Tuesday, May 5, 20264:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Bunche Hall Rm 10383
The UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies invites you to a talk by Natalia Vasilenok on how Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 reshaped readership of history and social science books in Russia. This event will take place in Bunche Hall, Room 10383 on Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 4:30 PM PST. Register here to join us.
About the Talk
In this paper, Natalia Vasilenok measures the effect of conflict on individuals’ willingness to seek frames of reference, or heuristics that help individuals explain their social and political environment by means of analogy. To do so, she examines how Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 reshaped readership of history and social science books in Russia. Combining roughly 4,000 book abstracts retrieved from the online catalogue of Russia’s largest bookstore chain with data on monthly reading patterns of more than 100,000 users of the most popular Russian-language social reading platform, Vasilenok finds that the invasion prompted an abrupt and substantial increase in readership of books that engage with the experience of life under dictatorship and acquiescence to dictatorial crimes, with a predominant focus on Nazi Germany. She interprets her results as evidence that history books, by offering regime-critical frames of reference, may contribute to the formation of dissent in a repressive authoritarian regime.
About the Speaker
Natalia Vasilenok is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Stanford University. Her research focuses on how ideas, knowledge, and institutions emerge, evolve, and spread across both historical and contemporary contexts. Methodologically, her work highlights the use of previously unexplored data sources, such as archival collections and texts. Starting in July 2026, Vasilenok will join the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science as a Postdoctoral Research Officer.
She is also a co-founder of the Stanford Historical Social Science Workshop, an initiative aimed at fostering dialogue among students from political science, economics, and history. Before beginning her doctoral studies, Vasilenok earned a B.A. with honours in Political Science and an M.A. in Sociology from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia. In 2024, she also received an M.A. in Economics from Stanford University. A native of Kaliningrad, Russia (formerly Königsberg in Preußen), Vasilenok has a deep passion for architectural preservation and urban history. Growing up amid German ruins interspersed with Soviet-era blocs, she became keenly interested in how nations' traumatic pasts shape political identities in the present.
Venue
Bunche Hall Room 10383
11282 Portola Plaza
Los Angeles, CA
Nearby parking is available at Parking Structure 5 and Parking Structure 3.