The doctorate studies of Slavic literature occur in two specialisations: A) comparative studies of Slavic literatures as a specific whole, or B) studies of Slavic literatures of a specific areal within European context.
Studies of Slavic literatures always had an interdisciplinary character and were comprehended as a complex insight into historical and cultural state of deeply differentiated Slavic ethnics. They thus reach into a broad spectrum of other fields – philosophy, aesthetics, literature theory, historical poetics, literary scientific methodologies, literary comparatistics and general history to name a few. This scope of possible study aspects, especially after disintegration of the USSR, gave rise to an urgent need to reformulate the goal of traditional Slavistics in a new way. This goal is facilitated by the so-called areal studies, which aim to cover the cultural differentiation of Slavic ethnics within wider regions, whose development and profiling are participated in by Slavic ethnics as well as cultures of nonslavic nations, which are interconnected with shared historic and cultural experience and thus it is necessary to leave the former thin philological approach of Slavistics. It is necessary to open the reciprocal communication within the individual areals to broader contexts, not only Slavic ones but to those Baltic, Balcan, Asian and especially Central European, and simultaneously to consider literatures of the Europe-American cultural area. Research of literary texts remains the focus of scholar interest, however the research of individual Slavic literatures must occur within a general literary-theoretical and culturological background. Analytic and synthesising processing of this material adds not only to development of traditional Slavistic fields, but to comparative literatures studies and literature theory as well and brings stimuli for the so-called cultural studies.