I grew up in Krasnodar, a city in the South of Russia. I moved to Moscow when I was 16 in order to pursue my studies at the History department of the Moscow State University. After simultaneously graduating from the MSU and Collège Universitaire Français de Moscou in 2011 (and falling in love with the French sociology), I moved to Paris. There I did a Master program in social sciences at École normale supérieure (rue d’Ulm). From 2014 to 2019, I worked on my doctoral dissertation at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. I defended it at the University of Amsterdam in September 2019. My dissertation explored continuity and change in the Russian and Soviet penal practices from 1879 to 1953, with a particular focus on the emergence of labour camps.

I’m currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC-funded project ZARAH: Women’s labour activism in Eastern Europe and transnationally, from the age of empires to the late 20th century, based at the Central European University. Within this project, I explore the world of women labour activists in Galicia under the Habsburg monarchy and after the re-birth of the Polish statehood.

My research interests include social history of Russia and Eastern Europe, global labour history, as well as history of punishment and forced migrations.