phd in russian history

College of Arts & Sciences

Russia & Eastern Europe

Georgetown is one of the few departments of history in the U.S. with comprehensive strengths in the Russian History. The imperial period is represented by Greg Afinogenov . His interests include Russian relations with China and Inner Asia, diplomatic history, and the history of knowledge, science, and information. The modern period is represented by Michael David-Fox . David-Fox works in the revolutionary and Soviet periods, and he regularly teaches a colloquium on major approaches to modern Russian and Soviet history.

Georgetown is the home of a major journal in the field, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History , which offers graduate students the rare opportunity to serve as editorial assistants and learn about scholarly publishing from the inside. Since 2012, the Russian and East European field has overseen the  Jacques Rossi Gulag Research Fund , which supports conferences, speakers, and grants to students at all levels pursuing research projects related to the history of the Gulag in the Soviet Union. The Richard Stites Memorial Lecture Series was founded as a living memorial to Richard Stites (1931-2010), a giant in the field of Russian history who taught at Georgetown from 1977 until his death. 

Georgetown University’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies , founded in 1959, oversees one of the top MA programs of its kind in the country.  CERES provides a library, lectures, luncheon discussions, and numerous contact with internationally known scholars in several disciplines: literature, culture, economics, and politics of the broad post-Communist world.  The language departments offer courses in Russian, Polish, Turkish, Persian, and Ukrainian (as well as French, German, Latin, and many others).

Washington, DC has become one of the premier centers of Russian Studies in the United States.  Georgetown hosts the Russian History Seminar of Washington DC , which brings together scholars and graduate students in fields related to Russian, Soviet, and Eurasian history and culture.  Created in spring 2004, and drawing regular participants from around the region, the Russian History Seminar has rapidly become one of the most dynamic gatherings of its kind in the country.  In addition to Georgetown University’s faculty across many disciplines in Russian and East European Studies and its own library resources,  the Washington, DC location affords students the opportunity to conduct research in the Library of Congress , the National Archives , and the Holocaust Museum Library and Holocaust Museum archival collections , all of which house sources.  The Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Wilson Center regularly holds symposia and lectures by distinguished scholars and policy figures on matters pertaining to the area.

View a list of Faculty specializing in Russia.

View a list of PhD Students specializing in Russia.

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Leora Eisenberg

Emma Friedlander

Emma Friedlander entered the History PhD program at Harvard University in 2020. Her dissertation is titled “The Soviet New Age: Alternative spirituality...

Sophia Horowitz

Anna Ivanova

Anna Ivanova entered the History PhD Program in 2015. She studies history of the Soviet Union with a focus on the social history and history of...

Alex Jackson

Yevhenii Monastyrskyi

Yevhenii Monastyrskyi entered the Ph.D. program in the Fall of 2023. He specializes in the history of the Soviet Union and is particularly interested in...

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Grad Students By Specialty:

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Russian, East European & Eurasian History

The History Department at The Ohio State University offers an internationally recognized graduate program in Russian, East European and Eurasian history.

Courses in Russian, East European and Eurasian History

Faculty who research and teach Russian, East European and Eurasian History

Graduate Training and Courses

Students in the Russia/East Europe program receive a rigorous training in both teaching and research in a supportive and collegial environment. Our faculty works together in joint-advising arrangements to provide students with extensive contact and interaction both in and out of the classroom.

Students are trained in Russian and East European history, as well as in comparative and methodological minor fields. This diverse scope of geographical areas and historiographical fields produces intellectually wide-ranging scholars and prepares our students well for the demands of the job market, as our recent successes in job placement indicate. Check out the list of recent OSU PhD's in Russian, East European and Eurasian History

Graduate Funding

Graduate student funding packages and research support are among the best in the country.

• All admitted graduate students receive guaranteed multi-year funding packages from the history department.
• The department also offers numerous research grants, including the Wildman Award, specifically designated to support the research of graduate students in the Russia/East Europe field.
• Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships are readily available from the Center for Slavic and East European Studies for academic-year and summer language study.
• The Mershon Center offers generous fellowships to support graduate students' research travel.
• The Office of International Affairs provides grants for graduate students conducting dissertation research abroad.
• In recent years, Ohio State graduate students have been very successful in national fellowship competitions, such as Fulbright-Hays, IREX, ACTR, and SSRC.  

Library Resources at OSU in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

The Ohio State University has one of the country's finest library collections in Russian and East European History. The Russia/East Europe collection contains 800,000 volumes, 1,400 serials, and 175,000 sources on microfilm. Basic reference works and current newspapers, magazines, and scholarly journals in Slavic languages and in English are available in the Slavic and East European Reading Room of the Main University Library.

For more information about the library resources contact  Miroljub Ruzic , our Russian-East European Librarian or visit the  East European and Slavic Studies website.

The library also houses the   Wildman-Perez Russian Peasant Collection  of nineteenth-century publications on peasant history

The Hilandar Research Library  is among the special resources of the University Libraries system. A repository of microfilm copies of medieval Slavic manuscripts, the collection includes Church Slavonic, Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Turkish and Wallachian charters, edicts, and other documents dating from the early eleventh century to modern times. The Hilandar Research Library recently acquired over 1,200 manuscripts on microfilm from widely scattered and previously inaccessible libraries in Russia, making The Ohio State University the leading center of medieval and early modern Slavic studies in the United States. The Hilandar library offers research assistantships to students in the history department, as well as research facilities and the annual Medieval Slavic Summer Institute.

Slavic, East European and Eurasian Resources at OSU

The graduate program in Russian/East European history is part of a large, vibrant network of Slavic and Eurasian studies at the University.

• At OSU, CSEES develops new courses and funds existing classes, sponsors lectures, administers a Slavic and East European studies M.A. program, supervises exchange programs with foreign universities, provides monies for library acquisitions, awards Foreign Language and Area Specialist (FLAS) Fellowships to OSU graduate students, oversees the awarding of other grants, maintains a large video library, and houses the Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press. Among its other activities, CSEES annually hosts the Midwest Slavic Conference. CSEES is an invaluable resource for graduate students in the history department.
• The Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, with a faculty of ten full-time professors offers instruction in Russian and other East European languages, as well as coursework in East European literature and linguistics.
• Mershon Center for International Security and Public Policy
• Melton Center for Jewish Studies
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Information on requirements and application procedures for prospective graduate students .

Russian and East European History

Description.

Russian and East European history offers a broad look at modern Russian history of the Imperial and Soviet eras. Subjects include Russia’s Eurasian Empire, the Russian Revolution, nineteenth-century culture and identity, the Soviet Union since 1929, women in Russian history, and a variety of other topics.

