ANNA WHITTINGTON

Postdoctoral Fellow Staraya Basmannaya str. 21/4, L-406

Higher School of Economics 105066 Moscow
a.whittington@hse.ru Russian Federation

EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Ph.D. in History 2018
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
M.A. in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies 2011
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
A.B. in History 2005
Secondary Concentration in Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies

PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS
2018– Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Centre for the History and Sociology
of World War II and its Consequences, Higher School of Economics, Moscow.

PUBLICATIONS
Chapters in Peer-Reviewed Edited Volumes
“Making a Home for the Soviet People: WWII and the Origins of the Sovetskii Narod.” Chapter in
Lewis Siegelbaum and Krista Goff, eds., Empire and Belonging in the Eurasian Borderlands
(Cornell, April 2019).
“‘Citizen of the Soviet Union—It Sounds Dignified’: Letter Writing, Nationalities Policy, and
Identity in the Post-Stalinist Soviet Union.” Chapter in Maarten van Ginderachter and Jon Fox,
eds., Ignoring the Nation’s Call: National Indifference and the History of Nationalism in Modern
Europe (Routledge, February 2019).
Works in Progress
Repertoires of Citizenship: Inclusion, Inequality, and the Making of the Soviet People, book
manuscript, in preparation.
“Alphabet Soup: Orthographic Reform in Soviet Eurasia,” journal article, in preparation.

GRANTS, AWARDS, FELLOWSHIPS

Writer in Residence, Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, New York University,
(2017–18).
Rackham Humanities Research Dissertation Fellowship, University of Michigan (2016–17).
Ukrainian Research Grant, Weiser Center, University of Michigan (2016).
Rackham International Research Award, University of Michigan (2015–16).
Combined Research and Language Training Fellowship, Title VIII (2014–15).
IREX Individual Advanced Research Opportunity, Title VIII (2014–15—Declined).
International Institute Individual Fellowship, University of Michigan (2013).
1
 ANNA WHITTINGTON

CREES Research and Internship Fellowship, University of Michigan (2013).

Rackham Graduate Research Grant. University of Michigan (2013).
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship for Kazakh in Kazakhstan (2012).
Fellow, Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, University of Michigan (2011–12).
Foreign Language and Studies Fellowship for Uzbek in Tajikistan (2011).
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship for Uzbek, Stanford University (2010–11).
Fulbright Program. English Teaching Assistantship in Erlangen, Germany (2009–10).
Undergraduate Summer Senior Thesis Research Travel Grants, Harvard University (2008).
Andrei Sakharov Program on Human Rights, Harvard University (2007).

CONFERENCE AND WORKSHOP PRESENTATIONS

Invited Talks
2019 “Repertoires of Citizenship: Discourse, Language, and the Making of the Soviet People.”
University of Naples Frederico II, February 13 (invited).
Conference Papers Presented
2019 “Conceiving the New Soviet Person: The Post-Revolutionary Origins of Soviet
Citizenship.”
Making the New Man: Scientific and Artistic Experiments in the Russian Empire and
the Soviet Union, 1900-1939, St. Petersburg, Russia, May 16–18 (accepted).
2019 “Alphabet Soup: Orthographic Reform under Lenin and Stalin”
Association for the Study of Nationalities Annual Convention, New York City, May 2–4
(accepted).
2018 “‘For the Soviet people—New Rituals’: Life Cycles of Soviet Identity.”
ASEEES Annual Convention, Boston, December 6–9 (accepted).
2018 “Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Celebrating the October Revolution under Khrushchev
and Brezhnev.”
International Social Science Summer School in Ukraine, Zaporizhia, June 25–29.
2018 “Between Nation an Empire: Towards a History of the Soviet Union from the Periphery.”
Fisher Workshop, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, June 14–15.
2018 “Making a Home for the Soviet People: World War II and the Evolution of Soviet
Identity.”
Constructivist Criticism Workshop, University of Pennsylvania, January 19.
2017 “Russian Language, Soviet People: The Place of Russian after the 1958–59 School Reform.”
ASEEES Annual Convention, Chicago, November 9–12.
2017 “Between Russification and Friendship: Cyrillization in Stalinist Central Asia.”
Central Eurasian Studies Society Annual Conference, Seattle, October 5–8.
2017 “World War II and the Making of Soviet Citizens in Central Asia.”
Central Eurasian Studies Society, Regional Conference—Bishkek, June 29–July 1.
2
 ANNA WHITTINGTON

