Guest researchers 2016
Dmitry Rudenko
Period of stay: 1-30 september
Contact: drudenko@inbox.ru
Dmitry Rudenko is an Associate Professor at the Department of International Economics and Business, Tyumen State University. Before joining Tyumen State University in 2012, Dmitry worked at the Tyumen State Academy of World Economy, Management and Law as a chairman of the International Economics Department. His research interests include poverty and inequality, human development, spatial development, economic geography, globalization, the Arctic. His papers have appeared in Regional Research of Russia, Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences. Dmitry is staying at the UCRS 1-30 September.
Alaksiej Michalevic
Period of stay: 1 Sep 2016 – 31 Aug 2017
Contact: michalevic@gmail.com
Alaksiej Michalevic is a researcher and lawyer in Belarus at the Centre for Refugee Support. Mr. Michalevic holds a degree in Political Science and Law from th
e Belarusian State University and PhD in Social Studies from Polish Academy of Sciences. His scientific interests are EU immigration and asylum policy, post-communist transformation and international human rights law. During his stay at the UCRS he will be working on project entitled “Asylum-seekers from Countries of Eastern Partnership in Sweden and Poland: Comparative Analysis of the Decision-Making Process in Migration”.
Uku Lember
Period of stay: 15 Aug 2016 - 30 Jun 2017
Contact: lember.uku@gmail.com
Uku Lember defended his PhD in 2014 at Central European University in Budapest. He is interested in the study of late Soviet Union, memory politics and ethnicities; he is also planning a study of queer history of Soviet Estonia. Uku’s dissertation was based on life-story interviews with inter-married families, titled “Silenced Ethnicity: Russian-Estonian Inter-marriages in Soviet Estonia (Oral History).” In 2015, he expanded a similar research agenda to Ukraine, asking how families with differing heritage have adjusted to conflicts in socio-cultural alignments and in which ways have their historical interpretations and imaginations of futures changed in the last years. Recently, he has spent much time in Kyiv, conducting life-story interviews with people from different regions of Ukraine. In the last years, Uku has received research grants for working at Cornell University (Telluride Association), UCL SSEES (Estonian Research Council), Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv (Erasmus Mundus) and New Europe College Institute for Advanced Study in Bucharest. His most recent publication is titled “Temporal horizons in two generations of Russian-Estonian families during late socialism” (in Generational Perspectives on Sociocultural Transformations, ed. by Nugin, Kannike, and Raudsepp, 2016). While at UCRS, Uku works on the project titled “Conflict and conviviality in Ukrainian and Estonian culturally mixed marriages.” Uku Lember’s stay at the UCRS is sponsored by Visby Fellowship of the Swedish Institute.
Victoria Leshchenko
Period of stay: 17 June - 12 September
Contact: vika.leshchenko.91@mail.ru
Victoria Leshchenko is a student at the Faculty of Philology of the People's Friendship University of Russia. Victoria is staying at the UCRS between 17 June and 12 September 2016. During her stay, she will be working on project entitled “The Swedish view of Russia”.
Vladimir Shmaliy
Period of stay: 11 May – 9 June
Contact: shmaliy@gmail.com
Vladimir Shmaliy is a researcher and a vice-chair of social sciences at the Russian Orthodox Church Postgraduate School and associate professor at the National Nuclear University (MEPhI), Moscow, Russia. He is a member of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. He has previously served as a research fellow at the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate (1997-2009), Secretary of the Russian Orthodox Church Holy Synod Biblical and Theological Commission (1998 – 2015), Associate Professor of Dogmatics, Moscow Theological Academy (2004 – 2015), Vice-Rector of the Moscow Theological Academy for Academic Affairs (2001-2009), Vice-Rector of the Russian Orthodox Church Postgraduate School (2009-2015). He is a co-drafter of the Official Doctrinal documents of the Russian Orthodox Church: “Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to the non-Orthodox” (2000), “Concept paper of the Russian Orthodox Church on HIV/AIDS” (2004), “Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Primacy in the Universal Church” (2013), “Catechism of the Russian Orthodox Church” (in the process of drafting), “Faith and science” (in the process of drafting).
At the UCRS Vladimir is working on the project «Theology in Russian Universities: methodological problems».
