Davis Center announces 2008-09 award recipients

The Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies has announced its fellowship, prize, research travel grant, and internship recipients for the 2008-09 academic year.

A total of seven fellowships have been awarded for research pertaining to Russia and the former Soviet Union in the humanities and social sciences. Postdoctoral Fellowships have been awarded to Denis Kozlov, visiting assistant professor of history at Dalhousie University, for research on his project “The Readers of Novyi Mir, 1945-1970: 20th-Century Experience and Soviet Historical Consciousness”; Mie Nakachi (Ph.D., history, University of Chicago) for study on the politics of reproduction and demography in the postwar Soviet Union, 1944-68; Dassia Posner, a lecturer on theater at Boston College, for work on the Chaliapin family diaspora; Benjamin Tromly for investigation of the social and political meanings of higher learning in the Soviet Union through a study of student politics, 1948-64; and Emily Van Buskirk (Ph.D., Slavic languages and literatures, Harvard University) for research on the intermediary prose of Lydia Ginzburg. A senior fellowship was awarded to Jacques Rupnik, director of research and professor, Center for Study and International Research at Sciences Po, for research on his new project “The Other Europe Twenty Years On: Trajectories of Political Change in East-Central Europe and the Balkans Since 1989.” A regional fellowship was awarded to journalist Masha Gessen for a study of censorship in the era of the Web.

Dissertation completion fellowships were awarded to Diana Kudayarova for her research on engineers in Soviet society and to Mikhail Pryadilnikov for his study of the evolution of regulatory reform in Russia.

Fainsod Prizes, intended for top incoming graduate students in the field of Russian, Soviet, or post-Soviet studies, were awarded to the following students:

Eric Ciaramella (Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies [REECA]), whose research interests focus on Russian and Soviet policy toward minority language groups; Melih Egemen (Inner Asian and Altaic studies), who will study relations between the Russian and Ottoman empires; Alexandre Gontchar (Slavic) who will examine the shift from the visual to the conceptual mode in the plastic arts in the early 20th century; Philippa Hetherington (history), who will focus on late 19th and early 20th century Russian and East European history; Mihaela Pacurar (Slavic), who will study the works of the first post-Communist generation of writers; and Yuri Zhukov (government), whose interests include military analysis, counterinsurgency, civil-military relations, Cold War studies, state-building, and institutional design.

A total of 29 graduate students received research travel grants from the Davis Center. Details on the awards, including recipients’ names, departments or Schools, research topics, and destinations appear below.

Masha Hedberg (government) received the Padma Desai Research Prize for her project “Representing Business Interests in Post-Communist Politics” in Moscow.

REECA Alumni Prizes were awarded to Christina Jarymowycz (REECA) for “Clash of Memories: Reconstructing World War II in a Kiev Museum” and to Molly Pucci (REECA) for “How the 1948–1954 Show Trials Helped Build a Stalinist System in Czechoslovakia.”

Eight students received Abby and George O’Neill Fund Awards. They are Jennifer Howk (government), “Losing Ground: Climate Change, Uncertainty, and Social Mobilization in Three Arctic Communities”; Diana Kudayarova (history), “Engineers in Soviet Society, 1947–1965”; Inna Mattei (Slavic), “How the Steel Was Corroded: Aesthetic Dissent and the Crisis of Utopia in Late Soviet Culture”; Ana Olenina (comparative literature), “Intersections Between Cinema and Biomedical Science in Russia in the 1910s–20s: The Cases of Rudovkin and the FEKS”; Maya Peterson (history), “Technologies of Rule: Empire, Water, and the Modernization of Central Asia”; Rebecca Reich (Slavic), “Pleading Insanity: Diagnosis and Self-Definition in the Late Soviet Period”; Katherine Rose (Slavic), “Folk Culture and the Remnants of Tradition: The Art and Culture of Irkutsk and Vladimir”; and George Soroka (government), “Representation and Democracy in the Post-Communist Space: Political Elites and the Conception of Governance.” Soroka also received an Optimus Award to carry out research for the same project in Warsaw, Poland.