Graduate Program

Russian and Soviet history offers broad training in modern Russian history of the Imperial and Soviet eras. In addition to a two-semester sequence of courses in modern European history, students majoring in the field also take specialized reading colloquia on Imperial and Soviet history taught by Professors Louise McReynolds and Donald J. Raleigh respectively, and research seminars taught by them and other Europeanists. Professors McReynolds and Raleigh likewise teach specialized courses on Russia’s Eurasian Empire, the Russian Revolution, nineteenth-century culture and identity, the Soviet Union since 1929, women in Russian history, and a variety of topical courses. Graduate students specializing in the field must take a directed reading course on medieval and Muscovite history as well. They have the option of broadening the Russian history major to include East Europe by enrolling in the field colloquium taught by Professor Chad Bryant. Alternatively, they can declare East European history their minor field by completing two courses in the area.

Those interested in pursuing graduate work in East European history may do so within the Russian/Soviet or West European orbit. Professor Bryant offers graduate colloquia on East and Central European history. He and Professor Raleigh also teach a colloquium that introduces History Department students to both Russian and East European history, and which serves as a capstone course for students enrolled in the University’s interdisciplinary MA program in Russian and East European studies administered by the UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies.

The Russian and East European history graduate program cooperates closely with the federally-funded UNC–Duke Joint Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies ( UNC CSEEES and Duke CSEEES ) and with Duke University’s Department of History. This cooperation expands the course offerings available to UNC students, who may enroll in classes at Duke taught by Russianists Martin Miller and Anna Krylova. The joint UNC–Duke center also provides Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship support for intermediate/advanced language training, maximizes the impact of spending for library purchases thanks to a cooperative purchasing program, and boasts a lively program of speakers and related initiatives.

All of the students who completed the PhD since 1995 or who are now writing their dissertations have won prestigious national dissertation research and/or writing fellowships funded by organizations such as Fulbright-Hayes, ACTR, IREX, and the SSRC. Recent recipients of the PhD have accepted teaching appointments at the University of Iowa, California State University–Chico, Loyola University (Chicago), University of North Carolina–Greensboro, Clayton State University, Texas A&M, College of the Holy Cross, Arhus University (Denmark), and Rocky Mountain College.

For information on the Russian and East European field graduate comprehensive exams, consult the Graduate Student Handbook.

For a current list of graduate students working in the Field of Russian and East European History, please go to the Graduate Students page and click “Russian and East European History” in the Interests/Concentrations tab.

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Russia & Central Asia

The Russian history component of our program focuses on the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Students also have the opportunity to pursue fields in the history of Russian science and the history of Jews in Russia.

Graduate study in Russian and Central Asian history is supported by our relationship with other programs at the UW, including the  Russian, East European and Central Asian Program (REECAS)  in the  Jackson School of International Studies . REECAS sponsors a yearly conference for faculty and graduate students in the Pacific Northwest. Usually held in April, the event features a distinguished keynote speaker. The REECAS program also sponsors the publication of the Donald W. Treadgold Papers in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies, a nationally and internally recognized series of occasional papers featuring current scholarly research on the regions that the title indicates.

Of special importance is our relationship with the  Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures , which offers courses in 1st through 4th year Russian, as well as intensive summer classes. In addition to the History Department’s funding opportunities, students in Russian history are eligible for FLAS fellowships, the Jackson Foundation fellowship, and several smaller grants and opportunities specific to the region.

The University’s graduate library has outstanding collections pertaining to Russian history. The library’s  Slavic and East European Section  actively acquires books, periodicals, newspapers, microfilms, maps, photographs, video-, DVD and CD recordings, CD-ROMs, and commercial Internet resources to build versatile, rich, and coherent research collections pertaining to the Russian, East European, and Central Asian area. At present, the collection totals over 400,000 books, 10,000 periodical titles, and thousands of microforms.

Associated Faculty

Elena I. Campbell

Division: russia and central asia.

Professor Campbell's current research interests concern empire, religion and nationalism in late Imperial Russia.

A graduate field will include a variety of topics in Russian history from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. The content of the field and the specific focus of graduate study will be determined through consultation with the professor.

Students will be expected to read major works in Imperial Russian history and be familiar with the current state of the field. Students who are choosing Russian history as their primary area of study must acquire a reading knowledge of Russian and any other language relevant to their research.

View Elena I. Campbell's complete profile

Liora Halperin

Division: africa and the middle east.

Students may work with Prof. Halperin to develop a field focused on the history of Modern Israel/Palestine. This field will situate Palestine/Israel within both Middle East and Jewish historiography, with the particular emphasis depending on the student’s research and teaching objectives. It will draw together works in both Israel Studies and Palestine Studies, pertaining to cultural, economic, social, political, and intellectual history.

Division: Europe, Africa and the Middle East, or  Russia

Students may develop a field with Prof. Halperin on Jewish history during the Medieval, Early Modern, and Modern periods. This can be structured as primarily a Europe or Russia field or as primarily a Middle East field, but will in any case explore interrelations between these fields and, secondarily, between these fields other world regions. This field may examine the evolution of relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims; Jews and the state; forms and challenges of emancipation; commercial networks; cultural, linguistic, and social history; the history of anti-Judaism and antisemitism; and Jewish contact with and entanglements with colonial and imperial projects.

Division: Comparative History (Comparative Colonialisms)

Students may develop a field with Prof. Halperin that explores variants of modern colonialism in global perspective; the interplay of colonialism, civic nationalism, and ethnonationalism; the economic history of empire; and the emergence of the field of settler colonial studies.

Division: Comparative History (Ethnicity and Nationalisms)

Students may develop a field with Prof. Halperin exploring modern ethnonational movements in comparative perspective with particular emphasis on Europe (including Eastern and South Eastern Europe), the Middle East, and South Asia. This field may integrate readings on language revival efforts, cultural movements, anti-imperial nationalisms, and the emergence of the nation-state system and concepts of autonomy, minority rights, partition, and migration.

View Liora Halperin's complete profile

Glennys Young

Division: russia & central asia.

Graduate study is offered on a wide range of topics pertaining to the history of Russia and the USSR since 1861. Content of the field is determined through consultation with the professor. Students may choose to focus on a "modern Russia" field from ca. 1861 to 1991 or to prepare a field that focuses only on the Soviet period (1917 to 1991) and its legacy. No matter what the chronological parameters of the field are, students are expected to master basic historiography, reading a common "canon" of core works; but they are also encouraged and expected to prepare specific emphases (e.g., gender, religion, ethnicity and nationalism, foreign policy, to give just a few of many possible thematic examples) that will be useful to them in teaching and/or research. But the specific emphases on which students focus may also be chronological (e.g., the 1940s) or theoretical (e.g., historiography that engages, both positively and critically, with the "new cultural history.")

Students prepare a field on "modern" or Soviet Russia for different reasons. Such a field will be very helpful for teaching surveys on European and world history. Because the historiography of the Soviet period has become especially innovative since 1991, especially in the way that it has drawn upon a variety of theoretical perspectives, preparing such a field could be of considerable value to those whose primary field of research pertains to other polities shaped by Marxism-Leninism.

