pass all the courses included in the category of compulsory courses (170 credits), as well as other elective courses (minimum of 70 credits) to fulfil the minimum of 240 credits for the whole study. As a part of the Doctoral seminar course, he/she will once during his/her study (usually in the 1st semester) lead a discussion about his/her scientific project and usually in the 7th semester will provide overview of his/her full-fledged research project and partial outcomes (in the range of 20–30 minutes).
As a part of compulsory courses, the PhD candidate will after consultation with his/her advisor undertake a foreign stay (students of the combined form of study can replace the semestral stay with several shorter foreign stays), work on his/her publications (minimum of two papers in a reviewed journal inland, one paper in reviewed foreign journal and one published review on a specialized publication) and attends domestic (at least one) and international (also at least one) conferences. For students of full-time study programs, a preparation of at least one semestral elective course for bachelor students is required, which should be connected to the topic of his/her dissertation, and other participation (without granting credits) in the activities of the Department of Slavonic Studies is also anticipated. For students of combined form of study this can be replaced by providing at least two reviews on students’ theses, by grading seminar papers and other pedagogical work as agreed with his/her advisor. Preparation and submission of the grant project (without regard to the outcome) is also compulsory. As elective courses, the PhD candidate can enrol in such lectures that will introduce him/her to possibilities of popularizing the outcomes of his/her research, cooperation as well as presentation in media.

Successfully defended diploma theses:
"Albanskij Language" and "Padonki" as a Social and Cultural Phenomenon in Russian Language in Comparison with Analogous Phenomenon in the Czech Internet Culture. https://is.muni.cz/th/vkwfx/;
The phenomenon of the Alexandrian women: the problem of the perception of "independently acting" women in the Slovenian literatur. https://is.muni.cz/th/jjct7/;
Roma cultural identity and Central Europe. https://is.muni.cz/th/sl5m9/.

Examples of PhD thesis:
The image of Transylvania, history and culture, in the literary production of the Transylvanian Germans;

Serbian-Finnish relationship from 19th century until present days;

Czechoslovak-Southslavic League and Union of Southslavic-Czechoslovak Leagues in Czechoslovak-Jugoslavian cooperation between 1918 and 1938;

Character of Lžidimitrij in the selected Russian, German, and Czech dramas of 19th century;

Socratic type in the literature and thinking of Eastern Slavs;

Development and changes of the Eurasian conceptions during 1945-1991.