Persian and Russian
Persian and Russian is a combination that connects two of the world's most important and historically significant languages, each carrying a literary and intellectual tradition of extraordinary depth. Persian has been a major literary, philosophical, and diplomatic language for over a millennium, from the poetry of Rumi and Hafez to the contemporary culture of Iran and the Persian-speaking diaspora. Russian is the most widely spoken Slavic language, the medium of some of the greatest novels ever written, and a language with considerable contemporary strategic and cultural importance.
Studying them together opens two quite distinct cultural worlds and develops multilingual skills that are genuinely rare among UK graduates.
At St Andrews, Persian is available in combination with a wide variety of other subjects, and this pairing with Russian offers a rigorous engagement with both traditions. You will develop language proficiency in Persian and Russian, building reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills alongside deep cultural and literary knowledge. You will study the histories, literatures, and political contexts of the Persian-speaking and Russian-speaking worlds, developing a comparative and international perspective that is hard to acquire anywhere else.
A year abroad gives you the opportunity to study in a relevant linguistic environment, deepening your competency and cultural understanding. The programme runs over four years full-time, with a typical entry tariff of 184 points.
Graduates of Persian and Russian programmes are genuinely distinctive in the graduate market. Careers in diplomacy, intelligence, the foreign and civil service, international journalism, academia, international development, and cultural institutions are natural directions. The rarity of these language combinations makes graduates highly valued in organisations that need to engage seriously with Iran, Central Asia, or the Russian-speaking world.
Postgraduate study in area studies, translation, international relations, or linguistics is a common and productive route.