Students will not be expected to read Russian, or other pertinent languages (e.g., Ukrainian, Uzbek, Estonian, among many others) unless their dissertation projects require reading proficiency in one of the languages of the region.

View Glennys Young's complete profile

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First and leading U.S. academic institution in Russian, Eurasian and East European studies

Timothy Frye in Foreign Affairs on “Putin’s Hidden Weakness”

Natalya Nesterova: The Creative Journey

Selections from the Kolodzei Art Foundation on display from 01/16 through 03/08.

Harriman Responds to Russia's War on Ukraine

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Harriman Institute Responds to Russia's War on Ukraine

Public programs.

Exhibit. Alphabet Diet Project

How Has the Ukraine War Changed the China-Russia Relationship?

Book Launch Roundtable. Gleaning for Communism

Inventing Eastern Europe Thirty Years Later: A Conversation with Professor Larry Wolff and Guests

Aziza Shanazarova’s “Female Religiosity in Central Asia” Forthcoming from Cambridge UP

Sophie Pinkham Reviews Jennifer Croft’s “Irena Rey” for NYR

Thomas Kent Discusses Russian Nontraditional Warfare Operations

Academic programs.

The Harriman Institute offers a number of programs for students interested in Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe, including a Master of Arts in Regional Studies (MARS-REERS) through the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences . The MARS-REERS degree program focuses on a multidisciplinary approach to the study of contemporary Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe.

Student Spotlight: Jason Seter (MARS-REERS ’24)

Harriman courses.

The Harriman Institute sponsors courses across departments and disciplines every semester. Review these as you make decisions and plans to study our region at Columbia.

Fellowships & Funding

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Summer 2021

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Russia and Eurasia

The University of Illinois has long been a center for Russian Studies and the Department of History offers a comprehensive and innovative graduate program in the study of Russian and Soviet history.

Students preparing preliminary examination fields in Russian history are encouraged to construct individual reading lists based on  the preliminary exam reading list   in consultation with the faculty.

Core faculty in the program:

Eugene M. Avrutin  is Associate Professor of modern European Jewish history and Tobor family scholar in the Program of Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois. He is the author of Jews and the Imperial State: Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia (Cornell University Press, 2010). Avrutin has published articles on documentation practices, the concept of race, and religious toleration and neighborly coexistence in the East European borderlands. His new book, The Velizh Affair: The Story of Jews, Christians, and Murder in a Russian Border Town , will be published by Oxford University Press in 2018. He is at work on two projects: a short book tentatively entitled Race in Modern Russia: Critical Perspectives, and a longer book on crime and criminality. His scholarship has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture.

John Randolph  specializes in Russian intellectual and cultural history, 1750–1850. His work focuses on the role played by imperial institutions in creating political, intellectual, and practical frameworks for modern Russian civilization. He is the author of  The House in the Garden: The Bakunin Family and the Romance of Russian Idealism , published by Cornell University Press in 2007. This book won the W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize (2008) given by  ASEEES  (for best first monograph in history), and the Best Book in Literary or Cultural Studies Prize (2008), given by  AATSEEL . John’s new project,  When I Served the Post as a Coachman , is a history of relay obligation in the eighteenth-century Russian Empire. It tells the story of how millions of Imperial Russian subjects were required to provided horses and labor for Russia’s posts, and considers how this system of creating communication across Russia’s gigantic spaces shaped the Russian Enlightenment. John is also a lead developer of the  SourceLab  initiative, a Digital Humanities program at Illinois that encourages students to create new ways of publishing the past online. He currently serves as Director of the Russia, East European, and Eurasia Center.

Faculty in other departments with expertise in Russian history and who can serve on graduate exam and dissertation committees in history:

• Donna Buchanan  - (School of Music: Musical southeastern Europe, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union (particularly Russia); nationalism in Russian and East European classical music; ethnomusicology; Mussorgsky; Shostakovich.)
• Cynthia Buckley  – (Department of Sociology: Central Asia, global health, migration.)
• David Cooper  – (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures: Czech, Slovak, and Russian literatures)
• Michael Finke  – (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures: 19th and 20th century Russian literature; aviation and popular culture)
• Robert Geraci -- (University Library: Russian empire, nationalities, empire, commerce)
• Jessica Greenberg  – (Department of Anthropology: Serbia/Yugoslavia; democracy; revolution; political communication; postsocialism; youth and student activism)
• Lilya Kaganovsky  - (Departments of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature: Soviet literature and film)
• Carol Skalnik Leff  - (Department of Political Science: Soviet and post-Soviet politics, nationalism, democratization).
• Harriet Murav  - (Departments of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature: Russian literature, cultural history, Jewish intellectual history)
• Valleri Robinson  – (Department of Theatre: Russian-American cultural exchange, Cold War performances, transnational theatre historiography, and Chekhov in translation and adaptation)
• Kristin Romberg  – (Art History Program: 20th century Russian art, constructivism)
• Valeria Sobol  – (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures: 19th century Russian literature)
• Richard Tempest  - (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures: Russian intellectual history)

Graduate education in Russian history at the University of Illinois is further enriched through contacts with programs in other disciplines and at other Universities, participation of students and faculty in the biannual Midwest Russian History Workshop, by the diverse activities of interdisciplinary  Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center  (a Title VI National Resource Center), involvement in varied departmental and university colloquia and workshop (including the faculty-graduate Russian Studies Circle, or simply the Kruzhok), and by the presence of one of the premier  Slavic Library  collections in the country (and which also cosponsors a national  Slavic Reference Service , summer national workshops, and series of lectures and conferences). Other important campus resources include  The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory  and the  Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities .

