Spring 2022 – Archives

UNC Supports Ukraine

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Eastern Ukraine and catalyzed a war. Individuals and communities internationally mobilized to support Ukraine and its people in any way they could, including at UNC. For the academics and educators at UNC who specialize in the region and its history, this support took the shape of a teach in and rally held on March 4, 2022. This event was organized by three Ph.D candidates in the Department of History, Alma Huselja, Pasuth Thothaveesansuk, and Nicole Harry, and a Master’s student in the Global Studies Program, Kathryn Goodpaster.

When asked about her motivations for organizing the event, Huselja responded, “After the invasion, I had a number of students who talked to me after class about what was going on. I also noticed that besides them, other people I knew were surprised that Russia even invaded to begin with. With so much confusion floating around, I and my colleagues thought such an event would be a good way for people to have an open space for discussion, ask any questions, and hopefully come away more informed about what was going on.” In order to address these concerns, the teach-in consisted of an open floor, where audience members were able to ask questions and share their emotions and responses to the war. Professor of History Chad Byrant delivered a keynote address, and the panelists included faculty from the Departments of Anthropology, History, and Political Science. Also participating were Oleh Wolowyna, a visiting fellow from Ukraine, Suzie Colbern, Associate Director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies and a historian of NATO, and Elena Trubina, a visiting scholar from Ural Federal University in Ekaterinburg.

Commenting on the motivation behind the event, Thothaveesansuk, a doctoral candidate in Cold War history, noted, “One thing that stood out to me about the invasion was that Putin attempted to justify it based on a series of lies and disinformation about history. As historians ourselves, I felt like we were in a position to help counter the narrative even in a small scale, as well as help our community understand and process what had happened.” Echoing this theme in his keynote speech, Bryant stressed the importance of responsibly analyzing and filtering the mass of information and opinions circulating about the war, especially in social media.

The teach-in was followed by a rally held at Polk Place in support of Ukraine that included guests from the Ukrainian Association of North Carolina. In addition to speakers and communal conversation, participants also signed a Ukrainian flag that is now displayed in UNC’s FedEx Global Education Center. Reflecting on both the teach in and the rally, Thothaveesansuk added, “I was happy to see that we had not just fellow graduate students in attendance, but also undergraduates, faculty, staff, and other members of the community.”

Since the teach in and rally, other events have also been hosted on campus to educate the community about the ongoing war, including a roundtable of Ukrainian scholars and professionals as well as a benefit concert by a local Ukrainian band. As Huselja highlights, “It is essential, for Ukrainians’ sake, that Ukraine doesn’t simply fall off our news radar or that we become numb to what is going on. Events are a small way to educate people and motivate them to care and act in productive ways — whether that’s through donations, contacting representatives, etc.” The event, which benefited from a lively and engaged audience, highlights the contribution that historians can make, however small, to combating disinformation and speaking truth to power. It reflects the best of a longstanding tradition in the History Department of offering historically informed analysis and context about current events.

–Nicole Harry

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Fulbright-Hays Recipients Return to Research in Africa

After navigating almost three years of a global pandemic, two graduate students of the History Department, Laura Cox and Abby Warchol, received the Fulbright-Hays fellowship and are finally able to resume their research in Africa. Both scholars recognized the reception of this award as the driving force able to get them back into their dissertation projects and, as Warchol states clearly: “Quite simply, the Fulbright-Hays fellowship has made it possible to do my dissertation research. Since the archives I use in Senegal have not digitized their holdings, the inability to travel meant that I was unable to do much exploratory research that would have been helpful in conceiving my dissertation project and research plan.”

Warchol, who studies colonial communities and their relationships and responsibilities with orphaned and vulnerable children in urban Senegal, is using her Fulbright-Hays fellowship to spend a year in the country. As she works to explore the relationship between care and control in colonial systems, she highlights the importance of this time provided by the Fulbright-Hays. “Most of the sources I use for my dissertation are not online or available outside of Senegal, which means that my scholarship is dependent on having time to work in-country.” She adds that: “Archival and oral history research can be a slow process with a steep learning curve, particularly in the context of West Africa, so I needed more time in Senegal than a short research trip would allow.” Warchol left for Senegal in January, and after spending a few months working and living in the country, she reflects that: “Senegal weathered the pandemic better than many parts of the world, so at present my research sites are fully open .… After so much uncertainty, it feels unreal to be able to start the research for which I’ve been trained.”