Maryna Shabasava
Period of stay: 1-31 May
Contact: shabasovamarina@gmail.com
Maryna Shabasava is an associate professor at the Belarusian State University, Faculty
of History. In 2009 she defended her PhD thesis on the topic “Anglo-American Historiography of the Russian Political History (1991-1999)”. She is coauthor of the book “The soviet Union of the 1930s in the Anglophone Historiography”, 2013. In 2008 Maryna Shabasava had a Scholarship of the Visegrad Fund with a project on the comparative politics in the postcommunist space. In 2014 she was a recipient of the Fulbright scholarship at Indiana University, Bloomington (USA). Within Fulbright scholarship Maryna got a grant of the Outreach Lecturing Fund for the presenting on the Russian-Belarusian relations at the Davis Center, Harvard University. She also was a visiting lecturer at the Center for Slavic, Eurasian and East European Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill In 2015 Maryna participated in the program BASERCAN+ and was an exchange teacher at the Aleksanteri Institute, the University of Helsinki. She is a winner of the Erasmus+ program and is going to teach a course “Russia’s Foreign Policy (1991 – present day)” at the Leipzig University in the autumn semester of 2016. Currently Maryna is a one-month researcher at the UCRS, and while in Uppsala she will be working on the project “Russia’s Soft Power in the Post-Soviet Countries”. Her research interests are related to the Russia’s foreign policy in the 1990s-2010s, Russia’s policy in the post-Soviet space, Russian and Eurasian studies in the USA since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Jason Strakes
Period of stay: 1 - 31 May
Contact: j.strakes@osce-academy.net
Jason E. Strakes is an associate fellow and visiting lecturer in the Politics and Security Programme at OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic. He completed an M.A. in International Studies and PhD in Political Science in the Department of Politics and Policy at the School of Politics and Economics, Claremont Graduate University. He has previously served as a visiting scholar and lecturer at the International School for Caucasus Studies (ISCS) at Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia, and has held research fellowships with the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy (ADA) School of International Affairs and Strategic Research Center under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SAM) in Baku. His research interests include foreign policy analysis, defense and security policy, Central Eurasia, and the comparative politics and international relations of developing and former Soviet states. He recently published “Resource Dependence and Measurement Technology: International and Domestic Influences on Energy Sector Development in Armenia and Georgia”, in Dave Gulette and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix eds. Everyday Energy in Central Asia and the Caucasus: Citizens' Needs, Entitlements and Struggles for Access, Routledge ThirdWorlds Series, 2015. His current focus is on the participation of former Soviet republics in Asian regionalism, South-South cooperation and global governance. He currently serves as Eurasia representative on the advisory committee of the International Studies Association Global South Caucus (GSCIS) , and heads the Developing Eurasia Initiative (DEI) academic forum and research network. At UCRS he is completing a project on the role of Belarus in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and its foreign policy towards the Third World/Global South.
Vadims Murasovs
Period of stay: 1 Apr – 1 May 2016
Contact: vadims.murasovs@gmail.com
Vadims Murasovs is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Daugavpils University, Latvia. He is a holder of three master’s degrees (Social Psychology, Baltic Studies, International and European Relations) and a professional degree in Psychology. In addition he has an extensive record of various studies and training in Latvia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, UK and Belgium. Vadims has been developing his career in research and education since 2001; it has covered a wide range of fields in the sector – from schools and research departments to state governance and diplomatic service. He has experience in working as research assistant and researcher at Daugavpils University, Russian language instructor at Lärkkulla Folk Academy and Karis-Billnäs Gymnasium in Finland, quality assessor at Latvian State Education Development Agency, senior officer and science counsellor at the Ministry of Education and Science of Latvia. Being a member of the bureau of the Minister of Education and Science, Vadims worked for Latvian diplomatic mission as research and space attaché at the Permanent Representation of Latvia to the European Union. During the Presidency of Latvia in the Council of the EU (2015) he was Deputy Chair of Council’s Research and Space Working Parties. As a guest researcher at the UCRS, Vadims is working on his doctoral thesis, which focuses on attitudes of Latvian residents towards refugees, explores new challenges to complex local national identities, and analyses the effect of the current refugee crisis in Europe on nation-building processes in Latvia. The project is based on an in-depth empirical study on prejudicial attitudes of Latvians towards refugees, which does not only examine the content of such attitudes, but also identifies the factors that influence and shape these attitudes. Vadims’ research interests are related to intergroup processes, attitudes, social identities, nationalism, identity politics, migration and international relations.
Zakhar Ishov
Period of stay: 1 - 29 Mar
Contact: zakhar.ishov@yale.edu
Zakhar Ishov is a one-month visiting researcher, while at the UCRS he will be working on the project “From Pushkin to Brodsky: Russian Poetry Looking Westward.
” In 2008 Zakhar obtained his Ph.D. in English Literature, summa cum laude, from FU Berlin, for his thesis: “Post-horse of civilization: Joseph Brodsky Translating Joseph Brodsky.” In December 2015 he completed his second Ph.D. degree, this time in Russian Literature with a minor in Italian Literature from the Department of Slavic Languages at Yale University for the dissertation “Joseph Brodsky and Italy.” In 2009 he was a recipient of the Charles Hall Grandgent Award from The Dante Society of America for the best graduate essay on Mandelstam and Dante. He also organized and participated in several panels in translation, comparative studies, and on Classical legacy in Russia. His co-translation of a Joseph Brodsky poem “With a View of the Sea” with British poet Glyn Maxwell was published in The New York Review of Books in April 2013. His most recent publication was “Brodsky and Benjamin: translation as original’s afterlife,” in Przekladaniec: A journal of Literary Translation, Krakow, 2015.