Dissertations Completed in Russian History since 2000

• Susan Smith, "Genesis of a Public Sphere in Russia: Vladimir Province, 1785-1861," 2000
• Jeffery Sahadeo, "Creating a Russian Colonial Community: City, Nation, and Empire in Tashkent, 18651923," 2000
• Marjorie Hilton, "Commercial Cultures: Modernity in Russia and the Soviet Union, 1880-1930," 2003
• Christine Varga-Harris, "Constructing the Soviet Hearth: Home, Citizenship, and Socialism in Russia, 1956-64," 2005
• Gregory Stroud, “Retrospective Revolution: A History of Time and Memory in Urban Russia, 1903-1923,” 2006
• Erica Fraser, “Masculinities in the Motherland: Gender and Authority in the Soviet Union During the Cold War, 1945-1968,” 2009
• Dmitry Tartakovsky, "Parallel Ruptures: Jews of Bessarabia and Transnistria Between Romanian Nationalism and Soviet Communism, 1918-1940," 2009
• Sharyl Corrado, "The 'End of the Earth': Sakhalin Island in the Russian Imperial Imagination, 1949-1906," 2010
• Randall Dills, "The River Neva and the Imperial Facade: Culture and Enviroment in Nineteenth-Century St. Petersburg, Russia," 2010
• Andy Bruno, “Making Nature Modern: Economic Transformation and the Environment in the Soviet North,” 2011.
• Rebecca Mitchell, “Nietzsche’s Orphans: Music and the Search for Unity in Revolutionary Russia, 1905-1921,” 2011
• Maria Cristina Galmarini, “The ‘Right to Be Helped’: Welfare Policies and Notions of Rights at the Margins of Soviet Society, 1917-1950”, 2012.
• Gregory Kveberg, “Moscow by Night: Musical Subcultures, Identity Formation, and Cultural Evolution in Russia, 1977-2008,” 2012
• Jesse Murray, “Community, Belonging, and Identity: Conversion in the Russian Empire, 1810-1917,” 2013
• Steven Jug, “All Stalin’s Men? Soldierly Masculinities in the Soviet War Effort, 1938-1945,” 2013
• Elana Jakel, “Ukraine without Jews?" Nationality and Belonging in Soviet Ukraine, 1943-1948,” 2014
• Rachel Koroloff, “Seeds of Exchange: Collecting for Russia’s Apothecary and Botanical Gardens in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” 2014
• Patryk Reid, “Managing Nature, Constructing the State: The Material Foundation of Soviet Empire in Tajikistan, 1917-1937,” 2016
• Deirdre Ruscitti Harshman, "A Space Called Home: Housing and the Management of the Everyday in Russia, 1890-1935," 2018
• Benjamin Bamberger, "Mountains of Discontent: Georgian Alpinism and the Limits of Soviet Equality, 1923-1955," 2019
• Matthew Klopfenstein, "Performing death: Celebrity women's funerals and the emotional public sphere in late imperial Russia," 2021

Slavic Languages and Literatures

Graduate program.

Yale University’s Slavic Department is one of the most dynamic in the United States and takes great pride in the creative and forward-thinking scholarship of its faculty and students. Our graduate program values interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives on Russian, East European, and Eurasian literatures and cultures. While maintaining a foundation in the study and teaching of language and literature, the Department sees both as embedded in a global context and a broad network of cultural production. In coursework, exams, professional training, mentoring, and intellectual life, our graduate program seeks to provide its students with the knowledge, skills, and vision to become engaged, innovative Slavists and Eurasianists for the twenty-first century.

The faculty members of the Yale Slavic Department have been recognized internationally for their teaching and research. With deep and evolving connections to comparative literature, art history, film and media studies, history and the social sciences, gender and sexuality studies, and the digital humanities, the faculty are actively engaged in integrating Slavic and Eurasian studies into the diverse communities and conversations of the academic and public spheres. Many opportunities for such integration within Yale are provided by the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Program of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies , but also by the uniquely collaborative culture of the university’s faculty and institutions. The Slavic graduate program also benefits from the many resources of the university: from Yale’s renowned strengths in the humanities to the rich collections of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Sterling Memorial Library (and its Slavic, East European and Central Asian Collection ), and the Yale University Art Gallery. Our expansive approach to Slavic studies is reflected in the impressive range of our graduate students’ research fields and dissertations , as well as the many professional achievements of our alumni .

Ph.D. Tracks and Interdisciplinary Programs In line with our particular strengths in interdisciplinary study, the Department offers a range of options for the Ph.D. degree. Our primary track is the Ph.D. in Slavic and Eurasian Literatures and Cultures, with a strong emphasis on transnational and transmedial approaches. The Department also offers a combined degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures and Film and Media Studies. By special arrangement, the Department will consider individualized ad hoc programs with other departments. Students interested in pursuing such a degree are encouraged to speak with the Slavic Director of Graduate Studies at the time of application or early in the program.

Yale University makes available to graduate students several certificate programs, such as Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Film and Media Studies, Translation Studies, Environmental Humanities, or the MacMillan Center’s Councils on African, European, Latin American and Iberian, and Middle East Studies. Graduate students can also receive a Certificate of College Teaching Preparation or a Certificate in Second Language Acquisition. For a complete list of certificate programs, see the website for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Intellectual Life in the Department Several annual programs enhance the intellectual life of the Slavic Department, including the Slavic Colloquium, which features talks by leading scholars within and adjacent to the discipline, and the Slavic Film Colloquium, which screens films and other media from Russia, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union and invites speakers on topics in film and media studies. Both the Slavic Colloquium and the Slavic Film Colloquium are organized by graduate students (typically second- and third-year students), under the supervision of designated faculty members. In addition, the department supports the Slavic Graduate Student Advisory Committee in organizing varied events, including regular Russian-language and/or research workshops (kruzhki) and dissertation progress roundtables.

Beyond these regular colloquia, the Slavic Department frequently hosts interdisciplinary and international conferences and workshops. Graduate students are also active in organizing and participating in conferences and working groups that bridge departmental communities at Yale (many sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Whitney Center for the Humanities). The nature of these events consistently changes according to the makeup of the faculty and student body. Because of this, graduate students are encouraged to bring ideas for enriching the intellectual and social life of the department to the Director of Graduate Studies and the Chair, who will, when possible, provide guidance and help facilitate the funding and organization of such events. The university and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences also provide resources for funding and encouraging intellectual life in the humanities that vary by year. Students should remain alert to these announcements as they are made.

Slavic Graduate Student Advisory Committee (SGSAC) Every year graduate students will be asked to elect three members from their ranks to serve on the Slavic Graduate Student Advisory Committee (SGSAC). This committee is intended to facilitate consistent, open, and mutual communication between the graduate students and the faculty. The committee will nominate one of its members to attend certain parts of the department’s regular faculty meetings, at the invitation of the Chair. The committee member may be asked to convey any pressing graduate student concerns to the faculty, and will be expected to report on the faculty meeting to their student colleagues. Depending on the year, and in consultation with the Chair of the department, the committee may also oversee several departmental administrative responsibilities, including the maintenance of current funding/fellowship information, the peer mentorship program, a Russian-language and/or work-in-progress kruzhok, and dissertation progress roundtables. Other responsibilities may be added to the portfolio in consultation with the committee members and the Chair of the department.

Graduate School Policies For more information on degree requirements, credit and degree petitions, withdrawals and leaves of absence, parental support, financial aid, and other matters, see the website of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences .

Applying to the Yale Slavic Department For more information about applying for graduate study at Yale, see the website for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences . Specific questions about the Slavic Department and its graduate program can be directed to the Slavic Director of Graduate Studies.

• Schools & departments

Russian PhD

Awards: PhD

Study modes: Full-time, Part-time

Funding opportunities

Programme website: Russian

Discovery Day

Join us online on 18th April to learn more about postgraduate study at Edinburgh

View sessions and register

Research profile

Doctorate-level study is an opportunity to make an original, positive contribution to research in Russian Studies.

Join our interdisciplinary community and undertake your PhD under the guidance of our experienced and well-published supervisors.

The first lecture in Russian was given at the University in 1919, and Russian Studies was introduced as a degree programme in 1949, the first of its kind in Scotland.