Laura Cox shares many of the same sentiments concerning research opportunities granted by the Fulbright-Hays fellowship. While working in the African National Congress’s Women’s Section and studying global coalition building during the anti-Apartheid movement, Cox is using the fellowship’s support to work in South Africa, England, and Switzerland. She notes that “Fulbright-Hays has given me the wherewithal to gather archival materials and conduct oral histories in multiple locations. My project centers on globetrotters whose international activities created a scattered archive. It was always possible that I’d gather this research in a more punctuated and piecemeal fashion. However, the long-term financial support of the Fulbright-Hayes has made my international project feasible.” When reflecting on her research experience thus far in Cape Town, South Africa, she adds, “I find something significant in following the paths that my historical actors treaded. At one time, these paths functioned to help itinerants and dreamers realize a vision. Now, the scholars who retrace their steps occupy a world where that vision has materialized, if imperfectly.”

Both Cox and Warchol look forward to the rest of their research this year and appreciate the opportunity provided by the Fulbright-Hays to return tangibly to their work in Africa after over two years away.

–Nicole Harry

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New Initiative Offers a Fresh Perspective

For Prof. William Sturkey, historical education can never be a top-down affair. Central to the mission of a public university is the responsibility to give students the tools to think critically about their surroundings and to reach their own conclusions. This is the core idea behind an exciting new initiative he founded named the Historical Truth & Justice Action Fund. Its purpose is to support student projects that engage critically and creatively with the history of UNC. The fund aims to push undergraduates to think out of the box, not only intellectually, but methodologically, by using podcasts, videos and other media and delivery methods to shed light on hitherto ignored, marginalized, or unappreciated chapters of the university’s history.

Sturkey got the idea in late Fall 2019, when the university reached a deal to pay a neoconfederate group several million dollars to take custody of the “Silent Sam” Monument, which by then had been removed from campus. He had just finished teaching a course called “Race and Memory at UNC,” which partly addressed recent controversies about monuments and buildings glorifying university figures with ties to white supremacists causes. “I taught that class to educate our communities,” he recalls. “The university wasn’t doing enough to empower students and community members. What struck me was the tremendous hunger for this kind of historical inquiry.” The class met on Wednesday nights. It attracted a large enrollment, with 100 students and 20 alumni. “It was helpful for people who were thirsty for news and history. It showed that there is a demand among multiple campus constituencies for a critical reappraisal of the dominant narratives about this university.” The course, which was taught Pass/Fail for one credit hour, was not designed to place insurmountable burdens on the participants. Its purpose, instead, was to empower students and alumni to explore the university’s history in new ways. The results amazed Sturkey. “I had students doing podcasts. Walking tours. Thinking about history, and the university, in ways that were new, cutting-edge, in ways that hadn’t been done before.”

When asked to explain what empowering students means in practice, Sturkey does not mince words. “Imagine an African American student, perhaps a teenage girl, coming to Carolina as a freshman, and being given a room in Grimes Hall. We have documents showing that the building’s namesake, John Bryan Grimes, was involved in sex slavery. He was buying and selling teenage black girls to rape them. What do you do with a 18 year old black girl who is learning in a building named after a guy like that?” Sturkey notes that part of the controversy surrounding the effort to engage with racism at UNC, and especially the politics of renaming buildings and monuments, rests on false accusations made by neoconfederate groups about the harm of “erasing history.” Exploring the history of racism at Carolina, he stresses, represents the exact opposite. By way of example, Sturkey points to the decision made in 1967 to dedicate the campus bookstore to Josephus Daniels, perhaps the most prominent North Carolina politician to support the infamous white supremacist massacre and riot in Wilmington in 1898, an event that destroyed the city’s African American middle class. “The people who say you can’t erase history, they have no clue how much history has already actually been erased. Changing bulding names, or subjecting historical figures to careful scrutiny, is less about the namesakes, than about the people who made the decision to name the building. The bookstore naming happened right after desegregation in higher education. It’s not a coincidence.”

Sturkey stresses how important it is that such a historical reckoning proceed from the state’s flagship university. Nodding to far-reaching initiatives engaging with the history of racism and higher education in the South at the University of Virginia and the College of William & Mary, he points out that the UNC campus is “the most carefully curated commemorative landscape in the state of North Carolina.” Citing the teaching and scholarship of Prof. Fitz Brundage on commemoration and memory, he notes just how saturated Carolina is with historical memory, citing “the carefully curated names, the organization of it. If you are looking for monuments presenting a curated vision of the past, they’re everywhere. And in this carefully curated historical landscape, only certain kinds of people get to play a role.” Promoting a broader, richer, and more just understanding of UNC’s history is not only the business of historians and archivists, Sturkey suggests, “because these conversations are taking place across the South, across the country, across the world. If we want to have any role in them, we have to start by looking at ourselves.” Initiatives such as the Historical Truth & Justice Action Fund, that give students the chance to retell the university’s history from a fresh angle, will amply repay the modest support it has received from the university. In advocating for continued support from the administration, alumni, and the community at large, Sturkey makes his case succinctly: “We have to engage with our history as a university in a responsible, forward looking way, in a way that befits the stature of an ambitious research university.”

