Master of Arts MIREES

Casa
Italia
Forlì
Master of Arts MIREES

A unique joint degree programme focussed on East Europe and Eurasia. MIREES also provides a solid basis for further PhD studies.

MIREES is a unique Master's degree programme aimed at fostering the next generation of experts on East Europe and Eurasia. It is jointly awarded by the University of Bologna, Vytautas Magnus University at Kaunas, and Zagreb University. Comenius University in Bratislava, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Tbilisi State University and European University Viadrina in Frankfurt Oder are associated par

tners; the University of Helsinki also cooperates with MIREES. Taught in English, MIREES is devoted to students with a background in the Social Sciences or Language Studies, who want to acquire an in-depth knowledge of the Eurasian space - from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. Key characteristics of the programme are:
1) the international character of both the faculty and the cohorts of selected students;
2) a compulsory mobility period for students, to be carried out during year two in one of the partner/associated universities;
3) a strong research component, to encourage the curiosity of students and foster their ability to think independently;
4) the cultivation of language skills, essential to become credible area experts;
5) an interdisciplinary approach, spanning economics, political science, history, sociology, cultural studies;
6) an intensive methodology aimed at encouraging active participation and providing organisational, analytical, cross-cultural skills, as well as empathy towards the area of specialisation. MIREES combines an academic approach with professional training, forging cohorts of area experts who can serve in a variety of roles with international organisations, state administrations, private and public companies, and NGOs.

28/08/2026

MIREES is more than a programme that studies the East European and Eurasian region — increasingly, it’s also become a space where people from that region come together to reflect on it. A real synergy of study, reflection, and the ongoing attempt to make sense of what’s happening right here, right now. It’s not a programme frozen in time, but a living platform for exchanging ideas about East European and Eurasian Studies.

Today, we’re hearing from Kateryna, one of our alumnae, who shares her own perspective.

👩🏼‍🎓

It happened so, perhaps rather naturally, that whilst a MIREES student I’ve gone through some of the most challenging times in life. I started my first year of MIREES online from an office of a political party in Ukraine, where I worked at the time, because of the Covid-19 travel restrictions. My days would be mostly about work with just a few hours of lectures and what I sort of knew right away was that “this will be easier than my BA” 😃 The first year was marked by lots of discoveries, particularly pertaining to my worldview and all the things l called a“common sense knowledge”. After a semester spent virtually I got my IT student visa and packed my bags to Forlí. The year was 2021. This is when the real life as a MIREES student started. That spring semester was full of joy, fun, adventures and travels. I got to hear from amazing lecturers and professors, I remember particularly well the lectures of Prof. Krzysztof Czyzewski on borderlands. I was captivated, altogether consumed by the concept. I found it fascinating that much because it somewhat explained the ideological inconsistencies and differences I experienced as a child growing up in Ukraine in early 2010s. My second best experience was the “Remapping” class of Prof. Marco Puleri.

👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

25/08/2026

Alumni Story 🎓

Today, we’re hearing from Rebecca, one of our MIREES alumni, who takes us back to her first year in Forlì — in her own words.

“
When you start your Master at 23, you are still naive, dumb in certain ways, and immature in others, but also full of curiosity, vitality, and energy at rocket levels. That was me, at least: freshly back from a year abroad working in an NGO in Romania, enthusiastically jumping straight into my next life chapter in Forlì, without thinking too much about the future.

And I didn’t really know what to expect. It didn’t really matter, though: life is a vortex in your twenties. And at MIREES, everything was new: a new environment, new friends, a new city, a new life to build, new routines mingling with old habits. And, above all, a new and totally different Master’s programme from anything I had known until then. MIREES was, and still is, unique in this sense: with its peculiar structure, inspired by international academic practices from across Europe, I had to get familiar with multiple course formats, presentations (never done before!), practical-oriented research approaches, inter- and multidisciplinary perspectives, and a strongly international composition of both students and professors. MIREES aggregates around a specific field of knowledge, but even more aggregates people sharing the same intellectual curiosity and fascination for Eastern Europe.

And then there was life in Forlì. It was a bittersweet, intimate, goliardic bubble: we met in the same bars at night after meeting in the same classes during the day, with the same drinks and beers in our hands, talking about the same topics over and over again, without ever getting tired of them, or of each other. Forlì was out of space and time for us, our small MIREES dimension.”

20/08/2026

Let’s take a short break from our musical impressions 😅and remind you that by choosing MIREES, you’ll get the chance to add at least one more language to your collection!

