Oleg Budnitskii
- Director:The International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences
- Professor:Faculty of Humanities / School of History
- Tenured Professor
- Oleg Budnitskii has been at HSE University since 2010.
Education, Degrees and Academic Titles
- 2012Member of the Academy of Europe
- 1998
Doctor of Sciences* in National History
Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Thesis Title: Terrorism in the Russian revolutionary movement: ideology, ethics, psychology (second half of the XIX - beginning of the XX centuries - 1997Associate Professor
- 1989
Candidate of Sciences* (PhD) in Historiography, Source Study and Methods of Historical Research
- 1988
Doctoral programme in Historiography
USSR Academy of Sciences Institute of Soviet History - 1976
Degree in History
Rostov State Teacher Training Institute, History
According to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2011, Candidate of Sciences belongs to ISCED level 8 - "doctoral or equivalent", together with PhD, DPhil, D.Lit, D.Sc, LL.D, Doctorate or similar. Candidate of Sciences allows its holders to reach the level of the Associate Professor.
A post-doctoral degree called Doctor of Sciences is given to reflect second advanced research qualifications or higher doctorates in ISCED 2011.
Student Term / Thesis Papers
- Bachelor
V. Tiurin, A Difficult Return: The Re-Evacuation of Civilians to Moscow in 1942–1948. Faculty of Humanities, 2020
W. Herne, Frontline Diaries as a Source on the History of Inter–Ethnic Relations in the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War. Faculty of Humanities, 2020
E. Malygina, Inter-Ethnic Relations in the Red Army during the Second World War. Faculty of Humanities, 2019
V. Rybakov, The Governing Bodies of Justice of the RSFSR During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). Faculty of Humanities, 2018
T. Medvedev, Cossack National-Liberation Movement during World War II: Ideology and Activity. Faculty of Humanities, 2018
E. Krivtsova, Poisonings of Jewish Children by Nazis on the Occupied Soviet Territories: Experience of the Source Study. Faculty of Humanities, 2017
A. Maslova, Children and Adolescents as Ostarbeiters: the Problems of Returning and Adaptation in the USSR. Faculty of Humanities, 2017
D. Novozhilova, Features of the Holocaust in the South of Russia. Faculty of Humanities, 2017
N. Galyaviev, Soviet Justice during the War (1941-1945). Faculty of Humanities, 2017
A. Molianova, Medical Experiments in Nazi Concentration Camps: Problems of Studies. Faculty of Humanities, 2016
K. Majvand, The Economy of the Gulag in the wartime. Faculty of History, 2014
A. Starkov, Russian Military Emigration in Nazi Germany during the World War II on the basis of A.A. von Lampe's diaries (1939 — 1943). Faculty of History, 2014
Yu. Gerasimova, The ‘Internal enemy’: protest moods in Moscow and Leningrad and the activities of NKVD, 1941-1942. Faculty of History, 2014
N. Polkovnikova, Civil population of the USSR during the Second World War: life under occupation (based on the materials of Harvard Interview Project on the Soviet Social System). Faculty of History, 2014
I. Maxalova, History of the Napoleonic wars in the propaganda of the main belligerent powers during the Second World War.. Faculty of History, 2014
- Master
V. Rybakov, The Activity of the RSFSR Administrative Bodies of Justice on the Courts Management During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). Faculty of Humanities, 2020
T. Medvedev, The Formation and Activities of NKVD "Destruction Battalions" in the Moscow and Leningrad Regions (June 1941 - March 1942). Faculty of Humanities, 2020
V. Chernysheva, Marriages between Soviet Women and Foreigners during and after the Second World War (1942-1953). Faculty of Humanities, 2019
E. Rossman, A Sentimental Bureaucrat: An Attempt at a Biography of the Soviet Scholar Viktor Kolbanovskii (1902-1970). Faculty of Humanities, 2019
V. Pletselman, The Distinctive Features of Soviet Justice under Stalin in the Liberated Territories of USSR (1943-1945). Faculty of Humanities, 2017
A. Zaplatina, The Estimation of the Loss of Cultural Property by Extraordinary State Comission in USSR 1942-1945. Faculty of Humanities, 2017
O. Xoxryakova, The Red Army soldiers in the Europe: social and cultural aspects (1944-1945). Faculty of History, 2014
Courses (2020/2021)
- Contemporary historiography (Postgraduate course’s programme; 1 year, 1 semester)Rus
- History of 20th Century (Minor; Faculty of Humanities; 3, 4 module)Rus
- Russia in the 20th Century (Bachelor’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 4 year, 1-3 module)Rus
- The Laboratory of the Historian: Professional Convention and Practices (Master’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 2 year, 1-4 module)Rus
- Past Courses