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Russia and Ukraine

Donald J. Raleigh is the Jay Richard Judson Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History. He taught the history of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe at UNC-Chapel Hill for thirty-two years and advised twenty-six graduate students before his retirement in 2020. Dr. Raleigh has written extensively on the Russian Revolution and Civil War, focusing particularly on its local and regional aspects. Currently, he is working on a biography of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, for which he has conducted research in Russia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.

I met with Dr. Raleigh in mid-April to get his perspective both on Russia’s war in Ukraine both as a historian and as someone who has spent time in both countries.

Q. Did the Russian invasion of Ukraine surprise you?
A. The morning of the invasion, I was packing for the regional Slavic Studies conference in Richmond, Virginia. I was shocked by the news, and everyone else at the conference was as shocked as I. Why? I think we all understood what would happen if Russia invaded. We thought the cost was so great that Putin wouldn’t risk anything like this. It didn’t seem sensible or logical to us. Putin is usually thought of as someone who’s cynical and calculated but smart, and this didn’t seem to be in Russia’s best interests. What we feared would happen if he invaded is happening. I felt that the attack would be horrific, that the Ukrainians would fight to the end, and that it would be brutal, as indeed it has been.

Q. How do you understand what might have motivated Putin’s decision? You often hear people say that he is trying to reestablish the Soviet Union, or the Russian Empire. What do you think about this?
A. For me, the question is: Who wants to belong to a former superpower? Certainly, Putin doesn’t. In a speech that he gave after coming to power in 2000, he said that Russia will be great, or Russia will not be. I don’t think that, for Putin, it’s a matter of restoring the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union. Rather, it’s about restoring Russia’s greatness and its role in the world. He sees the collapse of the Soviet Union as a major catastrophe for Russia engineered by the United States, which sought to defeat its geopolitical rival and dictate its will on the world unilaterally.

While Putin laments the fall of the Soviet Union, he takes a very negative attitude toward communism, and especially toward the Russian Revolution. Official statements on the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution five years ago described it as a negative event that robbed Russia of victory in the First World War. State commemorations that year focused on the First World War, not the Russian Revolution — because if revolution was justified in 1917, it might be justified today if people oppose the government!

Putin has also argued that the Bolsheviks disrupted Russian unity. Just before the invasion, he argued that the idea of an independent Ukrainian nationality was an artificial product of Bolshevism and the federated Soviet state. Of course, this isn’t true at all. Ukrainian nationalism was among the many national movements that emerged in nineteenth-century Europe. Ukrainians pushed for autonomy immediately when the Russian Revolution broke out, and in fact declared independence shortly thereafter. The Ukrainian state was later absorbed into the Soviet Union, but it was not a creation of the Soviet Union — it was there first.

Q. How does the memory of the Second World War affect how people in Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of the world understand and talk about this war?
A. Putin is a very cynical manipulator of history. He draws from the best — or, I should say, the most successful — Soviet practices. Democrats are fascists, fascists are democrats, and unprovoked violence is a peacekeeping mission. But this phenomenon isn’t limited to Russia. It’s now part of political rhetoric in much of the world, among people dissatisfied with the current order.

The Second World War looms large in Russian historical memory, since the Nazi invasion resulted in the deaths of twenty-seven million Soviet citizens. So by talking about neo-Nazis in Ukraine, and by making reference to historical events, Putin is trying to mobilize public opinion in favor of his aggressive policy. Yes, it’s true that some peasants in western Ukraine welcomed the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union because they were told that they would get their land back, that the churches would be reopened, and that Stalin would be overthrown. And it’s true that some right-wing Ukrainian nationalist insurgents fought against Soviet power until the late 1940s. But ironically, this was never part of the Soviet historical narrative, and it wasn’t discussed publicly until perestroika.

Q. Do you think that historical analogies are useful in trying to understand this war? Why do you think they come up so often?
A. When we look at narratives that states create for themselves, it’s hard to nail down what the Russian state narrative really is after 1991. The new Russian state had to face some enormous problems: How do you break up an empire? What happens to the twenty-five million Russians now living abroad? How do you introduce capitalism into a planned economy? How do you introduce democracy? There are democratic valences in Russian political culture, but they’ve been starved. For many ordinary people, democracy and capitalism brought destitution, crime, and disorder.

