I am an Associate Professor in the Department of German and Russian at the University of Notre Dame. My research focuses on the history of the Orthodox Church and its role in the sacralization of political power: from the liturgy and chronicles of medieval Kyiv to the arthouse cinema and wartime propaganda of Putin’s Russia.
My first book, The Liturgical Past in Byzantium and Early Rus, was published with Cambridge University Press. It was the winner of two international book awards: the W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize and the Ecclesiastical History Society Book Prize.
My time at HCAS was truly one of the most fruitful and enjoyable periods of my career. The Collegium gave me the opportunity to research and write a significant portion of my newest book, Putin’s Holy War: Sacred Memory and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, which will be published with Cornell University Press. In the book, I investigate the memory politics of the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church and their role in the ongoing war in Ukraine. The study documents the complex relations between the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate and uncovers their collaborative efforts to transform cultural memory in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, in the three decades since the disintegration of the USSR. The book also narrates how dissident artists and activists—such as Pussy Riot and Andrei Kuraev—have attempted to counter the ROC’s campaigns to “clericalize” post-Soviet memory and sacralize the Russian invasion.
I began my fellowship at the HCAS right after finishing my PhD in literary studies. Three years as a Core Fellow both opened perspectives towards other disciplines and allowed me to gain a new perspective to my own areas of expertise. For me, HCAS was a supportive environment to develop my independent scholarly voice and define my place within the field of humanities and social sciences.
The support for finding my own voice played no small part in securing postdoctoral funding from the Research Council of Finland following my fellowship. Furthermore, my time at the HCAS prepared me to cross not only disciplinary, but also national borders – in June 2024, I started at a permanent position as the Associate Professor in Digital Culture at the University of Bergen, Norway.
My research interests lie at the intersection of narrative theory, digital media studies, and philosophy of technology. My work has focused on the impact of digital transformation of society and culture on the ways in which well tell stories and imagine both the present and future conditions. Currently, I also lead a research project Imagine, Democracy! Narrative Fiction as a Tool for Imagining Democracy in Finland (Kone Foundation).