2017 “Celebrating Citizens: Patriotism and Participatory Citizenship from Stalin to Brezhnev.”
Association for the Study of Nationalities Annual Convention, New York City, May 4–6.
2016 “Whither the Soviet People? Ideological Discourse and Interethnic Relations, 1977–91.”
ASEEES Annual Convention, Washington, DC, November 17–20, 2016.
2016 “Making a Home for the Soviet People: WWII and the Origins of the Sovetskii Narod.”
Nationalism, Revolution and Genocide. University of Michigan, October 7–8.
2016 “Nationally Indifferent and Soviet: Letter-Writing, Nationalities Policy, and Identity in the
Post-Stalinist Soviet Union.”
National Indifference Workshop, Charles University, Prague, September 5–6, 2016.
2016 “Learning ‘Lenin’s Language’: Russian Language Education in the Soviet Union, 1938–58.”
ASEEES-MAG Summer Convention, Lviv, Ukraine, June 26–28.
2016 “‘For the Soviet Person, New Rituals’: Religion, Civic Rites and Soviet Identity.”
Constructing the Soviet: Student Conference, European University of St. Petersburg
(Russia), April 22–23.
2014 “Forging Soviet Ukrainians: Social Integration in Postwar Ukraine.”
Graduate Symposium on Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto, March 14–15.
2013 “Soviet Peoples, Soviet People: State Patriotism and Unity in the Stalinist Soviet Union.”
Projects of Modernity: Constructing the ‘Soviet’ in European Perspective, Perm State
National Research University (Russia), June 24–26.
Round Table Presentations
2017 Soviet Nationality Politics and Practices in the Khrushchev Era.
ASEEES Annual Convention, Chicago, November 9–12, 2017.
2016 Global (Dis)Connections: Space, Text and Context of Soviet Childhood.
ASEEES Annual Convention, Washington, DC, November 17–20, 2016.
Panels Organized
2017 “Limits of Soviet Anti-Imperialism: Friendship, Language, and (In)equality in the USSR.”
ASEEES Annual Convention, Chicago, November 9–12, 2017.
2017 “Alphabet Soup: The Politics of Orthography in Late-Imperial and Soviet Eurasia.”
Central Eurasian Studies Society Annual Conference, Seattle, October 5–8.
Discussant
2016 Outsiders as Insiders, Insiders as Outsiders: Being Intermediate in Tsarist and Soviet
Central Asia.
ASEEES-MAG Summer Convention, Lviv (Ukraine), June 26–28.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2012–14 Graduate Student Instructor, University of Michigan.
• The History of Islam in South Asia (Farina Mir), Winter 2014.
• War, Rebellion, and Revolution in China (Pär Cassel), Fall 2013.
• The History of Witchcraft: The 1692 Salem Witch Trials in Cross-Cultural and
3
 ANNA WHITTINGTON

Historical Perspective (Valerie Kivelson), Winter 2013.

• From Genghis Khan to the Taliban: Modern Central Asia (Douglas Northrop), Fall
2013.
Fall 2010 Course Assistant to Gail Lapidus (Stanford University), “State and Nation Building
in Central Asia.”
2009–10 Assistant Teacher of English, Städtische Wirtschaftsschule, Erlangen, Germany.
ADDITIONAL RELEVANT EXPERIENCE
2014 Summer Institute for Conducting Archival Research, George Washington
University, May 19–22.
2010 State Department Student Internship Program, US Embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan.
June–August.

TEACHING AREAS
History of the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, and Central Asia; world and European history;
empires in comparative perspective; global communism; citizenship; nationalism; methods in
historical writing.

LANGUAGES
German Fluent Ukrainian Advanced Intermediate
Russian Advanced Kazakh Intermediate
Uzbek Advanced Intermediate Persian Basic (Tajik dialect)
Spanish Intermediate