Martin Blackwell

Visiting Professor of History

Martin Blackwell grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio and has worked to become a fluent Russian speaker over many years. After completing his undergraduate degree at Kenyon College and both prior to and after the completion of his PhD in History at Indiana University, he lived and worked for almost a decade in the Russian cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Volgograd, while also getting a chance to reside in Kyiv and L'viv in Ukraine and Almaty and Atyrau in Kazakhstan. He teaches courses on Eurasian history and other broader courses such as a FSEM dedicated to ancient and medieval history both East and West.

  • PhD, history, Indiana University, 2005
  • BA with Honors, history, Kenyon College, 1992

Contact

Martin Blackwell

Biography

Member, Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)
Member, Southern Conference on Slavic Studies (SCSS) 

More About Martin Blackwell

Areas of Expertise

  • Russia
  • Central Asia
  • The Caucasus

Course Sampling

  • The Soviet Collapse
  • Stalinism
  • The Russian Empire
  • Modern World Civilizations
  • Russia: Right Now 
  • Freedom's Turn: Ancient History and Today

My research focuses on life in the former Soviet Union from the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 until that country's collapse in 1991. My recently published monograph examines the relationship between the ruling Communist Party and the people of Kyiv, Ukraine following the Nazi occupation. It explains why statist and anti-Semitic rhetoric became the linchpins of Soviet domestic propaganda at the beginning of the Cold War. My current book project examines expectations for change in Leningrad in the late 1980s. I'm also an active on the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg-based journal *Modern History of Russia* which publishes fresh archival-based research from the Russian Federation three to four times a year.

  • *Kyiv as Regime City: The Return of Soviet Power after Nazi Occupation*, (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2016).