Research excellence

In the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), our research in Russian Studies was submitted in Modern Languages and Linguistics (Panel D - Arts and Humanities; Unit of Assessment 26).

The results reaffirm Edinburgh’s position as one of the UK’s leading research universities - third in the UK.

As published in Times Higher Education's REF power ratings, this result is based on the quality and breadth of our research in the unit of assessment.

Our staff have received many prestigious research awards including the AHRC-awarded projects ‘Global Russians: Transnational Russophone Networks in the UK’ (2016-2021) and ‘Reconfiguring the Canon of Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry, 1991-2008’ (2010-2013).

Our expertise covers a wide range of areas, including:

• social, political and cultural perspectives on Russian language
• transnational Russian culture
• Russian literature
• film studies
• theatre studies
• comparative literature

Explore our range of research centres, networks and projects in Russian Studies

Across the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) and the wider University, we are able to support PhD theses crossing boundaries between languages and/or disciplines, including:

• linguistics
• translation studies

Be inspired by the range of PhD research in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Over the course of your PhD, you will be expected to complete an original body of work under the expert guidance of your supervisors leading to a dissertation of usually between 80,000 and 100,000 words.

You will be awarded your doctorate if your thesis is judged to be of an appropriate standard, and your research makes a definite contribution to knowledge.

Read our pre-application guidance on writing a PhD research proposal

Go beyond the books

Beyond the Books is a podcast from the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at research and the people who make it happen.

Listen to a mix of PhD, early career and established researchers talk about their journey to and through academia and about their current and recent research.

Browse Beyond the Books episodes and hear our research community talk about their work

Training and support

Between the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC), the Careers Service and the Institute for Academic Development (IAD), you will find a range of programmes and resources to help you develop your postgraduate skills.

You will also have access to the University’s fantastic libraries, collections and worldwide strategic partnerships.

As part of our research community, you will be immersed in a world of knowledge exchange, with lots of opportunities to share ideas, learning and creative work.

Activities include:

• a regular seminar series in European Languages and Cultures, with talks by staff, research students and visiting speakers
• film screenings
• national and international conferences

Our graduates tell us that they value LLC’s friendliness, the connections they make here and the in-depth guidance they receive from our staff, who are published experts in their field.

The Main University Library holds academic books, journals and databases, including around 14,400 titles in the Russian language. E-resources include Russian newspapers, TV and radio channels.

The Library is also the home of the University's Centre for Research Collections which brings together:

• more than 400,000 rare books
• six kilometres of archives and manuscripts
• thousands of works of art, historical musical instruments and other objects

Many of our Special Collections are digitised and available online from our excellent Resource Centre, Computing Labs, and dedicated PhD study space in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC).

• Look inside the PhD study space in LLC

In the city

As a PhD candidate at Edinburgh, you’ll be based in a world-leading festival city with fantastic cinemas, theatres, galleries, museums, and collections.

Many of them are located close to the University's Central Area, making them very easy to access when you are on campus.

The National Library of Scotland is less than one km from our School, for example. It has outstanding Russian-language holdings.

• Pre-application guidance

Before you formally apply for this PhD, you should look at the pre-application information and guidance on the programme website.

This will help you decide if this programme is right for you, and help us gain a clearer picture of what you hope to achieve.

The guidance will also give you practical advice for writing your research proposal – one of the most important parts of your application.

Entry requirements

These entry requirements are for the 2024/25 academic year and requirements for future academic years may differ. Entry requirements for the 2025/26 academic year will be published on 1 Oct 2024.

A UK 2:1 honours degree and a masters degree, or their international equivalents, in a related subject. We may also consider your application if you have equivalent qualifications or experience; please check with the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures (LLC) before you apply.

International qualifications

Check whether your international qualifications meet our general entry requirements:

• Entry requirements by country
• English language requirements

Regardless of your nationality or country of residence, you must demonstrate a level of English language competency at a level that will enable you to succeed in your studies.

English language tests

We accept the following English language qualifications at the grades specified:

• IELTS Academic: total 7.0 with at least 6.5 in each component. We do not accept IELTS One Skill Retake to meet our English language requirements.
• TOEFL-iBT (including Home Edition): total 100 with at least 23 in each component. We do not accept TOEFL MyBest Score to meet our English language requirements.
• C1 Advanced ( CAE ) / C2 Proficiency ( CPE ): total 185 with at least 176 in each component.
• Trinity ISE : ISE III with passes in all four components.
• PTE Academic: total 70 with at least 62 in each component.

Your English language qualification must be no more than three and a half years old from the start date of the programme you are applying to study, unless you are using IELTS , TOEFL, Trinity ISE or PTE , in which case it must be no more than two years old.

Degrees taught and assessed in English

We also accept an undergraduate or postgraduate degree that has been taught and assessed in English in a majority English speaking country, as defined by UK Visas and Immigration:

• UKVI list of majority English speaking countries

We also accept a degree that has been taught and assessed in English from a university on our list of approved universities in non-majority English speaking countries (non-MESC).

• Approved universities in non-MESC

If you are not a national of a majority English speaking country, then your degree must be no more than five years old* at the beginning of your programme of study. (*Revised 05 March 2024 to extend degree validity to five years.)

Find out more about our language requirements:

Fees and costs

Scholarships and funding, featured funding.

There are a number of scholarship schemes available to eligible candidates on this PhD programme, including awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Please be advised that many scholarships have more than one application stage, and early deadlines.

• Find out more about scholarships in literatures, languages and cultures

Other funding opportunities

Search for scholarships and funding opportunities:

• Search for funding

Further information

• Phone: +44 (0)131 650 4086
• Contact: [email protected]
• School of Literatures, Languages & Cultures
• 50 George Square
• Central Campus
• Programme: Russian
• School: Literatures, Languages & Cultures
• College: Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Select your programme and preferred start date to begin your application.

PhD Russian - 3 Years (Full-time)

Phd russian - 6 years (part-time), application deadlines.

We strongly recommend you submit your completed application as early as possible, particularly if you are also applying for funding or will require a visa. We may consider late applications if we have places available.

• How to apply

You must submit two references with your application.

Find out more about the general application process for postgraduate programmes:

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Applications Open for New Programs Starting in 2024! Read more .

• Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian History
• PhD Dissertations

PhD Dissertations in Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian History

• Early Modern Studies
• Research Centers
• Labor History
• Major Grants
• Student-Led Research Groups
• Hanak Prize Winners
• Courses Offered in Recent Years
• Publication
• Research Group

Petrova, Olga - Ukrainian and Jewish National Ideas in the Revolution of 1917-1920

Berezina, Elizaveta - Between Arts and Crafts: Soviet Modernization of the Art Industry, 1932-1965

Kuziev, Faruh - Muslim Scientists, Muslim Battalions, Muslim Muslims: Sharora — a site of Cold War Connections (1950s-1990s)

Rimkutė, Agnė - Producing Socialism while Making Films: Film Industry in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union (1957-1972)

Muhonen, Riikkamari - The Connections of Moscow-based People's Friendship University with the Developing World 1960-1982: A Case Study of Soviet Soft Power and Transnational Relations

Papushina, Anastasia - Concepts of Death and Suffering in Revolutionary Festivals: Comparing the Experience of French and Russian Revolution

Bystryk, Aliaksandr - From Poets to Revolutionaries: Transformation of the Belarusian National Movement during World War I

Medzibrodszky, Alexandra – Christianity, Socialism and Theo-political Visions in Late Imperial Russia

Posunko, Andriy - The Transformation of the New Russian Borderland: Adaptation and Resistance (1775 - 1835)

Koshulap, Yuriy - Confessional Nationalism and Unification Policies of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky in the Interwar Galicia

Voronovici, Alexandr - The Ambiguities of Soviet “Piedmonts”: Soviet Borderland Policies in the Ukrainian SSR and the Moldovan ASSR, 1922-1934 (2016)

Karpova, Yulia - Designers’ Socialism: The Aesthetic Turn in Soviet Russia after Stalin (2015)

Mazanik, Anna – Sanitation, Urban Environment and the Politics of Public Health in Late Imperial Moscow (2015)

Lember, Uku – Silenced Ethnicity: Russian Estonian Marriages in Soviet Estonia (2014)

Khripachenko, Tatiana – National Challenges to Decentralization: Autonomy and Federation in Russian Liberal Discourse, 1900-1914 (2014)

Kotenko, Anton – The Ukrainian National Project in Search of National Space: 1848-1914

Ryzhkov, Vladimir  - Political Ideas in the Russian Historical Writing of the Age of Enlightenment: Mikhail Shcherbatov and Nikolai Karamzin (2013)

Polouektova, Ksenia  - Foreign Land as a Metaphor of One's Own: Travel and Travel Writing in Russian History and Culture, 1200s-1800s (2009)

Cusco, Andrei -  Between Nation and Empire: Russian and Romanian Competing Visions of Besarabia in the Second Half of the 19th and Early 20th Century (2008)

Dobrynin, Sergei  - Soviet Cinema, Soviet Spaces: Everyday Life in Soviet Film, 1965-1985 (2007)

Klimkova, Oxana  - The Gulag Microcosm: Life and Death at the White-Sea Baltic Combine of the NKVD, 1933-41 (2007)

Polova, Zoryana - Collaboration and Resistance in Western Ukraine, 1941-1947 (2007)

Taki, Victor -  Russia on the Danube: Imperial Expansion and Political Reform in Moldavia and Wallachia, 1812-1834 (2007)

Kucherova, Daria – Art and Spirituality in the Making of the Roerich Myth (2005)

Semyonov, Alexander - The Political Language of Russian Liberalism: The Liberation Movement, Constitutional-Democratic Party, and Public Politics in late Imperial Russia (2005)

Smahgliy, Kateryna - Patron-Clientelism and Ukrainian Political Elites in the 1960-2000s (2005)

Shlikhta, Natalia - The Survival of the Church under Soviet Rule: A Study in the Life of the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, 1945-1971 (2004)

Prokopovych, Markian - Architecture, Cultural Politics and National Identity: Lemberg 1772-1918. Entangling National Histories (2004)

Sarkisova, Oksana - Envisioned Communities: Representations of Nationalities in Non-Fiction Cinema in Soviet Russia, 1923-1935 (2004)

Dysa, Kateryna - Witchcraft Trials and Beyond: Right-Bank Side Ukrainian Trials of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.(2004)

Kalkandjieva, Daniela - Ecclesio-Political Aspects of the International Activities of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1917-1948 (2004)

Berezhnaya, Lilya - Sub Specie Mortis: Perception of Death and the Afterlife in the Catholic and Orthodox Cultures of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th-17th Century (2003)

Sereda, Ostap - Shaping of a National Identity: Early Ukrainophiles in Austrian Eastern Galicia, 1860-1873 (2003)

Pilinkaite, Vilana - Family Structures and Strategies in Post-Emancipation Lithuania (2003)

Loskoutova, Marina - The Russian Provinces in the Search of Development: The Making of the Secondary School System, 1860-1880s (2000)

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In the years since Russian language instruction was introduced in 1910, the University of Michigan has become renowned as a leading center for research and training in Russian studies. Study of the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and the current-day Russian Federation and other Soviet successor states remains central to CREES's mission. CREES organizes lectures, conferences, film series, and other programs to complement the extensive array of Russia-focused courses offered each year by over 30 U-M area specialists whose research interests range from witchcraft in pre-Petrine Russia to Stalin's gulags to contemporary Russian culture, politics, and energy issues. Recent major CREES programs focusing on Russia include Rosenberg’s Russia (2010) and Ann Arbor in Russian Literature: Revisiting the Carl R. Proffer and Ardis Legacies (2013). To facilitate on-site activities of students and faculty, CREES collaborates with various institutions in the Russian Federation.

The following CREES-affiliated faculty, research associates, and staff contribute to the University of Michigan's prominence in Russian studies.

University of Michigan Faculty

Anderson, Barbara A. : Sociology Aristarkhova, Irina : Art & Design, Art History, Women’s Studies Brader, Ted : Political Science Branch, John : Business Eagle, Herbert J. : Slavic Languages & Literatures, Residential College Genné, Beth : Music, Theatre & Dance; Residential College Gitelman, Zvi Y. : Political Science, Judaic Studies (Emeritus) Greene, Arthur : Music, Theatre & Dance Hell, Julia : Germanic Languages & Literatures Jones, Pauline : Political Science Kandogan, Yener : Management, University of Michigan, Flint King, Elizabeth : Health Behavior & Health Education Khagi, Sofya : Slavic Languages & Literatures Kivelson, Valerie A. : History Knysh, Alexander : Near Eastern Studies Krutikov, Mikhail : Slavic Languages & Literatures, Judaic Studies Lemon, Alaina : Anthropology Levitsky, Melvyn : Public Policy Maiorova, Olga : Slavic Languages & Literatures Makin, Alina : Slavic Languages & Literatures, Residential College Makin, Michael : Slavic Languages & Literatures Markel, Howard : Medicine, History Matjias, Christian : Music, Theatre & Dance Newell, Josh : Natural Resources & Environment Northrop, Douglas : History, Near Eastern Studies Paloff, Benjamin : Slavic Languages & Literatures, Comparative Literature Rogovyk, Svitlana : Slavic Languages & Literatures Rosenberg, William G. : History (Emeritus) Shevoroshkin, Vitalij V .: Linguistics, Slavic Languages & Literatures (Emeritus) Shkolnik, Nina : Slavic Languages & Literatures Suny, Ronald G. : History Swanson, Eric : Philosophy Toman, Jindrich : Slavic Languages & Literatures Veidlinger, Jeffrey : History/Judaic Studies Zhukov, Yuri M .: Political Science Zimmerman, William : Political Science, Center for Political Studies (Emeritus)

Library Staff: Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Division

Nieubuurt, Brendan J. Snyder, Beth E.