After Putin came to power, he based his popularity on economic success and stability. After the financial crisis in 2008, though, this momentum couldn’t be sustained, and the evidence shows that Putin’s strategy shifted. He sought to build legitimacy by restoring Russia’s power on the world stage, and he had some small successes — the wars in Georgia and Abkhazia, the Olympics in 2014, and the annexation of Crimea. But the invasion of Ukraine indicates that this wasn’t sustaining itself. I interpret it as an act of desperation. By drawing focus on an external enemy and stirring up fears of Nazism, he can take attention away from the problems in Russian society. But can it work? I’m doubtful.

Ukraine, on the other hand, was able to come up with an official narrative, and it’s a narrative of victimhood, repression, and suffering under both the tsars and the Soviets. The current invasion fits into this narrative very well. Putin’s actions will not only bolster the Ukrainian narrative of victimhood, it will likely strengthen Ukraine’s national identity. This began already after the annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk. In 2017, I did research in Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine where Russian is widely spoken. I met many people who spoke both languages and hadn’t considered themselves either Russian or Ukrainian, who began to identify themselves as Ukrainian because of the threat posed by Russia.

Q. Why was Putin so surprised by the Ukrainian resistance? Was he a victim of his own mistaken beliefs?
A. Putin may well have fallen victim to the secrecy and paranoia of his own regime. He may have been getting reports indicating that the Ukrainian people would welcome Russian troops. Leaders in general are often given the information that they expect. This happened to Stalin at the beginning of World War II — he had over a hundred and eighty reports that the Nazis were about to invade, and he listened to two or three from his own intelligence officers, but he ignored the Soviet intelligence officer who told him that it was true. So I think that they were truly surprised by the Ukrainian resistance. I also think that they were surprised by the unity that Western countries have shown in supporting Ukraine.

NATO and the West have made mistakes. NATO should have been abolished after the Cold War. It was a Cold War organization, aimed against the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian state has made mistakes as well. I was at an archive in Dnipro in 2017, and I had to fill out a registration form in Ukrainian. Since it was a state institution, they wouldn’t accept forms in Russian. They had a laminated template to help you fill the form out in Ukrainian, because otherwise most of the visitors wouldn’t have been able to do it, including the local people. And then we all went and turned it in to the Russian-speaking staff. I found this a little absurd. So, it is true that the government has taken Ukrainianization measures that I don’t think are necessary. There are legitimate criticisms to be made of NATO’s actions and those of the Ukrainian government, but none of them justify the invasion in any way whatsoever.

Russian scholars and scholars of Slavic studies have attempted to explain Russia’s interests, its security concerns, and the perspective of its government with regard to Ukraine, and in some cases may have gone too far. On the day of the invasion, I posted on social media saying that this was a day of infamy. I wrote that this was a sign of Putin’s waning popularity, and that the fighting would be horrific, but that it would unite the people of Ukraine like never before. And I was scolded by a retired high-ranking US diplomat, who said that Putin just borrowed the playbook that the United States used for Iraq.

Q. What’s your specific problem with that analogy?
A. Putin doesn’t need anyone else’s playbook. We should look at what his playbook has been since coming to power. And this is an analogy that Putin himself uses to deflect criticism. I was very critical of the war in Iraq, but the invasion of Ukraine is an entirely different situation. And it’s true that the United States intervenes in what it sees as its own sphere of influence, but many of us are critical of this as well. When does sheer military power give you the right to determine what goes on outside your borders? Ukraine has been a sovereign state for thirty years, and for thirty years it’s attempted to practice a democratic order.

Immediately after the invasion, some British colleagues circulated a petition that, among other things, asked Western countries not to send arms to Ukraine in order to prevent a bloodbath. Well, what would the consequences of that have been? Putin would have installed a puppet in Kyiv, and there would likely still have been a bloodbath.

Q. I’m interested in what you think about the argument that Putin is threatened by Ukrainian democracy. If a flourishing, Western-oriented democracy were established next door to Russia, this argument goes, it would undermine Putin’s regime by demonstrating to Russian citizens that they, too, could live in a freer and more prosperous society. It sounds plausible, but I wonder if it doesn’t go too far in attributing beliefs to Putin that he doesn’t necessarily hold.
A. I think that there’s something to this argument, but I look at it a little differently. When Russia is compared to Western democratic norms, it falls short on all counts, and it always has. So its leaders prefer to present Russia as something unique, something special, something that can’t be compared to the West. Currently, Putin claims to represent conservative forces worldwide. He claims to present an alternative to Western “decadence,” and that Ukraine represents this decadence right there on his own border.

