I recently graduated from Williams College, where I majored in History and English, and minored in Russian and Eurasian Studies. My thesis analysed the power of women’s storytelling to effect legal changes in the US and France and was awarded the prize for best thesis in American history.
My maternal family emigrated to America from Belarus, Ukraine, and Poland, and I am, therefore, interested in forced migration within and out of the Soviet Union. I am particularly interested in Soviet-era reproductive policies, Soviet fear and propaganda surrounding western influences, and how Soviet leaders used language and culture strategies, such as korenizatsiia, in an attempt to control nationalism.