Speakers and Topics:

Welcome by Prof. Gonda Van Steen, Koraes Chair (King’s Centre for Hellenic Studies)

Dr Alexandra Vukovich (KCL, History): Byzantino-Rus cultural monuments in Ukraine: History and perspectives

Dr Irene Polinskaya (KCL, Classics): “The chronically sick man of Europe” - A personal perspective on Russia as a totalitarian state, and the last/lost 30 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991-2022)

Dr Dina Gusejnova (LSE): Russia’s special path? The shadows of Weimar and Nazi Germany in current discourse on the Russian war in Ukraine

Speaker Bios:

Dr Alexandra Vukovich (KCL, History) is lecturer in late medieval history at King’s, focussing on the history and literature of the Byzantine world, specifically early Rus. A second research interest focusses on the political role of medieval cultural heritage (medievalism) in modern nationalisms and approaches to modern heritage management.

Dr Irene Polinskaya (KCL, Classics) is Reader in Ancient History in King’s Department of Classics. She grew up in St. Petersburg, Russia, and emigrated to the USA in 1992. She studied (at Stanford University) and taught (at Bowdoin College) in the United States (1992-2007), and has been teaching at King’s since 2007. Over the last five years, her research on ancient Greek inscriptions has taken her to Ukraine where she worked at several archaeological museums and sites such as the Institute of Archaeology in Kyiv, the Regional Studies Museum in Mykolaiv/Nikolayev, the Archaeological Museum of Odesa, and the Archaeological Preserve Olbia.

Dr Dina Gusejnova (LSE, International History) is Associate Professor in Modern European History. Her research centres on the transfer of ideas and ideologies across the borders of empires and nation-states in the twentieth century. After her book, European Elites and Ideas of Empire, 1917-57 (Cambridge, 2016), her research has centred on the longer-term impact of the internment of scholars from continental Europe in Britain during the Second World War. Her most recent commentary on the Russian war in Ukraine was for the blog History Matters. She is a founding member of the initiative for the University of New Europe, and a member of Ukraine Hub UK Academic Taskforce.