The war has certainly had a demoralizing effect on many Russians. My friends in Russia — some of whom I’ve known since I was a student — are depressed, they’re angry, they’re horrified. Some of their adult children have fled the country, and they don’t know when they’ll see them again. When I talk to them on FaceTime, you can see their tired faces and swollen eyes, and it’s heartbreaking. But Russians opposed to the conflict are engaging in small acts of defiance, even though the risks are significant.

Q. How do you think this war will affect the fields of Russian, European, and Soviet history?
A. Most obviously, it makes it impossible for students to study Russian in Russia. These programs have been shutting down for a few years now. Instead, students have been going to other countries where Russian is spoken — to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, or Latvia.

Historians studying Russia will look for topics that can be researched elsewhere, so we may see a revitalization of work on the Russian diaspora, for example. I recently talked with a colleague at another university, and she mentioned that her Russian history course filled up immediately. This crisis will likely increase interest in Ukrainian history as well, and in Eastern European history more generally as a part of European history.

Q. How have your own research plans been affected?
A. I was planning one last trip to the Russian archives to make sure I didn’t overlook anything. My intention was to take another look at Brezhnev’s personal files. They became available in 2015, but I was only able to look at these documents once, because then the archive was closed for relocation for two years. Fortunately, a lot of what is in that archive related to his days in Kazakhstan, Moldova, and Ukraine. I was able to visit archives in those countries, and the material preserved there is much richer.

I will go back as soon as it’s possible, although I’ll have to apply for another visa. I’ve never had a problem getting a visa in the past, but the things I’ve posted on social media may make that more difficult now. During the Soviet days, I was always able to get a visa, but I feel that it’s different now. In those times, you could figure out how the system operated, but now foreign scholars really don’t know what to expect.

–Mira Markham

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Schwarzman Scholar Reflects on Studying History at UNC

As a traveler and an intellectual, Sam Zahn ’22 is always on the move. After graduating from UNC with a double major in history and political science on May 9, he headed to southern Utah for a real-life adventure in the wilderness. Having fun might have been on the agenda, but it wasn’t the point: the trip was organized by the Robertson Scholarship Leadership Program for its recipients to push themselves and each other in an environment far beyond the classroom. Donning a winter jacket in May was not Zahn’s initial plan for celebrating graduation. “Initially, I was really skeptical,” he comments. “We went out there for a week and I am not a backpacker.” When the sun set on the first night, he changed his mind. “The stars,” he recalls, “were unbelievable. There were stars you could see that I didn’t know existed. You could see the sky moving.” For Zahn the trip ended up being well worth the hardship. “It really gave me a very high opinion of outdoor education. The clarity of mind it can afford is really something unique.” Zahn will take these experiences with him as he charters more unfamiliar territory in China this upcoming year. Having recently been named a Schwarzman Scholar, he joins a handful of UNC students who have received the prestigious scholarship, which funds a master’s degree in global affairs at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.

The desire to embrace challenge runs through Zahn’s academic career at UNC. A Pennsylvania native, he wound up at Carolina with the support of the Robertson scholarship and added to that a Truman scholarship, awarded to the nation’s top public service scholars, just two years later. From the start, he found himself attracted to classes which dealt with issues affecting people’s everyday lives, leading him to major in political science. However, after completing most of the requirements by the end of his sophomore Fall, Zahn was left wanting more. “I appreciated political science and loved my professors but didn’t feel particularly pushed by the courses. I wasn’t improving much as a writer, and didn’t feel like I was reading the substantial, weighty books I expected in college.”

Freshman spring at Carolina, Zahn had enrolled in Prof. Matt Andrews’s history course on “Race, Basketball, and the American Dream.” “I enjoyed it immensely. It opened my eyes to how much I can take from just one course. Ultimately, it was the impetus for my decision to add history as a second major. Once I decided to steep myself into history, there was no looking back. I took four history courses the next semester, including an independent study with Duke’s Prof. Malachi Cohen, in which I wrote an intellectual biography of Judah Magnes, the great American Jewish pacifist and non-conformer.” Recalling the independent study as “one of the most intimidating academic experiences of [his] life,” Zahn nevertheless found himself hooked. Enrollment in Prof. Molly Worthen’s course on American intellectual history that same semester sealed the deal: At the end of sophomore year, Zahn declared history as his second major.

Zahn credits history courses with getting him to think critically, and historically, about his surroundings. His enthusiasm could be infectious, as one of his instructors, Prof. Eren Tasar, noted: “I could only think of Sam as a colleague, not a student. He took our class discussions into directions I never could have anticipated, and his research paper on the Israeli Supreme Court is one of the best I have read in my career. I consider myself lucky and privileged that he chose to take one of my courses.”

