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.