Registration REQUIRED by 12pm on November 21, 2025 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations at the Harriman Institute for a lecture by Dmitry Dubrovskiy. Moderated by Elise Giuliano.
This presentation will examine how the Russian state has redefined and appropriated the concept of genocide, using both legal and political tools to reshape historical narratives and reinforce its current geopolitical agenda.
Drawing on recent court rulings, state initiatives, and archival evidence, the speaker will trace how the term “genocide” has evolved from its deliberate absence in Soviet-era discourse to its central place in Russia’s contemporary legal and political framework. Special attention will be given to the series of trials conducted by Russian regional courts between 2020 and 2025, which reclassified Nazi crimes during the Second World War as the “genocide of the Soviet people.” The federal project “No Statute of Limitations” played a significant role in supporting and framing these processes.
By analyzing the interplay between law, history, and politics, Dubrovskiy will show how the narrative of the “genocide of the Soviet people” functions as a tool of memory politics, patriotic mobilization, and lawfare—both domestically and internationally. The lecture will highlight how the past is being repurposed through legal and historical reinterpretations to serve the strategic aims of the Russian state today.
Dmitry Dubrovskiy, PhD is a historian and human rights scholar specializing in academic freedom and higher education in Russia and Eastern Europe. He is currently a Research Fellow and lecturer in the Boris Nemtsov MA in Russian Studies at Charles University in Prague. Previously, he taught at Smolny College (St. Petersburg State University) and the Higher School of Economics (Moscow). His fellowships include the Galina Starovoitova Fellowship at the Kennan Institute (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), a Kone Foundation Fellowship at the University of Helsinki, the Reagan–Fascell Democracy Fellowship at the National Endowment for Democracy, and the Scholars at Risk/IIE-SRF Fellowship at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University, among others. Since April 2022, he has been officially designated a “foreign agent” by the Russian government. Since July 2025, he has served as Director of the European Committee of the Russian-American Science Association (EC RASA).
