RESEARCH INTERESTS

history of the Soviet Union; history of Russia; environmental history; social and cultural history; history of the Cold War

BIOGRAPHY

I study the history of the Soviet Union with a focus on its engagement with the natural environment and the influence of such interaction on various spheres of Russian history. My master’s thesis was on a quasi-civic Soviet environmentalist organization from the 1960s to the 1980s. Based on materials from multiple Russian state archives and contemporary periodicals, I demonstrated the existence of a homegrown grassroots environmentalism in the late-Soviet society that utilized the grey zones in the political system, and its connection to the larger sociopolitical development leading to Perestroika and beyond. For my doctoral studies, I am planning a new project that looks at the mining industries and transport infrastructure of Soviet Northern Siberia in connection with the Cold War and international trade.

PUBLICATIONS

“Student Nature Protection Druzhina of Moscow University: A History of Early Civic Environmentalism in the Soviet Union (1960-1985),” SA-CHONG 112 (May 2024): 201-243.

Вузовские дружины по охране природы 1970 – 1980 гг.: стратегия работы и существования неформалов в позднесоветском обществе // Правила игры на общественных началах. Власть и добровольные общественные организации в СССР 1960 – 1990-х гг. / отв. ред. Г. А. Янковская. Пермь: Пермский государственный университет, 2023.