Students wishing to specialize in Russian studies have several options. Through CREES, students may focus on Russia within interdisciplinary bachelor's , master's , and graduate certificate programs in Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies. Through the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures , they may pursue an undergraduate minor in Russian language, literature, and culture; bachelor's degree in Russian; and master's and doctoral degrees in Slavic languages and literatures. Students may also emphasize Russian studies in undergraduate and graduate-level degree programs in anthropology, business, comparative literature, economics, history, law, natural resources, political science, public policy, and sociology.

Each year the University of Michigan offers over 60 courses on Russian culture, economics, film, history, language, literature, politics, and society. For offerings in specific terms, see CREES courses . Study Abroad : Through the Center for Global and Intercultural Study , U-M students can earn in-residence credit for semester- or academic-year study with the Middlebury College program (Moscow, Yaroslavl, and Irkutsk), and CIEE (St. Petersburg).

Supporting Russian Studies at the University of Michigan

Gifts to the CREES Endowment will support Russia-focused courses, lectures, conferences, film screenings, and other programs, as well as student awards for research and internships in Russia. Please review the various options for making a gift .

For more information, contact Marysia Ostafin by email ( [email protected] ) or phone (734.647.2237).

Internet Resources

The following websites offer a starting place for Russia-related information.

University of Michigan Resources

• Slavic Language Learning Site: Russian (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures)
• Resources on Russia (University Library Slavic and East European Division)

Other Resources

• Russia Listservs (Ellison Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, University of Washington)
• Webliographies (Slavic and East European Language Research Center, Duke University)

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Peter Holquist

Associate Chair, Ronald S. Lauder Endowed Term Associate Professor of History

Russian and European History

[email protected] 215 746.0201

College Hall 207

Peter Holquist 's teaching and research focus upon the history of Russia and modern Europe. He is the author of  Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921  (Harvard, 2002). He is founder and served for ten years as editor of the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History  and serves as editor for the  Kritika Historical Studies . In 2010, he was a co-recipient of the “Distinguished Editor” Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals for work on the journal Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History.  Holquist has published articles on Russia 's experience in the First World War and Russian Revolution, questions of continuity and change from the imperial period into the Stalin era, and other topics.

Holquist's current project,  By Right of War , explores the emergence of the international law of war in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Specifically, it analyzes the role of imperial Russia in codifying and extending these "laws and customs of war," and examines to what extent European militaries, and particularly the Russian army, observed these norms in practice. This project encompasses two distinct areas of analysis. First, it traces how international law emerged as a discipline in Imperial Russia and came to flourish there. This is a story of intellectual and diplomatic history. The second half of the project measures the extent to which these normative principles shaped actual policy. It takes the form of military and political history, examining the Russian army in three cases of military occupation: Bulgaria and Anatolia in 1877-78; Manchuria during the Boxer Rebellion, 1900-1901; and in Austrian Galicia, East Prussia, and the Ottoman eastern provinces during the First World War. The project, in other words, asks by what means, and to what degree, can one bring people's conduct, even  in extremis , into line with normative and ethical prescriptions?

Holquist received his Ph.D. with distinction from Columbia University in 1995. Prior to joining Penn's History Department in Fall 2006, he taught for nine years at Cornell University. He offers lecture courses on imperial Russia the Soviet Union, Europe in the nineteenth century, and on the First World War; and undergraduate seminars on "Russia in the Age of Anna Karenina" and a Ben Franklin Seminar on the First World War.

Member of the Penn Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies Group

Students interested in applying for PhD in Russian imperial and Soviet History

Holquist works with graduate students in the fields of Russian history, Soviet history, and the history of modern Europe. Applicants to the graduate program in any of these sub-fields are encouraged to contact Prof. Holquist via email (see above) before the application deadline.  If you are having any difficulty with the the UPenn PhD application portal due to war, civil conflict or natural disaster, or due to your citizenship or country of origin, please feel free to write to me immediately. 

Publications

• “The Russian Revolution as Continuum and Context and Yes,—as Revolution,” Cahiers du monde russe 58, no. 1/2 (2017): 179-92
• “Okkupatsionnaia politika Vremennogo Pravitel’stva kak osvobozhdenie: na primer ‘Turetskoi Armenii’” [“The Occupation Politcy of the Russian Provisional Government as a Form of Liberation: The Case of ‘Turkish Armenia’”], in Epokha voin i revoliutsii, 1914-1922: Materialy mezhdunarodnogo kollokviuma (St. Petersburg: Nestor, 2017), pp. 248-63.   
• “Bureaucratic Diaries and Imperial Experts. Autobiographical Writing in Tsarist Russia in the late Nineteenth Century: Fëdor Martens, Dmitrii Miliutin, Pëtr Valuev,” in Imperial Subjects. Autobiografische Praxis in den Vielvölkerreichen der Habsburger, Romanovs und Osmanen im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert , eds.Martin Aust and Frithjof Benjamin Schenk (Böhlau Verlag: Köln, 2015), pp. 205-232.
• “The World Turned Upside Down: Refugee Crisis and Militia Massacres in Occupied Northern Persia, 1917-1918,” in Le Génocide des Arméniens: Cent ans de recherché, 1915-2015 , ed. Conseil scientifique international pour l’étude du génocide des Arméniens (Paris: Armand Colin, 2015), pp. 130-54.
• "‘In accord with State Interests and the People's Wishes': The Technocratic Ideology of Imperial Russia's Resettlement Administration," Slavic Review 69, no. 1 (Spring 2010), 151-79. (Posted in accordance with Slavic Review's web-posting policy.)
• “Violent Russia, Deadly Marxism: Russia in the Epoch of Violence,”   Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History  4, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 627-52. (Posted with the permission of  Kritika .)
• “‘Information is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work': Bolshevik Surveillance in its Pan-European Perspective,”  Journal of Modern History  69, no. 3 (1997): 415-450. (Posted in accordance with the on-line posting policy of the  Journal of Modern History .)
• Introduction to  Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921

Suggested Readings for PhD Comprehensive Exams

Suggested Readings for PhD Qualifying Exam in Soviet History  (PDF) Suggested Readings for PhD Qualifying Exam in Imperial Russia (PDF)

Teaching Awards

• Ira H. Abrams Memorial Award for Distinguished Teaching, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, April 2018. 
• Richard S. Dunn Award for Distinguished Teaching, History Department, University of Pennsylvania, Spring 2017
• Robert and Helen Appel Fellowship for Humanists and Social Scientists, recognizing “excellence in teaching, scholarly promise, and dedication to advancing knowledge,” Cornell University, 2004

Ph.D. in History, Columbia University (awarded with Distinction)

