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Dr Victoria Donovan, Lecturer

Dr Victoria DonovanContact Details

vsd2@st-andrews.ac.uk
Phone: 01334 462948
Office: Quad 24

Full research profile

Research and Teaching

My research focuses on the cultural and social history of the post-war Soviet Union. My current project investigates the development of the Soviet technical intelligentsia through the prism of the science town or naukograd, the closed territories where technological and intellectual resources were concentrated to intensify scientific achievement. This research follows my DPhil thesis on the state-sponsored regeneration of local culture and traditions in the historic North West of Russia after 1961. The thesis looked at the ‘objectivisation’ of certain elements of local culture in institutions of memory, such as museums, memorials, and festivals, and argued that these activities comprised part of an effort to craft new forms of social solidarity in the post-Stalin period.

My teaching reflects my interests in social transformation and cultural memory, local and national identity and oral tradition in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. I teach several Honours modules in Russian including ‘Issues in Russian Cultural Memory’ and ‘Village Prose, 1953-1980’. I also contribute to the department’s language teaching at all levels. In 2012-2013 I will be acting as Director of the Centre for Russian, Soviet, Central and Eastern European Studies.

Publications

‘Monument and Memory in Erkin Mergenov’s Ertek’
Donovan, V. S. 2010 In: 14 Essays Inspired by the Sculptures of Erkin Mergenov. Stuttgard: ibidem-Verlag
Research output : Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

 

‘“Idya nazad, shagaem vpered”: vozobnovlenie traditsii kraevedeniya v muzeyakh Severo-zapada v poststalinskom SSSR’/ ‘“Going Backwards, We Stride Forwards”: The Regeneration of the Tradition of Kraevedenie in Museums of North West Russia after Stalin’
Donovan, V. S. 2012 In : Antropologicheskii forum/Forum for Anthropology and Culture . 16 , p. 379-402. 23 p.
Research output : Contribution to journal › Article

‘Povestvovatel’nye konstruktsii provintsial’nosti v ustnykh rasskazakh zhitelei severo-zapada Rossii’ / ‘The Narrative Construction of Provincialism in the Oral Testimonies of North West Russians’
Donovan, V. S. 2010 In : Antropologicheskii forum/Forum for Anthropology and Culture . 12 , p. 297-326. 29 p.
Research output : Contribution to journal › Article