Courses (2019/2020)
- Contemporary historiography (Postgraduate course’s programme; 1 year, 1 semester)Rus
- History of 20th Century (Minor; Faculty of Humanities; 3, 4 module)Rus
- Russia in the 20th Century (Bachelor’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 4 year, 1-3 module)Rus
- The Laboratory of the Historian: Professional Convention and Practices 2 (Master’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 2 year, 1-4 module)Rus
Courses (2018/2019)
- History (Bachelor’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 1 year, 1, 2 module)Rus
- History of 20th Century (Minor; Faculty of Humanities; 3, 4 module)Rus
Courses (2016/2017)
- History (Bachelor’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 1 year, 1, 2 module)Rus
- History of 20th Century (Minor; Faculty of Humanities; 3, 4 module)Rus
- Research Seminar "Law, Individual and Society in Early Modern Russia" (Bachelor’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 1 year, 1-4 module)Rus
Courses (2015/2016)
- History (Bachelor’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 2 year, 1, 2 module)Rus
- History of Russian State (Bachelor’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 3 year, 1-3 module)Rus
- Russian Emigration History (Bachelor’s programme; Faculty of Humanities; 4 year, 1, 2 module)Rus
Editorial board membership
2021: Member of the Editorial Board, The Russian Review.
2012: Member of the Editorial Board, Российская история.
2010: Member of the Editorial Board, East European Jewish Affairs.
2001: Member of the Editorial Board, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History.
Conferences
- 2019ВТОРАЯ МИРОВАЯ ВОЙНА И ПРОБЛЕМЫ СОВЕТСКОЙ ИСТОРИИ (Москва). Presentation: «Писательская рота»: к истории формирования и гибели (июль - октябрь 1941)
- Устная история Великой Отечественной войны: практики создания и интерпретации (Москва). Presentation: Гарвардский проект и «Гарвардский проект»: проблемы перевода, идентификации респондентов, интерпретации
- 2018Humanities and Area Studies from the War and Peace perspective (Сеул). Presentation: СССР во Второй мировой войне: история и память
- Violence against civilians on the Eastern front of World War II (Париж). Presentation: «Should everyone be shot?»: Stalin’s justice in the first years of the Great Patriotic War
- Италия и Россия в контексте большой Европы: историческая преемственность и новые тенденции (Рим). Presentation: Мифы и образы Италии на страницах советского журнала «Новый мир» (1958–1970)
- 2017Being a Jew in the Soviet Union: Findings from a Comprehensive History of the Jews in the Soviet Union (Нью-Йорк). Presentation: Between Frontline and Gulag: The Deichman Family in Wartime
- The revolutions of 1917 in Europe: The making of a new culture (Кан ). Presentation: Деньги для новой России: проблема внешних займов в период Временного правительства
- 2016More Soviet or More Jewish?: Jewish Identities in the USSR during World War II (Иерусалим). Presentation: 100 Letters from the Front Line: Life and Fate of Elena Deichman
- New Directions in Russian Jewish Studies (Бостон). Presentation: Letters from the Front Line: A Soviet Jewish Family in War and Peace
- Международная научная конференция "Сталинизм и война" (Москва). Presentation: Сталинская юстиция военного времени (1941-1942)
- 2015Европа, 1945: освобождение, оккупация, возмездие (Москва). Presentation: Красная армия: встреча с Европой, 1944-1945
- Seventy Years since World War II: Seven Decades of Shifting Boundaries in Eastern Europe (Тель-Авив). Presentation: Women in the Red Army, 1941-45
- 2014Международная научная конференция «Россия в Первой мировой войне» (Москва). Presentation: Россия в мировых войнах ХХ века: опыт сравнительного анализа
- "Война и мир": Первая мировая война и ее влияние на развитие общественного порядка и демократии (Москва). Presentation: Россия в мировых войнах ХХ века: опыт сравнительного анализа
- Россия и США в мировых войнах: опыт взаимодействия в условиях глобальных кризисов (Москва). Presentation: Взаимодействие России и США в мировых войнах ХХ века: опыт сравнительного анализа
- Псевдонимы русской эмиграции в Европе (1917–1945) (Бохум). Presentation: В поисках авторов: о некоторых псевдонимах в коллаборационистской печати
- Наследие Василия Гроссмана: самобытность классика ХХ века (Москва). Presentation: Записные книжки Василия Гроссмана как источник по истории Второй мировой войны
- 2013European Congress ‘Europe: Crisis and Renewal’ (Cambridge). Presentation: Jewish Women in the Red Army, 1941-45
- What Have we Learned From the Soviet Archives? (Упсала). Presentation: War Diaries and Memoirs as a Source of the Social History of the Stalin Period
- What was Communism? (Берлин). Presentation: The fascination of communism – Mass movement or a splinter group seizing power?
