Employment
Assistant Professor of Russian History, Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University, Montréal, QC, Canada (2017—)
Lecturer in Russian, East European and Eurasian History, Department of History, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom (2015-2017)
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and its Consequences, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia (2014-2015)
Education
PhD, University of Chicago, History (2014)
MA, Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, University of Toronto (2007)
BA hons., University College, University of Toronto, History (2005)
Publications
Monographs
A Full-Value Ruble: The Promise of Prosperity in the Postwar Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 2021)
Refereed Journal Articles
“‘I Beg You Not to Reject my Plea’: The Late Stalinist Welfare State and the Politics of One-Time Monetary Aid, 1946-1953,” Journal of Social History, Vol. 51, No. 4 (2018): 1045–1068
“Between Fiscal, Ideological, and Social Dilemmas: The Soviet ‘Bachelor Tax’ and Post-war Tax Reform, 1941-1962,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 69, No. 6 (2017): 855-877
“Stalin’s Doctrine of Price Reductions during the Second World War and Postwar Reconstruction,” Slavic Review, Vol. 75, No. 3 (2016): 655-677
“Khrushchev’s Cash-and-Goods Lotteries and the Turn to Positive Incentives,” The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, Vol. 41, No. 3 (2014): 296-323
“Rubles for Victory: The Social Dynamics of State Fundraising on the Soviet Home Front,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2014): 799-828
Reprinted in an abridged format in Russian translation as “Den’gi dlia pobedy: sotsial’naia dinamika privlecheniia sredstv naseleniia v sovetskom tylu,” in Sovetskii tyl’ 1941-1945 gg.: povsednevnaia zhizn’ v gody voiny, eds. Beate Fieseler and Roger Markwick (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2019)
Chapters in Edited Collections
“‘A Writer Deserves to be Paid for His Work’: Progressive American Writers, Foreign Royalties, and the Limits of Soviet Internationalism in the Mid-to-Late 1950s,” Europe’s Internationalists: Rethinking the Short Twentieth Century, eds. Jessica Reinisch and David Brydan (London: Bloomsbury, 2021)
With Étienne Forrestier-Peyrat, “A Communist World of Public Debt? The Failure of a Counter-model” in World of Debts: The Global Politics of Public Debts from the Late 18th Century, eds. Nicholas Barreyre and Nicholas Delalande (London: Palgrave, 2020)
Book Reviews
“Hassan Malik, Bankers and Bolsheviks: International Finance and the Russian Revolution,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 126, No. 4 (2021): 1704–1705
“Ed. Emilia Koustova, Combattre, Survivre, Témoigner: Expériences soviétiques de la Seconde Guerre mondiale,” Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, Vol. 22 (2021).
“James Heinzen, The Art of the Bribe: Corruption under Stalin, 1943-1953,” in The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, Vol. 47, No. 2 (2020): 209-211
“Rósa Magnúsdóttir, Enemy Number One: The United States of America in Soviet Ideology and Propaganda, 1945-1959,” in Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review (January 2020).
“Artemy Kalinovsky, Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan,” H-diplo (July 22, 2019)
“Eds. Harmut Berghoff, Jan Logemann, and Felix Römer, The Consumer on the Home Front: Second World War Civilian Consumption in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 53, No. 4 (2018): 898-901
“Chris Miller, The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR,“ H-diplo (April 9, 2018).