Zahn’s gift for historical inquiry was hardly confined to the classroom. Two incidents that rocked campus in 2019 are a case in point. In April 2019, antisemitic flyers were found posted at Davis Library. Around the same time, a rapper used antisemitic lyrics while performing at a conference on campus. These incidents led Zahn to join forces with a doctoral candidate in German history, Max Lazar, to develop a course called “Confronting Antisemitism.” The course was organized around a series of guest lectures delivered from a variety of disciplines. It proved to be a great success, not least because it helped contextualize modern antisemitism within the context of the broader phenomenon of racism.

More history courses only deepened Zahn’s interest. As COVID hit the Spring of his sophomore year, Zahn opted to enroll in a History 398 research seminar taught virtually by Prof. Fitz Brundage on monuments, memory, and commemoration. Zahn’s research paper focused on the history of Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, commemorating assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzah Rabin. That summer, before his study abroad in Jerusalem, Zahn found himself living and interning in Tel Aviv, only five minutes away from the monument to Rabin. “I lived right next to his plaza and walked by it every day. I kept thinking: ‘No one pays attention to this place, yet it’s so rich with historical memory.’” Zahn recalls the power of this “profound experience of studying something and having it change how you interact with your everyday world, of delving into research that changes the way you carry yourself in the world.”

Zahn credits history as one of the outstanding features of his Carolina experience. “When I looked back at my transcript to see what courses were worth taking, and looked back at courses that profoundly altered my worldview, history classes were at the top of the list. I really wish I would’ve taken more of those. History provided a great community.” When asked about his long-term plans, Zahn could only say that he wasn’t sure: He was headed to the American Jewish Committee in Washington for the summer, and had a flight to catch to Abu Dhabi at the end of August.

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Researching Religion in Russia

Luke Jeske is a fourth-year PhD candidate in Russian history. He received the 2021 Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Fellowship from the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. In January of this year, he left for a year-long research trip in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began the following month, however, he returned to the United States.

Q. Can you tell us about your dissertation research?
A. I’m writing about Russian Orthodox pilgrimage to the holy places of the Near East during the nineteenth century — especially to biblical sites in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Palestine, but also to Egypt, Constantinople, and Mount Athos, which is an Orthodox monastic site in Greece. Many Russian pilgrims published accounts of their experiences, and I was surprised to find that few historians had used this material. I wanted to use my time in Russia to look at the archives of institutions that supported these pilgrimages, and see to what extent they may have influenced the narratives that pilgrims wrote. At this time, European empires were becoming increasingly politically and economically involved in this part of the world. The Russians feared that non-Orthodox powers like Britain, France, and Germany were becoming more influential in what they saw as the cradle of Orthodox Christianity. By sponsoring pilgrimage, they wanted to defend the Orthodox nature of the Holy Land and prevent Orthodox Christians there from being converted to other forms of Christianity. They also wanted to reinforce the Orthodox identity of the Russian pilgrims they sponsored and help them develop themselves morally and spiritually.

The subject of religion in the Russian Empire, and specifically of Russia’s relationship to the Holy Land, is one that hasn’t been explored until recently. Under the Soviet Union, of course, it was difficult to access the necessary materials, and for a few decades after the Soviet Union’s collapse scholars were interested in other subjects. But now, the political importance of the Orthodox Church is increasing in contemporary Russia. The current government is trying to connect Russian identity both more closely to Orthodoxy and to the imperial past, so this is a topic that more people are becoming interested in.

Q. How did your research trip start?
A. I arrived in Moscow and started working at the Archive of Foreign Politics of the Russian Empire, which holds the Russian imperial government’s diplomatic records. I was especially interested in the documents produced by the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society. This was probably the most influential and well-funded organization involved in sponsoring pilgrimages, and it also funded academic research and established schools for Orthodox Christians in Palestine. In particular, I wanted to see if officials at this organization were making efforts to control the narrative that was presented in the publications that I’d read, and how they might have done this. I was also interested in looking at consulate records, which might provide a slightly different perspective on Russian involvement in the Holy Land. The Russian consulate and the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, as well as other religious missions, were often in competition with each other for power.

When I got to Moscow, the Archive of Foreign Politics was still operating on a reduced schedule because of Covid-19. You had to make reservations two months in advance. Fortunately, I had a contact in Russia who got me reservations for the end of January and February. It was still difficult, though, because after you put in your requests for material, it takes the archive several days to prepare it for you. So you might finish everything you’ve ordered on Friday and then on Monday, even though you have a reservation, you won’t have anything to work with. On those days, I used my time in the archive to go through the finding aids. Although the finding aids do provide some indication of how many boxes and pages are contained in each item, you still don’t exactly know what you’re going to find until you open up the files. So in each order, I’d ask for both items that I knew would have useful material and ones that I wasn’t quite sure about.

