Professor
Biography
I have worked on pro- and anti-Soviet resistance during World War II, Soviet counterinsurgency, Soviet and Romanian military history, Soviet deportations and Russian war memory.
Education
- B.Sc. Moscow Mining Institute
- M.A. University of Calgary
- PhD University of Calgary
Research and teaching interests
- Soviet Union
- Eastern Europe
- Totalitarianism
- Popular resistance
- Counterinsurgency
- Military history
Courses taught
- HIST 265 Eastern Europe Since 1945
- HIST 278 Russia in World War II
- HIST 316 The Russian Revolution
- HIST 356 20th Century Russia
- HIST 359 Fascism beyond Germany
- HIST 422 War, strategy and power in European history
- HIST 604 Theory and Practice of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency
Key Areas of Graduate Supervision
- The Soviet Union and imperial Russia
- Social conflicts
- Forced migrations
- Military history
Current projects
I am studying Soviet adventure tourism: non-commercial multi-week trekking, rafting, climbing and skiing during the communist period. My goal is to analyze the culture of Soviet adventure tourism and pinpoint its peculiarities vis-à-vis western adventure tourism.
Recent publications
- “The Thorns of the Wild Rose: Russian Ordeals at the Shipka Pass during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878”, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 32/3 (July-September 2019), 367-387.
- “The Dargo Expedition of 1845: Lessons Learned and Unlearned” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 32/2 (April-June 2019), 210-234.
- At War’s Summit: The Red Army and the Struggle for the Caucasus Mountains in World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
- “The Strategy of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists in Its Quest for a Sovereign State, 1939–1950,” the Journal of Strategic Studies (15 October 2018), 1-29.
- “Soviet Partisan Violence Against Soviet Civilians: Targeting Their Own”, Europe-Asia Studies 66/9 (2014), 1525-52.
- “The Soviet Union”, in Philip Cooke and Ben Shepherd, eds., European Resistance in the Second World War (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2013), 188-212.
- “‘La Garde meurt mais ne se rend pas!’: Once Again on the 28 Panfilov Heroes”, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, (October 2012), 13 (4), 769-798.
- “Blocking Units in the Red Army”, The Journal of Military History, 76(2), April 2012, 475-495.
- “Penal Units in the Red Army”, Europe-Asia Studies, 62(5), July 2010, 721-747.
- The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 368 pp.
- “Soviet Ethnic Deportations: Intent versus Outcome”, Journal of Genocide Research, 11(2-3), June 2009, 243-264.
- “Was Smuglianka a Lunatic or a Siguranţa’s Agent-Provocateur? Peculiarities of the Soviet Partisan Struggle in the Western Borderlands”, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 31/5 (October 2008), 743-770.
- “Romanian Naval Doctrine and Its Tests in the Second World War”, War in History, 15 (2) 2008, 191-210.
- “Motivations and Goals of the Soviet Deportations in the Western Borderlands”, The Journal of Strategic Studies, 28/6 (December 2005), 977-1003.
- “The Nature of Anti-Soviet Armed Resistance, 1942-44: the North Caucasus, the Kalmyk Autonomous Republic, and Crimea”, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6/2 (2005), 285-318.
- “Antonescu’s Eagles against Stalin’s Falcons: the Romanian Air Force (1920-1941)”, The Journal of Military History 66 (October 2002), 1085-1114.
- “When an Army Becomes ‘Merely a Burden’: Romanian Defence Policy and Strategy (1918-1941)”, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 13/2 (June 2000), 67-85.
- “The Ugly Duckling of the Armed Forces: Romanian Armour (1919-1941)”, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 12/2 (June 1999), 220-244.