Olga Smirnova 
Period of stay: 14 Feb-27 Jun
Contact: olga.smirnova@ucrs.uu.se
Olga Smirnova is PhD student at the Institute of Philology and Cross-Cultural Communication, Northern (Arctic) Federal University (Russia). She had been studying Swedish language, culture and literature as well as translation in the sphere of international business for five years and worked on the topic of “Complex sentences with causal clause in Swedish and Russian languages”. In 2013 Olga completed a Master’s Programme in Pedagogy specializing in modern technologies of teaching foreign languages and did a research dedicated to “Information and Communication Technologies for developing listening comprehension skills among students of Linguistic Faculties (based on the Swedish language material)”. From 2013 till 2015 she was working at the Scientific Educational Center "Integrative Theory of Translation of Subarctic Space”, NARFU, teaching Translation (Russian, Swedish). Her research interests focus on Comparative Linguistics, Linguistic Ecology, the Swedish language and Translation. Olga was awarded SI Visby Programme scholarship to work on her research project entitled “Lingvo-ecological aspects of expressing denial in dialogical speech of Swedish, German and Russian languages”. Olga is staying in UCRS between the 14th of February and the 10th of June.
Alexandra Yatsyk
Period of stay: 15 Jan-30 Jun
Contact: ayatsyk@gmail.com
Alexandra Yatsyk is associate professor at the Institute of Mass Communications and Social Sciences, Kazan University (Russia). She also runs the Centre for Cultural Studies of Post-Socialism at Kazan Federal University, Russia. She has worked as a lecturer and a visiting researcher at the School of Language, Translation and Literature Studies (University of Tampere, Finland), the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (George Washington University, USA), the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (Lviv, Ukraine), and the Center for EU-Russia Studies (University of Tartu, Estonia). She has co-edited a special issue of Sport in Society (2015), and the volume Mega events in post-Soviet Eurasia: Shifting Borderlines of Inclusion and Exclusion (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). She is a co-author of Celebrating borderland Identities in a Wider Europe: the cases of Ukraine, Estonia and Georgia (Nomos, 2016) and a contributor to the European Urban and Regional Studies, Problems of Post- Communism, International Spectator, Russian Analytical Digest, Demokratizatsia and Digital Icons. As a member of the PONARS-Eurasia network, she has published with Ekho Moskvyu, Intersections, and OpenDemocracyRussia. Alexandra is staying at the UCRS 15 January – 30 June, 2016 with the financial support of the Swedish Institute Visby Fellowship Programme. While at the UCRS she will be working on the project entitled "Soft power and Nation-Building in post-Soviet Borderlands: the cases of Ukraine, Georgia and Estonia".
Koen Schoors
Period of stay: 18 Jan-12 Feb
Contact: Koen.Schoors@UGent.be
Koen Schoors is Professor Economics at Ghent University and is leading the interdisciplinary Russia Platform that will be created at Ghent University. His research interests are Institutional Economics, Development Economics, Law and Economics, Banking and Finance, Political Economy and Economic History. Across these fields a lot of his research focuses on Russia. He has published in economics journals, like Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Development Economics, World Development, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Comparative Economics and many others, but also in regional studies journals like Europe-Asia Studies, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Post-Communist Economies and Comparative Economic Systems. Currently he is working on media freedom, corruption and elections. He will be in UCRS from the 18th of January till the 12th of February 2016.
Vasil Navumau
Period of stay: 1 Sep 2015-31 May 2016
Contact: naumov.vasily@gmail.com
Vasil Navumau completed his PhD at the Graduate School for Social Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences. He specializes in social movements' theory and is author of the book "Belarusian Maidan: A New Social Movement Approach to the Tent Camp Protest Action in Minsk." Currently he is an editor of Belarusian web-based journal e-gov.by, devoted to discussion and popularization of ideas in the sphere of public sector innovation, e-government formation and e-participation enhancement in Belarus. His research interests focus on the ways new ICTs influence the transformation of repertoire, scope and ideology of social movements and the ways they can contribute to the formation of more transparent, participative and inclusive government. Vasil is staying at the UCRS between 1 September- 31 May with the financial support of the Swedish Institute and is working on a research project entitled "Social Activism in Belarus and Ukraine. Application of the New Social Movement Approach to Euromaidan, 2014".
Volodymyr Kulikov
Period of stay: 1 Sep 2015-29 Feb 2016
Contact: vlkulikov@gmail.com
Volodymyr Kulikov is a historian, PhD, and associate professor at the Kharkiv National University in Ukraine. He researches the formation of modern business enterprises and the history of company towns in Eastern Ukraine. He was a grant recipient of the German Historical Institute, Moscow (2011), the New Europe College, Bucharest (2012), the Institute for East and Southern European Studies in Regensburg (2014), and the Texas University in Austin (2014). In 2013, in collaboration with the Center for Urban History in Lviv he launched a project "Industrialization and Urban Landscape: Industrial South of the Russian Empire." His main research interests include: business history, history of company towns, social and economic history of Ukraine during the industrial era. Volodymyr is staying at the UCRS from September 2015 until February 2016 with the financial support of the Swedish Institute. During his stay he will be working on the project entitled "The Rise of Modern Firm in the Southern Industrial Region of the Russian Empire".