Q. You kind of have to find your way around a new archive.
A. It’s important to build rapport with the archivists. After I’d been coming in for about two or three weeks, and they saw me spending as much time as possible there, it seems like they became a bit more willing to help. Although you’re technically only allowed to order five items per day, eventually they allowed me to order more. When I tried to make reservations for March over the phone, they told me that everything was full — but then when I came in person, since I’d developed a relationship with them, they told me what days were free and I was able to make some reservations. So this adds another layer of complication. But by February, I felt that things were going well at this archive.

I also worked at the Lenin Library, which was a nice change of pace from the archive, because here, I could just go in and order books or newspapers, and they’d be delivered by the next day at the latest. They have a huge collection of published material, and I tried to collect as much as I could here. I was also gathering material for future projects, since I didn’t know when I’d next get the chance. Some sections of the Lenin Library are located in a former palace, as well, so the reading room is beautiful.

Q. What was your plan for the rest of the year?
A. In the summer, I was going to leave for St. Petersburg. Mainly, I planned to work at the Russian State Imperial Archive, which has the records of the Russian imperial bureaucracy. This includes the Holy Synod, which governed the Orthodox Church in Russia. I was just beginning to figure out what I might be able to find there, but I knew there would be a lot of material. I planned to stay in St. Petersburg until December.

Q. But that’s not what happened.
A. No. I think that February 24th is a day that’s going to be ingrained in my mind, and in the minds of a lot of people I know. It was shocking. I had thought that maybe Putin was bluffing, that he was engaging in some sort of diplomatic maneuver. But then on February 24th, Kyiv was bombed. It really happened. Like a lot of other people, I didn’t expect this at all. I did think that Ukraine would be defeated militarily, because I didn’t expect Western countries to provide aid. I’m glad I was wrong on that account. But I didn’t think that Putin would succeed in incorporating Ukraine into his empire. Ukrainians have their own national identity, and even the Russian speakers in Ukraine don’t necessarily consider themselves to be part of Russia. Inevitably, the war would create resistance.

That day, another researcher at the archive pulled me aside during the lunch break and told me how ashamed and appalled she was. She didn’t understand how this could be happening. But when I went home that evening, it was as if nothing had happened. Nobody was on the streets until that night, when I heard people chanting “No to war!” from my apartment. It was a relief to hear that some people in Moscow opposed this.

It was difficult to get up the next day and go to work as usual in the library. It was a surreal feeling — the war had started, but around me, it looked like nothing was wrong. By that evening, the United States and the EU countries had begun announcing sanctions. Although I wasn’t in any physical danger, I knew that soon I might not be able to access my bank account. I could borrow money from my friends if there was an emergency, but I didn’t want to put them in that position. When I heard that there were plans to shut down international flights from Russia, though, I knew I had to get out. I booked a ticket to Istanbul and left on Saturday, February 26th.

Q. How did this experience affect you and your research?
A. It was crushing. I think a lot of people in the field felt this way. I wanted to present a more complex picture of the Russian Empire and Russia than the scholarship has offered so far, but it’s suddenly become much harder. I talked with a Russian friend when I got back to the US, who told me: “Don’t try to exculpate Russia.” That isn’t something I want to do at all, but it’s more difficult to address some of the themes that interest me in a nuanced way.

I was also troubled by some of the calls for Western academics to disengage from Russian institutions. Of course, I understand why someone wouldn’t want to associate themselves with the Russian government, or with people that openly support it, but I recognize that Russian scholars place themselves and their families at risk by coming out publicly against the regime.

Q. What are your thoughts about how this will affect Russian history as a field?
A. I think the field is being upended. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few years. Will people choose to study different topics? Will they focus on different people, or different regions? It will still be important to study Russian history, as well as the Russian language, but we may approach it differently.

It seems that this conflict may have sharpened our focus on Russian history as imperial history, which is something that I’m interested in. We have to understand the history of the Russian Empire as one of many peoples and many institutions. The imperial government and the Russian Orthodox Church did make efforts to impose a Russian identity on its subjects, but they remained diverse. There was diversity within the Orthodox Church and within the Russian ruling class as well. At the same time, there are important differences between the Russian Empire and, say, the British or French empires. The Romanovs were more interested in expansion than in extracting resources, and race played a different role.

