Funding available - Resource regimes in late imperial and early Soviet Russia

The UCD School of History invites applications for a generous four-year, fully-funded PhD scholarship. The award includes a stipend of €15,000 per annum, full fee waiver (EU or non-EU), and a travel allowance for archival research.

‘Resource regimes in late imperial and early Soviet Russia’ explores the social, political and environmental history of the Russian empire at a critical juncture in the history of the modern Russian state: the transition to a fully industrialised society at the turn of the twentieth century, and the collapse of the Romanov dynasty.

As a geographically vast empire with huge but hitherto predominantly untapped reserves of resources, Russia industrialised late in the day compared to other European powers, resulting in a period of rapid and intense economic growth fuelled by resource development, state sponsorship and post-emancipation population growth and mobility. The proposed PhD research focuses on the location, extraction and exploitation of resources across the empire, with particular emphasis on imperial zones beyond the Russian heartland. It considers the ways in which materials were used by the state to reinforce imperial rule and hierarchies of power in borderland areas, and subsequently, the role that these resources (their preservation, exploitation, cultural significance and so forth) played in the collapse of the empire and the emergence of the Soviet state into the early 1920s, in turn adding an ecological dimension to the history of imperial disintegration and civil war.

This PhD scholarship will explore the dynamic relationship between imperial/Soviet rule and material resources, focusing on three key areas:

The ways in which state and society exploited resources at the edges of empire, and the various legal, economic, intellectual and material justifications for doing so.
The environmental, social and political impact of resource exploitation, on local and imperial scales.
Issues of resource access, security and related forms of violence during the First World War and the Russian Civil War.
There is considerable scope to develop this project according to the expertise and interests of the applicant. Candidates are encouraged to focus either on a specific region of the empire, or a type of resource (or both), the latter including, but not limited to energy resources, fossil fuels, mineral reserves, commodities, and over-land trade routes.

The successful candidate will have a background in history, excellent reading knowledge of Russian, and will work under the supervision of (opens in a new window)Dr Jennifer Keating. An expert in Russian environmental and imperial history, Keating’s forthcoming monograph on political ecologies of empire in tsarist Central Asia will be published by Oxford University Press. The UCD School of History is home to the largest group of historians in Ireland and has been ranked within the top 100 history departments in the world in the recent QS rankings. It has particular strengths in late nineteenth and twentieth century European, imperial and global history.

To apply, please submit a cover letter, CV, writing sample, two letters of reference, and a project proposal (1000-1500 words, plus indicative bibliography) via email to Dr Jennifer Keating ((opens in a new window)jennifer.keating@ucd.ie) by 30th April 2019. Applications will be reviewed by a committee at School level, and applicants will be informed as to the outcome of the competition by the end of May, at which time the successful applicant may formally apply for admission to UCD.