Fear Across Borders: Peasant Violence and Anti-Semitism in Russia, Romania and Austria-Hungary

Leverhulme Trust Early-Career Fellowship

October 2013 – September 2016

Dr Irina Marin

Fear across Borders is a postdoctoral project which examines the proliferation and interconnection of peasant unrest and anti-Semitic violence along the triple border between Tsarist Russia, Romania and Austria-Hungary between 1880 and 1918. It is conceived as a transnational analysis of how, and to what effect, fear, rumour and news of violence percolated through this border. It examines the mechanism of information transmission that ensured the interaction between social strata and the structures of power and, in doing so, seeks to contribute insights into how international events reverberate down to local communities and how localized incidents snowball into major international crises.

Funding

This project has been made possible by the Leverhulme Trust, who awarded me a three-year Early-Career Fellowship tenable at the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Leicester, between 2013 and 2016. I am much indebted to Professor Steven King and Dr Alexander Korb, who believed in me and provided me with invaluable support for this application. 

Outcomes

I aim to turn my three-year research findings into a monograph and several articles as well as to convene an international conference on turn-of-the-century violence towards the end of my fellowship.

Resources

You can follow the progress of my research on my blog.

About the author

I am an early-career academic affiliated with the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Leicester, UK. I am currently working on a new project on the circulation of news, rumour and violence between Tsarist Russia, Romania and Austria-Hungary. My previous research focused on the loyalties and sense of identity of Romanian generals in the Austro-Hungarian army at the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century. I have taught a wide range of courses (historical and interdisciplinary) at UCL and Oxford and I am now enjoying a three-year research stint as part of my Leverhulme Early-Career Fellowship.

Related Projects

In interconnection with my Leverhulme project, I am also seeking to revive the Romanian-Moldovan Research Group, an international postgraduate research forum, which used to be based at SSEES/UCL and will now soon resume its meetings and research seminars under the aegis of the Stanley Burton Centre at University of Leicester.