Maurice Lazarus Fund Awards went to 18 students. They include Mikhail Akulov (history), “The Origins and Development of the Atamans in Southern Ukraine during the Civil War (1917–1922)”; Johanna Conterio (history), “Constructing Soviet Paradise: Health Resorts, Environmental Medicine, and the Mobilization of Nature in the Proletarian State”; Nataliya Kun (Slavic), “Normative Literary Language and Conscious Mistake as Literary Device”; Kyongjoon Kwon (Slavic), “Archaism and Innovations in the Old Novgorod Dialect”; Hassan Malik (History), “Russia as an Emerging Market”; Kyle Marquardt (REECA), “Language and the Assertion of Autonomy and Independence: A Comparative Analysis of Language Policy in Kazakhstan and Tartarstan”; Dylan Myles-Primakoff (REECA), “Indigenous Land Rights in Russia”; Tamara Pavasovic (sociology), “Socializing Children into Ethnic Prejudice and Hostility in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia”; Sabrina Peric (social anthropology), “Silver Bosnia: Precious Metals and the Western Balkans, 1390–2008”; Maxim Pozdorovkin (Slavic), “Shadows of the Golden Man: Turkmenistan and Turkmenbashi”; Sara Rhodin (REECA), “Love for the Motherland Starts at Home: Russian Family Policy Since 1936”; Jonathan Schlesinger (history), “Natural Frontiers in the Qing Empire in Boreal Manchuria, 1570–1907”; Aleksandr Senderovich (Slavic), “The Soviet Shibboleth: Translation and Border-Crossing in Russian-Jewish Literature (1917–1939)”; Katherine Surmanski (REECA), “Surface and Substance: The Political and Economic Causes of Soviet-Era Pokazukha, and Its Post-Soviet Legacy”; Andras Tilcsik (organizational behavior), “Rebuilding Civil Society in Eastern Europe: The Effect of ‘Percentage Laws’ on the Nonprofit Sector”; and Olga Voronina (Slavic), “Winning Hearts and Minds: The Cold War in Russian Literature (1946–1968).”

Two graduate students received grants for language study. Oliver Bevan (government) for Russian study and Sofiya Grachova (history) for German.

Six undergraduates received Goldman Undergraduate Research Travel Grants from the Davis Center. Details on these awards, including recipients’ names, departments or schools, research topics, and destinations appear below.

Alexander Berman (visual and environmental studies), “Another Russia: A Documentary on Rangers in the Kamchatka Penninsula,” Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky; Laura Crisafulli (Russian), “The Art of Russian Realist Vassili Vereshchagin,” Uzbekistan; Emmet McDermott (literature), “Banned Literature and the Investigation of the Satirical Purpose in Soviet Russia,” Moscow; Katherine Peisker (government), “The Relationship Between Religious Affiliation and Voting Patterns in Ukraine and Russia,” Lviv; Jan Straka (social studies), “The Relationship Between Charter 77 and Ecological and Pacifist Movements in 1980s Czechoslovakia,” Prague; and Anna Whittington (history), “From One Adopted Heimat to Another: German Emigration from the Soviet Union to Germany,” Berlin.

The Davis Center expanded its awards for undergraduate internships this year, enhancing student support for work experience in the region. Details on these awards, including recipients’ names, departments or Schools, internship placements, and destinations appear below.

Goldman Undergraduate Internship Grants were awarded to the following students: Arnold Behrer (economics, government), environmental education, World Wildlife Fund, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Alexander Brown (classics), archaeological excavation, Romania and Belarus; Dimitry Doohovskoy (Slavic, economics), real estate investment, Jensen Group, St. Petersburg; Davida Fernandez-Barkan, executive search, Accent Advisory, Moscow; Peyton Greenside, pediatric medicine, Hospital for Mother and Child, Chisinau; Sean Loosli (Slavic and psychology), Web-based curriculum development, Moscow State University Center for International Education, Moscow; Dimitrije Ruzic (economics), outsourcing, consulting, and auditing, Bellerage Vostok, Moscow; Saba Sulaiman (economics, Middle Eastern Studies) and Cathy Sun (social studies), corporate communications and public relations at MCS Global Strategies, Moscow; Mary Szpak (Earth and planetary science), political science curriculum development, Jagiellonian University, Kraków; and Jan Zilinsky (economics; applied mathematics), health care system analysis, Institute for Economic and Social Reforms, Bratislava.

Two students were awarded Andrei Sakharov Program on Human Rights Summer Internships for 2008: Marino Auffant (history) interned at the Slavic Center for Law and Justice and the Civic Assistance Committee in Moscow; and Nafees Syed (government) interned at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, The Hague.