The University of Illinois has long been a center for Russian, Soviet, and Eurasian studies.  Leveraging these strengths, the Department of History offers a comprehensive graduate program in this field, with a proud tradition of mentoring new scholars and scholarship. We offer a comprehensive suite of thematic and survey courses at the graduate level, covering Russian, Soviet, and Eurasian History, 1500 to the present. Our faculty have interests in political, social, cultural, and intellectual history, and investigate questions of race and ethnicity, citizenship, violence, toleration, gender, family life, the history of archives and sources, space, and communication.  

Campus Resources

Graduate students in History at Illinois also benefit from numerous campus resources. Illinois has dozens of faculty and staff with interests in Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies (some of whom are listed below), in numerous departments across campus. Our Library is the home of one of the world’s great collections in the REEES field, which every year draws dozens of scholars from around the world to conduct research. The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center (REEEC) at Illinois is a federally-designated National Resource Center, and offers Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships for both academic year and summer study. Illinois hosts the editorial offices of our field’s flagship journal, The Slavic Review, and is also home to the celebrated research support specialists of the Slavic Reference Service. Scholars from Illinois regularly participate in conferences all over the globe, and we regularly host the Midwest Russian History Workshop. Other important campus resources for our program include The Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, the Humanities Research Institute, and the School of Information Science, a hub of digital humanities and data science innovation on campus.

Drawing on these resources, graduate students at Illinois have the opportunity to develop as researchers, teachers, and scholars across their time at Illinois. They also develop professional skills and networks to sustain their careers afterwards.

Graduate Examinations in our field are developed through one-on-one consultations with faculty.  Examinees develop their exam lists building from a Zotero library of scholarship we have built and maintain online.