Profile
I am a historian of modern Russia and the Soviet Union, with a particular interest in revolution, radicalism, and historical memory.
My award-wining book ‘Living the Revolution: Urban Communes & Soviet Socialism, 1917-1932’ (Oxford University Press)—recipient of the Alexander Nove Book Prize and Honorable Mention W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize—tells the story of fiery-eyed, bed-headed youths determined to throw their lot in with the Bolsheviks after October 1917. Reviewers called it ‘Essential’, ‘original and engaging,’ ‘Beautifully written, meticulously researched, and bursting with narrative appeal.’
Other books include ‘Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide’ (Routledge), which offers a pioneering examination of how Russian tradition and pan-European socialist ideas came together to forge the Soviet experience 'across 1917'; and ‘Openness and Idealism: Soviet Posters, 1985-1991’ (Skira), containing over 200 illustrations, interviews with Soviet poster designers, and interpretative essays on the history and aesthetics of Glasnost-era posters.
My next book, ‘Imagining the Revolution,’ under contract with Oxford University press, examines the afterlives of the Paris Commune and the emotional content of socialist story-telling in revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union.
I joined Queen Mary as an Inaugural Fellow of the Institute for the Humanities &Social Sciences (IHSS) in 2019. Before that, I was assistant professor at the University of Reading, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies, and Lecturing Fellow at the University of East Anglia.
I am the founding director of the Centre for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies (CEREES) at Queen Mary University of London.
Teaching
Undergraduate Teaching
Postgraduate Teaching
Research
Research Interests:
My research has focused on the lived experience of the Russian Revolution and Soviet ideology. This work has been funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the British Academy.
My current research project looks at how radical movements and regimes engage with the past and historical memory. In particular, it examines place of the Paris Commune in the historical memory of revolutionary Russia, the Soviet Union, and the wider communist world.
Prizes:
- Alexander Nove Book Prize, awarded 2018
- W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize (Honorable Mention), awarded 2018
- British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award, 2017
- Heritage & Creativity Early-Career Research Excellence Prize (University of Reading), 2017
- Editor’s Choice History Today Best Article: ‘People of the Future,’ 2017
Research Interests
- Russian Revolution / Soviet History
- Paris Commune
- International socialism
- Transnationalism
- Revolutionary afterlives / memory / imaginaries
- Utopia
- Lived experience
- Urban history
Funded Research Projects
- British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant: ‘From Paris to Petrograd’ (2023)
- MERL / Heritage & Community Research Residency: ‘Russian Utopia’ (2018)
- British Academy Rising-Star Engagement Award Project: 'The Russian Revolution: 100 Years’ (2017-18)
- Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Leverhulme Trust: 'Unfinished Revolution' (2012-2015)
- Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Studentship, 'Activist Communes’ (2008-2011)
Publications
Books:
Living the Revolution: Urban Communes and Soviet Socialism, 1917-1932 (Oxford University Press, hardback 2017, paperback 2019). ISBN: 9780198725824
Edited Books:
Openness and Idealism: Soviet Posters 1985-1991, co-ed. with J. Speed Carroll, P. Karmel; B. Shayevich, (Skira, 2022). ISBN: 885724564
Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide, co-ed. with M. Neumann, (Routledge, 2018). ISBN: 9781138945623
Using Archives and Libraries in the Former Soviet Union, co-ed with Samantha Sherry and Jonathan Waterlow, (BASEES).
Articles:
"'A Past Charged with the Time of the Now': How Do Radical Movements Sustain a Sense of Past?," Kritika (Fall, 2023): 901-920
“Time at Home: The October Revolution and Soviet Temporalities,” History: Journal of the Historical Association (2023) [Open Access]
‘“How do you live?”: Experiments in Revolutionary Living after 1917,” Journal of Architecture, vol. 22, issue 3 (June, 2017): 437-457
“The Kommuna Impulse: Collective Mechanisms and Commune-ists in the Early Soviet State,” Revolutionary Russia vol. 24, no.1 (June, 2011): 59-78.
Trade Articles:
‘“The Russian Revolution: People of the Future,” History Today, vol. 67, issue 10 (October, 2017): 24-35
‘“Perestroika of Life,” The Architectural Review, issue 1445 (2017): 24-30
Chapters:
“Glasnost on the Streets,” in Openness & Idealism: Soviet Posters, 1985-1991(Skira, 2022)
“Revolutionary Participation, Youthful Civic-Mindedness,” in James Harris, Peter Whitewood and Lara Douds, (eds.) The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution: Illiberal Liberation, 1917-1941 (Bloomsbury, 2020).
“‘Read all about it!’: Soviet Press and Periodicals,” in Routledge Companion to Sources in Russian History ed. George Gilbert. (Routledge, 2020).
“Crossing the divide: Tradition, rupture, and modernity in revolutionary Russia,” co-author with Matthias Neumann, Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide, (Routledge).
“Everyday Revolution: The Making the Soviet Urban Communes,” eds. Adele Lindenmeyr, Christopher Read & Peter Waldron, Russia’s Home Front in War and Revolution, 1914-1922: Book 2. The Experience of War and Revolution (Slavica, 2016)
Supervision
I welcome applications from candidates wishing to undertake research in any of the following areas:
Completed PhDs
Gary Lawson, "The Red Doctor: Nikolai Sleksandrovich Semashko. Accounting for the rise and demise of the first Soviet People's Commissar for Health"
Public Engagement
Op eds:
“The Paris Commune taught the Bolsheviks how to win a revolution,” Jacobinno. 42 (2021)
Television/Radio:
- BBC 1 “Who Do You Think You Are?” (consultant)
- BBC 5 Live “Death of Gorbachev” (consultant)
- Tudor Productions and EM Productions for Amazon Prime: “The Russian Revolution”
- Tudor Productions and EM Productions for Amazon Prime: “Dictators”
- BBC 4 TimeWatch – “Russia: A Century of Suspicion” (on-screen)
Public Lectures:
- RA Lates: “New Soviet World,” Royal Academy of Arts, 18 February [National Exhibition opening event for “Revolution: Russian Art, 1917-1932”]
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/new-soviet-world
- RA Discussion Panel: “A New Communal: быт—way of life”, Royal Academy of Arts, 10 April 2017https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/event/a-new-communal
- Organiser: The Annual Stenton Lecture (2017): “The Russian Revolution: A Hundred Years On,” 23 November 2017
- ‘Living Revolutionary Dreams: Utopia and the Vanguard of 1917,’ Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, 16 November 2017
- ‘Living the Revolution: Inventing a Socialist Lifestyle,’ Institute of Historical Research, The Russian Revolution Centenary Lecture Series, London, 26 September 2017
- ‘A Century of Revolution in Architecture and Urbanism,’ Calvert Gallery, London, 14 June 2017
- ‘Living the Revolution,’ Social Histories of the Russian Revolution, Birkbeck Public Lecture Series, London, 15 December 2016
Podcasts: Centre for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies (CEREES):
- SRB Podcast, (2018) https://srbpodcast.org/2018/04/30/early-soviet-urban-communes/
Centre for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies (CEREES):