And if you plan your mobility period in the second year wisely, you’ll even be able to put those skills into practice.

Today we’re welcoming Vittorio. He’s learning BCS from scratch, with no background in Slavic languages — and that’s very much a challenge with an asterisk💪🏼

19/08/2026

The moment you meet Professor Lucarelli, one song will inevitably start playing in your head — Don’t Stop Me Now!

You’ve never encountered a whirlwind of energy quite like this. Her pace and drive are contagious, and after all the lectures and all the work she’ll still find time to ask you what you enjoy, whether anything is troubling you and what you’d like to see improved in the programme 👩🏼‍💻

18/08/2026

Once you find yourself in Professor Puleri’s course, you’ll feel the wind of change straight away.

First of all, your life will never be the same — you’ll be swept up in a whirlwind of fascinating discussions, rare materials and joint work, and you’ll feel the way the Soviet republics did in those first days after the collapse: at last, we can speak! at last, someone is listening! goodness, how interesting all of this is!

And on this exhilarating journey you’ll always have Professor Puleri’s strong shoulder to lean on, so that the Wind of Change doesn’t blow you away into tonnes of academic reading🫠😁

To be continued…

17/08/2026

While you’re all still on holiday, we’re slowly introducing you to your future life here. We’ll be telling you much more about our professors down the line, but today let’s do it in a lighter key — through music. We asked our students what music they associate with our professors, and here’s what they said:

Among themselves, students affectionately call Professor Privitera the Dad of the programme. And it’s true — he’s always happy to see you, he offers you books to borrow, he’s open to discussing anything, and his warm energy in an exam will bring your stress down and help you remember what exactly it was you read the night before. In short, no words needed: he’s simply the best!

We wanted to tell you about all four of our professors at once, but the format wouldn’t let us) so stay tuned for the continuation tomorrow 🎩😅

14/08/2026

Torn between a few different master’s programmes? That’s completely normal! Once you’ve weighed up the specialization, courses, and professors, the next thing most students want to know is what campus life and the city itself are really like.
We won’t try to convince you of anything — we’ll just let our students speak for themselves. Today, Ekaterina shares her experience of living in Forlì.

«In my opinion, Forlì is a very cozy city. I understand that young students might look for bigger cities, but for me, I only see advantages in Forlì. After living in Moscow, I dreamed of becoming part of a city where people greet each other, life flows at a calm pace, and I would have favorite places, familiar people — I would bring them a small flower or a chocolate to thank them for some little thing, we would know each other by name, and I could get anywhere on my favorite bicycle.

Forlì gave me even more than that. I fell in love with the Emilia-Romagna region. I suddenly discovered that Tonino Guerra, whom I’ve adored since childhood, lived right here.

I love sitting by the sea and just looking at the horizon — and it only takes me half an hour to get there. I love evening bike rides to nearby small towns and villages, riding past fields full of delicious, fragrant fruit, tomatoes, olives, donkeys, or the occasional unexpected peacock among the chickens - it feels like I understand and feel Italy and Italians much more …In the evening, I can stop by a friend’s place for 15 minutes just to talk about how the day went or share how I’m feeling.

And in case you’re wondering, there are parties in the city too — there are a lot of young people here :)

It’s just that my Forlì is a bit different. Of course, it takes time to adjust, but if your heart needs a comfortable, cozy city during your studies, choosing Forlì will make you happy!»

08/08/2026

What really shapes the MIREES experience? Often, it’s the people!

Today, our student Livio shares his experience — in his own words 🎓

«What made MIREES formative for me were the people involved. Many of our professors came directly from the regions we studied. Others, though not from there, had deep ties to those territories through years of research and collaboration.

This meant that even during our first year in Forlì, we had direct access to people living and working in the places we were interested in. Lectures weren’t abstract — they came with real connections, names, and networks that would later prove valuable during internships and fieldwork.»

01/08/2026

The MIREES master’s program is truly international — our students come not only from Italy, but from various EU countries, as well as Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and China.

First, this offers a wonderful opportunity to engage in the most up-to-date dialogue about the region being studied; second, it makes for an incredibly diverse environment.

Different characters, traditions, and intercultural dialogue experienced firsthand — not just read about in books.

This photo shows one of our Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian classes, where students decided not just to talk about dishes in the language they’re learning, but to actually cook them!

🎓

01/08/2026

Indirizzo

Padiglione Morgagni, Via Giacomo Della Torre 1
Forlì
47121

Sito Web

http://www.mirees.unibo.it/

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