Polly Jones
Schrecker-Barbour Tutorial Fellow in Slavonic and East European Studies; Professor of Russian
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Contact information
Teaching
I was lecturer听for seven years at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, and a Davis fellow at听Princeton University鈥檚 Davis Center for Historical Studies before taking up the Schrecker-Barbour fellowship and Associate Professorship at University College in 2012; I was promoted to Professor in 2020.
I听teach a wide range of 19th-21st-century Russian literature and culture and听translation papers at undergraduate and graduate level for the faculty and college; these include specialist courses on my period of expertise, such as papers on Gulag literature, late Soviet literature, Solzhenitsyn and Petrushevskaya.听I welcome graduate student enquiries for supervision of projects on听20th or 21st-century Russian literature, cultural history and memory studies (current supervision includes projects on contemporary Ukrainian and Russian war film; the economics of late Soviet art; intelligentsia cults in late socialism; professional theatre in the Gulag; Soviet-era ballet in Kazakhstan).
Research
The key question that I’m interested in is how citizens of authoritarian regimes, especially writers and other cultural practitioners, find ways to express themselves, by听navigating or evading censorship and other political controls. Much of my research to date has concerned the ways that memories of Soviet and Russian experiences were articulated in Soviet-published, samizdat and tamizdat听narratives in the Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev eras. I am now increasingly听interested in the literature and culture听of the Putin era, especially its intersections with contemporary听memory politics of the听Stalinist and Soviet past.听I have recently completed a book on Gulag literature from the 20th to the 21st century, and am exploring听a new project on contemporary political prisoner narratives in Russian and Ukrainian literature and other media.听I am also working on the听collaborative project, ‘, which explores听the migration and settlement patterns and communities produced by听Soviet restrictions on residency in major Russian, Ukrainian and Latvian cities for Gulag returnees and other ‘marginals’. I appear regularly on UK and international radio, TV and podcasts to talk about Russian culture and history, and I听acted as consultant to Armando Iannucci’s film ‘The Death of Stalin’ (2017).听I was appointed a trustee of听听in London in 2024.
Selected Publications
Books
听(London: Bloomsbury, 2024)
(糖心logo: 糖心logo University Press, 2019)
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013 (paperback 2016))
(MHRA, 2018)
, edited volume听(London: Routledge, 2006; paperback edition 2009)
(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004). Co-edited with B. Apor, J. Behrends, A. Rees.
Selected Articles
‘Kilometres 51 and 101: the development of Soviet residency and banishment policies in Ukraine, 1917-1940′ (co-authored with Olena Stiazhkina, Tamara Vronska),听(2024)
‘The Censor’ and ‘The Camp’, 听chapters in听,听eds Simon Franklin, Rebecca Reich, Emma Widdis (CUP, 2024)
‘,听Slavic Review, vol. 80, winter 2021
Introduction听to听Vasilii Grossman,听(Everyman Classics, Penguin,听2022)
‘鈥樚�Slavonic and East European Review, 96:1 (2018), 144-73
‘The Zones of Late Socialist Literature’,听The Cambridge History of Communism, ed. J. Fuerst, S. Pons, M. Sandle听(Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 376-98.
鈥樷��,听MLR, 111. 4 (October 2016), pp. 1062-89.
‘鈥�, Slavic Review, 74: 1 (2015): 32-56
鈥榃orlds of Discontent and Dissent after Stalinism鈥�,听Kritika, 15, 3 (Summer 2014): 637-52
‘Iurii Trifonov’s Fireglow and the “Mnemonic Communities” of the Brezhnev Era’,听Cahiers du Monde Russe, 54, 1-2 (2014): 1-26
鈥楾he 鈥渢haw鈥� goes international. Soviet Literature in Translation and Transit in the 1960s鈥�, in A. Gorsuch, D. Koenker,听The Socialist Sixties. Crossing Borders in the Second World听(Indiana University Press, 2013)
鈥楾he Personal and the Political: Opposition to the 鈥淭haw鈥� and the Politics of Literary Identity in the 1950s and 1960s鈥�, in D. Kozlov, E. Gilburd, eds,听The Thaw. Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s (Toronto University Press, 2013)
鈥楤reaking the Silence: Iurii Bondarev鈥檚 Quietness between the 鈥渟incerity鈥� and 鈥渃ivic emotion鈥� of the Thaw鈥�, in M. Steinberg, V. Sobol, eds,听Interpreting Emotion in Russia and Eastern Europe听(Northern Illinois University Press, 2011)
鈥楳emories of Terror or Terrorizing Memories? Terror, Trauma and Survival in Soviet Culture of the Thaw鈥�,听Slavonic and East European Review, 82:2, 2008.
鈥樷�淎 Symptom of the Times鈥�: Assigning Responsibility for the Stalin Cult in the Soviet Literary Community, 1953-64鈥�,听Forum for Modern Language Studies, 42: 2, 2006
Selected Media
- ‘听film, Arte TV/Les Films D’Ici, January 2024
- ‘, Op-Ed., Moscow Times, 18 September 2023
- ‘‘, BBC Radio 4, 28 August 2023
- ‘‘, Meduza听(Naked Pravda podcast), 19 August 2023
- ‘, podcast for the University of Pittsburgh REES series听The Specter in the Present: Trauma and its Legacies in Eurasia听(September 2022)
- Channel 5 (UK),听2021
- 鈥�, BBC Radio 4 five-part series, December 2019
- Historical advisor to Armando Iannucci鈥檚 film The Death of Stalin, 2017
- 鈥�, BBC Radio 3 鈥楩ree Thinking鈥�, February 2016,
- 听BBC Radio 3 Proms Interval broadcast,听August 2015