Op-Eds
“The crisis that could take down Putin’s presidency,” The Washington Post (July 26, 2018)
Interviews
Soviet Sex Podcast, “The Bachelor Tax” (January 21, 2022)
History and Investing, “A Full-Value Ruble: The Promise of Prosperity in the Postwar Soviet Union” (October 11, 2021)
New Books Network, “A Full-Value Ruble: The Promise of Prosperity in the Postwar Soviet Union” (June 2, 2021)
SRB Podcast, “The Collective Farm” (November 17, 2019)
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, “Why the Cold War Still Matters, Episode 3: The Fall of an Empire” (November 3, 2019)
Other Works
“A Postwar Quicksand Society?” Peripheral Histories Blog (August 1, 2018)
Works in Progress
“Cold War Copyright Relations, Moral Rights, and ‘Anti-Soviet’ Agendas: The Kuznetsov v. Chaleil Case, 1957-1969” (article)
“Paul Chaleil: Missionary, Gulag Prisoner, and Anti-Communist” (article for a special collection entitled ‘Transnational Cold War Lives’)
International Copyright in the Political Economy of Russia and the Soviet Union (second book project)
Miss Helen Black: Russia’s Foreign Foreign Agent in America (third book project)
Awards and Fellowships
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council – Insight Development Grant (2019)
Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture, Soutien à la recherche pour la relève professorale (2019)
American Council of Learned Societies, Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2013)
Social Science Research Council, International Dissertation Research Fellowship (2011)
Kunstadter Travel Grant, University of Chicago, Department of History (2011, 2013)
Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2006)
Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Master’s Scholarship (2005)
Presentations
Invited Talks
“State Lotteries and the Promise of Prosperity in the Soviet Union, 1917-1991,” Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York, USA (December 6, 2019)
“Socialist (In)security: Pensions and the Postwar Soviet Economy,” Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto (November 8, 2018)
“Real Returns: State Bonds, Lottery Tickets, and Savings Accounts in the Postwar USSR,” University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA (December 1, 2017)
“Khrushchev’s Big Freeze: the 1957 Abolition of ‘Mass Subscription Bonds’ and the Politics of Public Debt in the USSR,” NYU-Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (March 7, 2017)
“Socialism’s Low-Price Guarantee: Late Stalinism and the Retail Economy, 1945-1954” University College London, School of Slavonic, East European and Eurasian Studies, London, UK (October 19, 2015)
“Between Postwar Fiscal and Social Dilemmas: The Tax on Bachelors, Single Persons and Small Families of the USSR,” Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, New York University, New York, NY, USA (March 6, 2015)
“‘In the Interests of the Government and the People’: Soviet Mass Subscription Bonds, 1927-1957,” Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po, Paris, France (February 20, 2015)
“What Money Was (and What It Was Not Always) in Postwar Soviet Society,” Séminaire “L’Univers des choses Soviétiques,” École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France (February 19, 2015)
Invited Conference/Workshop Presentations
“McDonald’s on Pushkin Square: From Joint Venture to Foreign Subsidiary and from Communism to Capitalism,” Workshop in the Economic History and Historical Political Economy of Russia, Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago (December 16, 2021)
“The 1956 Pension Law and the Late Soviet Social Contract,” Remaking the Social Contract? Pension Reform and Protest in Russia, Harriman Institute, Columbia University (January 24, 2019)
“Real Returns: State Bonds, Lottery Tickets, and Savings Accounts in the Postwar USSR,” Economic History: The Case of Russia and the Soviet Union; Sources, Methods, Perspectives, NYU-Paris, Paris, France (December 15, 2018)
“Ideas in ‘Bondage’: International Copyright Law and its Critics in the Soviet Union, 1917-1962,” Russia’s Global Legal Trajectories: An International Workshop, University College London, School of Slavonic, East European and Eurasian Studies, London, UK (February 16, 2018)
“1917 and the Fate of the Abolition of Money,” The October Revolution: Past and Present, Jean Monnet Centre, Montréal, QC, Canada (October 19, 2017)
“Trade and Exchange Within and Beyond the Socialist World” (roundtable participant), Socialist Internationalism Conference, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK (February 3, 2017)
“Was there a Welfare State in the East as well as the West?” (roundtable participant), Debating the Cold War, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK (February 5, 2016)
“‘Compulsory-Voluntary’: Soviet State Bonds and the Boundary Between Taxes and Investments,” The Global Politics of Public Debts from the Late 18th Century, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK (June 11, 2015)
Thematic Conferences and Workshops
