By Hou Zhaoyang, Wenzhou University, China. Hou Zhaoyang arrived at UCL in 2025, funded for a year by the China Scholarship Council, coming to SSEES as an affiliate academic. 

With a passion for Russian literature, I arrived at University College London on January 21, 2025, to study and conduct research under the guidance of Dr Sarah Young. Now, my one-year study tour at UCL has successfully concluded. Reflecting on these 365 days and nights, every period of learning, exchange of ideas, and cultural encounter has left a valuable imprint on my academic journey. Not only have I gained extensive knowledge in my field, but I have also experienced significant growth and breakthroughs in my perspective and way of thinking.

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By Stefan Tung, PhD Candidate at UCL SSEES. His doctoral research investigates the role of ethnic identity in shaping economic attitudes and policy preferences in Estonia and Latvia.

On 30-31 October 2025 the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) Study Group on the Baltic States held its third annual workshop at the University of Glasgow, with financial support from the UCL Doctoral School (and co-funded by the BASEES and the Council for European Studies). I am pleased to contribute as part of the organising committee for this workshop.

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Mark Lipovetsky is Professor and Chair at the Department of Slavic Languages, Columbia University. He gave a keynote speech at the UCL 200/ UCL Fringe Centre conference, ‘Global Informality in the Arts’, held at Pushkin House on 5-15 January 2026. 

Panellists at the ‘Global Informality of the Arts’ Conference 2026

The tricksterization of politics or the politicization of the trickster in Russia emerges almost simultaneously with the return of political life itself – that is, during Perestroika. This is understandable. After all, in the Soviet years, the trickster came to symbolize transgressive freedom (including economic freedom) and the undermining of ideological hegemony of the party and its discourses in all areas of life. It was only logical that Perestroika moved this cultural myth into the foreground of Russian society.

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By Alesia Mankouskaya, PhD candidate and PGTA at UCL SSEES

From November 20 to 23, 2025, the 57th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) took place in Washington, DC. Bringing together scholars, cultural practitioners, and professionals from around the world, the convention served not only as a meeting ground for research exchange, but also as a barometer of ongoing shifts within the field. Longstanding debates about regional focus, scholarly responsibility, and the legacies of empire were not merely discussed but visibly reshaped in the structure and content of the program itself.

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Written by Harry Robinson, current UCL SSEES MA student (International Masters in Economy, State and Society)

On Wednesday 29 October, the UCL FRINGE centre hosted an event to celebrate the launch of Dr Anna Shadrina’s new book: The Babushka Phenomenon: Older Women and the Political Sociology of Ageing in Russia, published by UCL press. Dr Shadrina, a Political Sociologist at the University of Liverpool, was joined by Professor Karen Glaser, former director of the King’s College London Institute of Gerontology, and SSEES’s own Professor Alena Ledeneva, who moderated the subsequent discussion.

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Written by Harry Robinson, current UCL SSEES MA student (International Masters in Economy, State and Society)

Marking the beginning of the new academic year, Dr Svitlana Biedarieva delivered a presentation to the PhD forum on Critical Area Studies within the framework of the PPV research group on her new book Ambicoloniality and War: The Ukrainian-Russian Case, published with Springer in 2024. The novel theory of ambicoloniality seeks to fill the gaps in current postcolonial and decolonial theoretical frameworks for analysis of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia with area specificity, attempting to rationalize and explain Russia’s invasion of and atrocities in Ukraine.

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By Alesia Mankouskaya, PhD candidate at UCL SSEES. Alesia is currently pursuing her PhD under the supervision of Professor Richard Butterwick-Pawlikowski.

Being a doctoral student at UCL SSEES brings many hidden advantages, and one of them was the opportunity to attend the largest international gathering of scholars simply by taking the tube and walking into the premises of the alma mater.

Held only once every five years, the ICCEES World Congress is the largest international forum for scholars focusing on Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, the Baltics, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The previous Congress was held in Canada, and it felt like a homecoming of sorts, since the founding Congress took place there almost fifty years ago. With the general theme of ‘Bridging National and Global Perspectives’, the last World Congress was hosted by Concordia University and the Canadian Association of Slavists.

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By Hayley Anderson. Hayley is a fourth-year European Social and Political Studies student and one of the Student Ambassadors at the UCL Europe Institute for 2024/25. With her specialism in Hungarian and History, she has focussed her research on the experiences and identities of communities in Eastern Slovakia and the wider Central East Europe region. She is also a Student Associate for the UCL Platform for Linguistic and Epistemic Justice (PLEJ)

As a student of Hungarian and History, SSEES’s library collection is one which I find myself using regularly. However, it wasn’t until we had a language class dedicated to exploring the Hungarian section of the library that I realised just how sprawling this collection is. In the course of an hour, we tracked a timeline of translated fiction and historical sources, frequently finding overlap with the literatures and cultures of the surrounding countries. But there was one section which particularly piqued our curiosity, the Nyugat literary journal. Of course, the bold advertisements and illustrations which adorn the pages of the paper were eye-catching and refreshing amongst a sea of text. But there was also something exemplified within this hundred-year-old journal that reflected our own multilingual experiences at SSEES.

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