News

Keep up to date with the project's latest happenings.
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Project's Advisory Board

The project has now settled its advisory board. Three esteemed professors of global history, carcerality, and punishment have kindly agreed to be part of the board. They are: , University of Leicester, , University of Nottingham, and , University of Oxford. The project extends a great thank you to these members and looks forward to working with them in the future.
Carceral Frontiers Workshop

The workshop "Carceral Frontiers: Penal Histories of the Russian Far East and Beyond"  was hosted by our project in collaboration with the Max Weber Network Eastern Europe branch in Helsinki. The main organisers were PI MIKHAIL NAKONECHNYI and ANNA MAZANIK of the MWN Eastern Europe. The workshop brought together an international cohort of researchers from various disciplines working on carceral matters of the Russian Far East and beyond. The workshop was carried out both in-person but also with an online component, allowing for several attendees to participate virtually. The organisers challenged participants to reflect on the role that carceral experiences and infrastructures played in the history of the Far East and to situate the region in a global comparative perspective. The penal histories considered by the participants included colonial carceral frontiers from the Russian imperial period, exile settlements, deportations of nationalities, prisoners of war, and the history, memory, and experience of the Soviet Gulag from many different perspectives. Together the organisers and participants put forward an encompassing and complex understanding of the carcerality of the Russian Far East. 

The workshop also gave PI MIKHAIL NAKONECHNYI an opportunity to introduce and explain the project to a group of around 35 attendees between the in-person and virtual contingents. Pictured here is PI MIKHAIL NAKONECHNYI giving an introduction to the workshop and to his project, giving closing remarks, as well as him chairing a panel on the Gulag. Overall, the workshop was successful in its aims and fostered informed and thoughtful debate. The project thanks the University of Helsinki for its hospitality and the Max Weber Network Eastern Europe for its collaboration. 
Workshop: Carceral Frontiers: Penal Histories of the Russian Far East and Beyond


Carceral Frontiers: Penal Histories of the Russian Far East and Beyond

29-30 January 2026, Helsinki

Organizers: Anna Mazanik () and Mikhail Nakonechnyi (ERC Project DeathAndManipulation, University of Helsinki,)

 

 

 

 
Media Engagement
  • September 2024
    • PI Mikhail Nakonechnyi gave an interview for the University of Helsinki newspaper Yliopisto-lehti. To read the article, follow the link .  
Presentations
  • 21 July-25 July 2025
    • PI Mikhail Nakonechnyi  presented the project's  Soviet case study at XI ICCEES World Congress  hosted by University College London (UCL), and the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES). The title of his presentation was "Gaps, Understatements, and Distortions: New Sources on Mortality Statistics of the Soviet Penal System, 1917-1953." The full programme can be found
  • 3 April 2025
    • PI Mikhail Nakonechnyi presented to the Max Weber International Workshop held in Helsinki. The title of the panel was "The Gulag as a Place of Illness, Death and Untold Stories: New Approaches to Research on Stalinist Camps." The full programme can be found . 
Current Events

Archival trawls:

Fieldwork commenced in Kazakhstan by Dmitri Frolov in the Karaganda State Archive, working with files of the regional labour colonies of Kazakhstan OITK (May 2025).