The Romanian Association of Slavic Studies was fonded on October 6th, 1956, at the decree of the Ministry of Education, based on the constitutive act of September 13th, 1956 and on the statute, elaborated at the initiative of acad. Emil Petrovici and acad. Al. Rosetti. The first steering committee was composed of: acad. Emil Petrovici (as chairman), P.P. Panaitescu, Ioan Pătruț, Damian P. Bogdan, I.C. Chițimia (as members) and Traian Ionescu Nișcov (as secretary).

Over the years, presidents of the Association (after acad. Emil Petrovici) were: acad. Al. Rosetti, prof. Mihai Novicov, prof. Gheorghe Mihăilă, prof. Dorin Gămulescu, prof. Constantin Geambașu. Currently, the president is prof. Antoaneta Olteanu.

Subsided - until 1972 - by the Ministry of Education, the Association initially had a staff (secretary, accountant, typist and courier); subsequently, the only sources of income remained the membership fee and possible donations.

The members of the Association are Romanian specialists in Slavic languages and literatures (Bulgarian, Czech, Croatian, Polish, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Ukrainian etc.), university and secondary school teachers, scientific researchers, philologists, writers, historians.

The Association operates in Bucharest and in 5 other branches in the country (Cluj, Iași, Timișoara, Craiova, Constanța) led by a small committee.

The types of activity are:

1) internal activities:

a) monthly communication meetings;

b) organization of symposia, scientific sessions, roundtables with national in international participation;

c) publication in Romanoslavica of the members' scientific contributions.

2) external activities:

a) participation in international congresses of Slavists: from 1985 (the 4 th Moscow Congress) to 2018 (the 16 th Belgrade Congress);

b) publication in Romanoslavica of Romanian reports and communications held at congresses;

c) representing the Association in the International Committee of Slavists, which is in charge of preparing the congresses (usually, the president of the Association is a member of Romania in I.C.S.; at the meeting of the Association in April 2010, prof. Antoaneta Olteanu was elected as a representative member of Romania in I.C.S.);

d) representing the Association in the specialized commissions of the I.C.S. (linguistic contacts, etymology, Slavic bibliography, history of Slavic studies, textology, phraseology, literary history and folklore etc.) and Romanian members' participation in the regular scientific meetings of the commission.

Scientific fields of study:

The main scientific objectives of the members of the Association are:

•  comparative study of Slavic languages and literatures in Europe;

•  the study of Romanian-Slavic linguistic and literary relations;

•  old Romanian literature of Slavonic expression;

•  Slavic dialects on the territory of Romania;

•  Slavic imagology and Slavic cultural mentalities.

The Romanian Association of Slavic Studies is currently a scientific society nationally and internationally recognized, not only because of its publication of Romanoslavica, but also because of the outstanding contributions in the field of European Slavic studies, signed by leading scholars, such as: Emil Petrovici, Al. Rosetti, I. C. Chițimia, Pandele Olteanu, G. Mihăilă, Ioan Pătruț, Emil Vrabie, Dan Horia Mazilu, C. N. Velichi, Victor Vascenco and others (see History of Department of Slavic Languages, Bucharest, Bucharest University Press, 2009).