- Оккупация и коллаборационизм в Европе, 1939-1945 (Москва). Presentation: Советское общество накануне немецкой оккупации: Идеологические и социальные предпосылки коллаборационизма
Память о Холокосте в современной Европе: Общее и разделяющее (Москва). Presentation: Антисемитизм в СССР во время Второй мировой войны
Books1
Articles and book chapters12
- Article Budnitskii O. The Jews and Revolution: Russian Perspectives, 1881-1918 // East European Jewish Affairs. 2008. Vol. 38. No. 3. P. 321-334.
- Chapter Budnitskii O. Shots in the Back: On the Origin of the Anti-Jewish Pogroms of 1918-1921, in: Jews in the East European Borderlands. Essays in Honor of John D. Klier / Ed. by E. M. Avrutin, H. Murav. Boston : Academic Studies Press, 2012. P. 187-201.
- Chapter Budnitskii O. The Intelligentsia Meets the Enemy: Educated Soviet Officers in Defeated Germany, 1945, in: Fascination and Enmity: Russia and Germany as Entangled Histories, 1914-1945. Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012. Ch. 9. P. 176-227.
- Chapter Budnitskii O. Berlin debates: the Jews and the Russian Revolution, in: Jewish Thought, Utopia, and Revolution Issue 274. NY : Rodopi B.V., 2014. Ch. 8. P. 111-126, 194-196.
- Chapter Budnitskii O. Jews at War: Diaries from the Front, in: Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering. Boston : Academic Studies Press, 2014. Ch. 3. P. 57-84.
- Article Oleg Budnitskii. The Great Patriotic War and Soviet Society: Defeatism, 1941-42 // Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2014. Vol. 15. No. 4. P. 767-798.
- Article Nathans B., Levitt Kohn R., Meir N., Budnitskii O., Dekel-Chen J. Torahs, Tanks, and Tech: Moscow's Jewish Museum // East European Jewish Affairs. 2015. Vol. 45. No. 2-3. P. 190-199. doi
- Article Oleg Budnitskii. Oleg Budnitskii responds to Olga Gershenson's “The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow: Judaism for the masses” // East European Jewish Affairs. 2016. Vol. 46. No. 2. P. 211-213. doi
- Article Budnitskii O. A Harvard Project in Reverse. Materials of the Commission of the USSR Academy of Sciences of the History of the Great Patriotic War - Publications and Interpretations // Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2018. Vol. 19. No. 1. P. 175-202.
- Chapter Budnitskii O. Jews in the Russian Army during the First World War, in: Military Affairs in Russia’s Great War and Revolution, 1914–22. Book 1: Military Experiences Vol. 1: Military Experiences. Bloomington : Slavica Publishers, 2019. Ch. 3. P. 63-82.
- Article Budnitskii O. The Great Terror of 1941: Toward a History of Wartime Stalinist Criminal Justice // Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2019. Vol. 20. No. 3. P. 447-480. doi
- Article Budnitskii O. MARK EDELE, SHEILA FITZPATRICK, and ATINA GROSSMANN, editors. Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 2017. // American Historical Review. 2020. Vol. 125. No. 4. P. 1558-1560. doi
Fellowships
Fellowships:
- Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University, May 2013
- U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Ina Levine Senior Invitational Scholar, September 2009-May 2010
- Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Skirball Fellow, January-June 2002
- Stanford University, September 1999 - July 2000
- Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, Sepetember 1994-May 1995
Lost in Recalculation: How to Estimate the Scale of the Soviet Economy and Its Rate of Growth
Researchers trying to compare economic data of the USSR and capitalist countries face questions of the comprehensiveness, accessibility, and reliability of data on Soviet economic production and growth. At an online seminar hosted by the HSE University International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and its Consequences, Assistant Professor Ilya Voskoboynikov (Faculty of Economic Sciences, HSE University) presented an overview of available approaches to studying the absolute size of the Soviet economy and its growth rates.