BA in History and in Slavic Languages and Literatures, Indiana-University-Bloomington (awarded with High Distinction)

• HIST 048 Imperial Russia, 1689-1905
• HIST 049 The Soviet Century, 1905-2005
• HIST 102 Freshman Seminar: Russia in the Age of Anna Karenina
• HIST 212 Ben Franklin Seminar: The First World War
• HIST 333 The Napoleonic Era andTolstoy's War and Peace
• HIST 425 World War I: Causes, Course, Consequences
• HIST 620 Issues and Themes in the History of Imperial Russia

Graduate Program

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MA Program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

The Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies is a two-year multidisciplinary program that offers advanced training for those qualified students who seek an integrated knowledge of the language, history, society and culture of the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Eurasia. This graduate degree offers the opportunity to create an individually tailored program. Upon graduation, students will have an extensive understanding of the country or countries of specialization, including a working knowledge of one of the region's languages. The program primarily serves students preparing for professional careers and those seeking an M.A. before pursuing a professional career trajectory or Ph.D. in a particular discipline.

This region of the world covers over one-sixth of the globe and comprises countries, which differ enormously in language, ethnicity, religion, culture, political history and economic development. Since the mid-1980s, the process of reform, collapse and reconstruction in the region has led to a heightened interest in the area and the need for serious and scholarly understanding of the region. It is the mission of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies to facilitate such understanding.

The M.A. program offers either a thesis or report option. Click here for more information about degree requirements .

Dual-Degree M.A. Programs with CREEES

In addition to the standard M.A. program, we currently offer five dual-degree programs, in which students can work towards M.A.s in two disciplines at The University of Texas. These programs are structured in such a way that students can earn both masters degrees simultaneously in approximately three years; students must fulfill all requirements for both degrees. Students have found that this multidisciplinary approach allows them to respond to an increased need in both the public and private sectors for specialists with a thorough understanding of the culture, economics, geography, history and politics of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Students must apply to both programs in order to be considered for the dual-degree program.  Please note that the admission deadlines for other programs may be earlier than the deadline for the CREEES program.

CREEES Dual-Degree Programs Available Include:

Master of public affairs/master of arts in russian, east european and eurasian studies.

The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs offer a dual-degree program that combines advanced policy studies with interdisciplinary area studies and language. Please note that the admission deadline for the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs is earlier than the deadline for the CREEES program.

Master of Global Policy Studies/Master of Arts in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies 

The LBJ School and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) also offer a dual-degree program leading to a Master of Global Policy Studies (MGPS) and a Master of Arts in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (MA). The dual-degree program combines advanced studies of globalization with a focus on the politics, economy and cultures of the former Soviet Union and East European world area. Again, please note that the admission deadline for the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs is earlier than the deadline for the CREEES program.

Master of Arts in Media Studies/Master of Arts in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies

The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and the College of Communication offer a dual-degree program that combines interdisciplinary area studies and language with advanced communication studies.

J.D. Law/Master of Arts in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies

This dual-degree program is designed for those students who wish to study law and Russian, East European and Eurasian issues in an integrated and interdisciplinary manner. Students who expect to be involved in government service or legal practices with a Eastern European focus will benefit from this program.

Master of Business Administration/Master of Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies

The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies and the Red McCombs School of Business offer a dual-degree program that combines the skills needed to lead, build and manage enterprises in a dynamic, global economy with interdisciplinary area studies and language.

Graduate Portfolio Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies

PhD candidates enrolled in other UT departments, who are pursuing coursework and/or research in our region, may be interested in the Graduate Portfolio Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies .

MA Degree Program

Degree program.

CREEES’s one-year interdisciplinary Master of Arts (MA) degree program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (REEES) provides students with a strong grounding in historical and contemporary processes of change in the Russian Federation, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.  Core requirements provide intellectual cohesion, while electives and the capstone project give students the flexibility to pursue their own academic and professional interests drawing on Stanford’s excellence in teaching and research and rich library and archival resources.  The REEES MA program prepares students for a range of professional and academic careers. 

All students in the MA REEES program must complete a minimum of  48 academic credit units .  All course work applied to the 48-unit minimum must focus primarily with REEES, be taken at the graduate level (usually 200-level, and above), and be approved by the CREEES Associate Director,  ensuring that planned course work satisfies requirements towards the degree.  Students may enroll up for up to 18-units per quarter In the Autumn, Winter, and Spring Quarters (56 units, total, in given academic year). The MA program is typically completed in one academic year; in some cases, longer periods of study may be permitted. Details regarding REEES MA degree requirements can be found in the  Stanford Bulletin .

Core Requirements

• Core Courses : Students must complete 3 core courses during the Autumn and Winter Quarters in the 2023-2024 academic year - 1 core course in the Autumn Quarter and 2 core courses in the Winter Quarter. CREEES MA students must enroll in the required core courses for 5 units, for a letter grade, and with the REES course subject code.  Core course offerings change every year.  The core courses for the 2023-24 academic year are:
• Autumn Quarter 2023 Core Course (1): REES 224A: The Soviet Civilization (Instructor: Amir Weiner)
• Winter Quarter 2024 Core Courses (2): REES 303: Dissent and Protest in Post-Soviet Culture (Instructors: Yuliya Ilchuk & Dominick Lawton) -and- 

REES 231B: Understanding Russia: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Instructor: Kathryn Stoner)  -or-  REES 219: A New Cold War: Great Power Relations in 21st Century (Instructor: Michael McFaul)

• Spring Quarter - No core course enrollment required
• Core Seminar Series : All students are required to enroll in REES 200. Current Issues in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies in Autumn and Winter quarters (2 units, total). The goal of this seminar series is to survey current methodological and substantive issues in Russian, East European and Eurasian studies, acquaint students with Stanford resources and faculty, and present professional development and career options.

Interdisciplinary Course Work : Students take 1-2 elective courses per quarter. Courses in REEES that count towards the MA degree program requirements must be completed and distributed among at least three disciplines.  A list of pre-approved courses for each academic year can be found in the  Stanford Bulletin . Students can petition to have courses that do not appear on this list counted towards the degree.

Language Study : Students study Russian, an East European or Central Asian language, or a language from the Caucasus each quarter they are enrolled in the MA degree program. The Stanford Language Center can offer over a dozen area language courses .

The CREEES Associate Director works with each student to design a course of study that optimally meets the student's academic and professional interests, needs, and goals.

Capstone Thesis

The capstone thesis is a central component of the CREEES MA program, which allows students to produce a work of original scholarship during their year in the program. Students must complete the capstone thesis under the supervision of a faculty advisor, and in consultation with the CREEES Director and Associate Director. Students work on the thesis over the course of their entire time in the program, participating in a series of capstone-focused workshops throughout the year. They also enroll in the REES 300.  MA Capstone Seminar  for 1 unit in Spring Quarter.

MA Profiles

How to apply.