Yana Skorobogatov is a social historian of Russia and the Soviet Union whose research focuses on the late and post-Soviet periods. Her first book (in progress), a history of the death penalty and the movement to abolish it in Russia and the Soviet Union, uses the records of more than 100 death penalty cases tried during the post-Stalin period to explore changing popular perceptions of the late Soviet state from Joseph Stalin’s death to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Additional research interests include political-economic history, environmental history, and the history and legacies of Russian and Soviet imperialism. She is in the early stages of writing a second book that centers on the Russian island of Sakhalin and its emergence as a major epicenter of global oil after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

On leave Fall 2023.