“Workers’ ‘Long-Held Dream’: The Soviet Attempt to Abolish Income Taxes, 1960-1962,” Global Histories of Taxation and State Finances Symposium, Basel University, Basel, Switzerland (December 2, 2016)
“Requests for Material Assistance at the Reception of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, 1945-1953,” Suppliques – approaches comparatives, Centre d’études franco-russe, Moscow, Russia (May 30, 2015)
“The Soviet ‘Free Market’ at War,” Occupations and Liberations in World War II: New Research on the Soviet Experience, Georgetown University, Washington D. C., USA (October 31, 2014)
“‘I beg you not to reject my plea’: Asking the Soviet State for Money, 1945-1953,” Cultures of Grievance in Eastern Europe & Eurasia, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA (March 8, 2013)
Conventions
“Paul Chaleil: Missionary, Gulag Prisoner, and Anti-Communist,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, USA (November 24, 2019)
“The ‘Struggle Against Vulgar Egalitarianism’ and the Politics of Productivity in the Khrushchev Era,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Boston, MA, USA (December 7, 2018)
“Real Returns: State Bonds, Lottery Tickets, and Savings Accounts in the Postwar USSR,” World Economic History Conference, Boston, USA (July 31, 2018)
“International Copyright Law, Cultural Exchange, and the Cold War,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Chicago, USA (November 9, 2017)
“Grigorii Mar’iakhin, the NIFI, and the Perils of Postwar Tax Reform,” Social Science History Association Annual Convention, Montréal, QC, Canada (November 2, 2017)
“International Copyright Law in the Khrushchev-Era Soviet Union,” American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, NV, USA (October 27, 2017)
“Measuring the People’s Material Welfare: Constructing the Average Family Budget after Stalin,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Washington D.C., USA (November 20, 2016)
“New Approaches to Studying the Soviet Economy” (roundtable organizer and participant), Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, USA (November 20, 2015)
“The Delicate Balance Between Spending and Saving in 1950s Soviet Russia,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, San Antonio, TX, USA (November 21, 2014)
“‘We Want Meat, Milk and a Wage Increase!’: The Public Response to Higher Retail Prices in 1962,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Boston, MA, USA (November 23, 2013)
“Enlisting the Means of the Masses: Soviet War Bond Campaigns,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, New Orleans, LA, USA (November 15, 2012)
“Winners and Losers: Cash-and-Goods Lotteries, 1958-1964,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Washington D. C., USA (November 18, 2011)
Workshops
“Reducing Income Inequality without Leveling,” Midwestern Russian History Workshop, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA (March 18, 2016)
“Mass Subscription Bonds and the De-Stalinization of State Fundraising,” Midwestern Russian History Workshop, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA (March 16, 2013)
As Discussant
“Terms of Transformation: Approaches to the Soviet Economy after Stalin,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, San Francisco, California, USA (November 25, 2019)
“Crime in Imperial and Soviet Russia: Moral Economies and Legal Cultures,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Boston, MA, USA (December 8, 2018)
“Surveying the 20th Century from the 21st,” Russia’s Global Legal Trajectories: An International Workshop, University College London, School of Slavonic, East European and Eurasian Studies, London, UK (February 17, 2018)
“Reimagining Soviet Culture: Cultural Autonomy, Housing and Photography,” Midwestern Slavic Conference, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA (April 8, 2017)
“Reform and Coercion from Stagnation to Perestroika,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Washington D.C., USA (November 19, 2016)
“The Political Economy of the Late Soviet Period: Socialist in Form, International in Content?” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Philadelphia, PA, USA (November 19, 2015)
“From ‘Peace, Land, Bread’ to the ‘Dry Law’: Food, Drink, and Revolution in the USSR,” Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies Annual Convention, Boston, MA, USA (November 21, 2013)
Teaching
At McGill University
Introduction to Russian History, 862 to the Present (lecture)
History of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991 (lecture)
History of the Russian Empire, 1613-1917 (lecture)
Russia’s Revolutions: 1905 & 1917 (lecture)
The ‘Wild’ Years: Russia in the 1990s (seminar)
Mad, Marxist, or Modern? Stalin and Stalinism (grad/undergrad honours seminar)
At the University of Manchester
History in Practice (seminar)
State, Nation, and Nationalism in Europe, 1750-1920 (lecture)
Crisis and Prosperity in Twentieth-Century Europe (lecture)
Socialist Security: The Soviet Welfare State, 1917-1991 (lecture)
Capitalism and its (Dis)contents (grad seminar)
At the University of Chicago
European Civilization (seminar)
Power, Identity, and Resistance (seminar)
Kristy Ironside 