The HSE Look December Issue
The fifth issue of 2020 presents an interview on the international postdoc programme and introduces new postdocs.
Studying History and Nation-Building in Borderlands
Alexandr Voronovici,a second year postdoctoral research fellow at the International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, shared his experience of teaching transnational perspective on Soviet history to HSE students.
Fuad Aleskerov Elected to Academia Europaea
Tenured HSE Professor Fuad Aleskerov, who is the head of the Faculty of Economic Sciences’ Department of Mathematics, has become a member of the Informatics section of the Academia Europaea.
International Scholarly Conference "A «Memory Revolution»: Soviet History through the Lens of Personal Documents"
The conference was held on 7-8 June 2017 in Moscow
Student History School in Germany
From October 7 - November 12, 2016 a school for undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students organized by the International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences was held in Germany. The school was dedicated to issues of memorialization and commemorating victims of terror and was led by the Centre’s Director Oleg Budnitskii. The trip was organized with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Oleg Budnitskii, Natalia Zubarevich, Mikhail Fedotov, Receive Yegor Gaidar Awards
The winners of the Yegor Gaidar Foundation were announced on November 17, and HSE staff were among those recognized in three nominations.
Soviet Justice During the War Years
The Center’s director, Oleg Budnitskii, spoke about the particularities of Soviet justice during the period of the Great Patriotic War in a recent broadcast from the radio station the Echo of Moscow.
Human Rights and Empire
We Are Pleased to Announce the Publication of the Book The Rights of the Individual and Empire, with an Introduction and Commentary by Oleg Budnitskii.
Is a Scholarly History of the Second World War Possible?
Oleg Budnitskii, the director of the International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, gave a presentation at Polit.ru’s ProScience Theatre.
'Just because a Document Is in the Archives, One Should not Assume that It Contains the Truth'
Higher School of Economics hosted the conference Looking Back, Looking Forward: New Directions in World War II Research to mark the fifth anniversary of the International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences.
Extramural School ‘Forced Labour during WWII: Analysis of Documents and Exchange of International Experiences’
From October 1 – 7th, 2015, HSE students and graduates in history participated in an extramural school headed by Professor Oleg Budnitsky on ‘Forced Labour during WWII: Analysis of Documents and International Exchange of Experience’ in Berlin, Germany.
Internship at the Holocaust Museum in Washington
HSE history students Elena Krivtsova and Alexandra Maslova shared their impressions of an internship they completed at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, USA, which was organized by the International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences.
A People’s History of War
HSE has hosted the international academic conference ‘Europe, 1945: Liberation, Occupation, Retribution,’ during which historians, sociologists, and culturologists from various countries discussed the social, economic, military, political, and cultural phenomena caused by World War II. In an interview with the HSE News Service, the Director of HSE’s International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences, Oleg Budnitskii, discusses the conference, its organizers, and its guests, and also talks about why it is important to study the human dimension of war.
Lecture by Professor Budnitskii at European University Institute
On April 1, 2015 Oleg Budnitskii, Professor at the School of History and HSE Honorary Professor delivered a lecture on ‘Women in the Red Army, 1941–45’ at the colloquium of the History Department of the European University Institute (Florence).
‘As long as we think about the Middle Ages as a dark time, we will remain dark ourselves’
Every era builds its own version of the Middle Ages, and the modern age is no exception. Oleg Voskoboynikov, the youngest full professor at the Higher School of Economics, talks about the reason for the popularity of metaphors that refer to that era, why the ‘Suffering Middle Ages’ group on VKontakte [Russia’s largest social media site — Ed.] is not the same thing as medieval studies and how the desire to be different from everyone else can lead a student to study the Middle Ages.
Humanities at HSE: One Faculty, Different Programmes, More Opportunities
The united Faculty of Humanities has been launched and recently held an open day at HSE. For those who missed the event we share the most important information about the faculty.
12 HSE Professors Awarded Tenure
On September 26 twelve HSE faculty members were promoted to Tenured Professors.