Q. Do you see any connections between your research and the current situation?
A. The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society was recently reestablished, and I read that Russian officials were putting pressure on Israel to turn over one of the buildings that it had owned in Jerusalem to the Russian government, rather than to the new Society. The Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society protested this, of course. This was just one event, but it reflects what I’ve seen in my own research. People often think of Russia in a monolithic sense, where the tsar issues an order and it’s carried out. But as I saw, among Russian actors in Palestine, different organizations and institutions were consistently competing against each other and trying to exert their own influence. The monolithic narrative is being resurrected again, but we see through this story that there’s still conflict between different groups representing Russia.

Q. What are your future research plans?
A. First, I’ve been spending the months since I left organizing the documents that I collected during my time in Russia. But I’ve also been able to access new material, because in 2020, I received the Pre-Dissertation Research Grant through CSEEES at UNC. Of course, I wasn’t able to travel because of Covid, so I deferred it for a year. They didn’t allow me to defer it again, though, so I used part of the grant to hire a graduate student in St. Petersburg to scan some books for me from the National Library. This small grant has been absolutely essential in allowing me to continue my research even after leaving Russia.

I also successfully applied to participate in the Summer Research Lab at the University of Illinois, so I’ll be traveling to Urbana-Champaign later this year as well. It’s possible that they might have copies of archival material and periodicals that I haven’t been able to access yet. Finally, I’m working with ASEEES to see if I can use the Cohen-Tucker Fellowship to fund research in the UK and in Finland. Great Britain had a presence in Palestine at this time too, of course, so I’m interested in seeing what British officials had to say about these Russian Orthodox societies and pilgrims arriving from Russia, or what British travelers may have written in their accounts. Since Finland was also part of the Russian Empire, their National Library also has collections of Russian government publications.

I’m very fortunate that my advisor, Dr. Louise McReynolds, completed her dissertation before Western scholars had access to Russian archival sources. She knows how to do research without relying on archives. When I came back to the US, she reassured me that my topic was solid and I could still complete my research. In a sense, it’s as if we’re back in the 1980s. Of course, we do have the internet and I’ve been able to look at some digitized documents and publications available online. But I do hope to go back some time soon, although I don’t know when I’ll have the opportunity. I love traveling to Russia, because all the archivists and academics I’ve met have been very helpful, and I hope to stay in touch with them.

–Mira Markham

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Cristian Walk Receives Award for Graduate Teaching Assistant Excellence

Beyond their research, publication activity, grant proposal writing, and the challenge of staying on top of an ever-burgeoning historiography, graduate students in UNC’s history department are, first and foremost, training to become educators. Thus, it is significant that Cristian Walk was selected as one of five winners of the College of Arts and Sciences’ 2022 Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Walk, a Ph.D student focused on labor, business, and Latinx history in the U.S., notes that he is “honored to have received this award,” and “especially grateful to the students and professors who spent so much time submitting documents and testimony on my behalf.” His experiences as a teaching assistant have further shaped his own work, as, in his words, “I’ve increasingly tried to think about my own work in pedagogical and historiographical questions, allowing me to think through how I would organize a course on American labor or business history.”

The Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching was founded in 1952 by Sarah Tanner and her brother, Kenneth Spencer Tanner, in memory of their parents. The award was established to recognize excellence in inspirational teaching of undergraduate students, especially those in their first and second years of their undergraduate career. In 1990 UNC expanded the award to include the work of graduate teaching assistants. This year, awardees included graduate teaching assistants from the Departments of Computer Science, Psychology, and Political Science. The presence of a historian in this competitive field testifies not only to Walk’s talent as an educator, but also to the fact that, at its best, historical pedagogy emphasizes patience, compassion, and building relationships with their students.

Reflecting on his own time in the classroom, where he developed the skills recognized by the Tanner Award, Walk comments that “the most rewarding part about teaching undergrads is building a meaningful relationship with students and giving them the tools to learn on their own.” He adds, “It is especially rewarding to see students using the tools we teach them to craft their own arguments – especially when they challenge dominant narratives, including those we propagate.” Walk received the Tanner Award while teaching a course on conspiracy theories and historical truth, and he advises his students to “think critically and approach the classroom and entire university system with a healthy dose of skepticism. How does power shape the types of arguments we hear in the classroom and those who make them? That type of question should inform how students approach education and is one that I wish I knew long ago.”

While honored to have received an award for his teaching skills, Walk also wants to use it as a way of drawing attention to the hard work of his graduate student colleagues in the Department of History, who also deserve recognition for their pedagogy and empathy toward students. On this note, he draws attention to the ongoing plight of graduate students in the department: “If UNC really wanted to honor their teachers, they would pay all of us a living wage, not give out a few awards.”

–Nicole Harry

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