Graduate Student, History
Thesis Title: Politics, Pensions and Prison Sentences: the Forgotten Veterans of Russia's Afghan War
About
My proposed dissertation examines the social status of the Afgantsy (veterans of the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan) and their cultural and political representation in Post-Soviet society. Related interests include domestic opposition to the Soviet-Afghan War, and the changing perceptions of Communist era President Mohammad Najibullah (1986-1992).
Prior to my shift toward Soviet-Afghan politics, the bulk of my work dealt with the politics of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the reinvention of Soviet literary figures under Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin.
