Dr Vladimir Unkovski-Korica
- Lecturer (Central & East European Studies)
telephone:
0141 330 4910
email:
Vladimir.Unkovski-Korica@glasgow.ac.uk
Room 403, Central and East European Studies, 8-9 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RZ
Biography
I joined CEES as Lecturer in Legacies of Communism in September 2015.
Before coming to Glasgow, I completed an MSc in Russian and Eastern European Studies from Oxford University and a PhD at the London School of Economics (LSE), where I held a fellowship following the conclusion of my doctorate. I was then Assistant Professor of History at the National Research University – Higher School of Economics, Moscow (HSE). I have also held a fellowship at the Centre of Advanced Studies – South Eastern Europe at the University of Rijeka.
My research career started with a focus on the history of Communism with particular reference to the world’s first so-called ‘market socialist’ model: Tito’s Yugoslavia. My first book is a critical examination of how international economic and geopolitical pressures can exacerbate internal socio-political contradictions in semi-peripheral countries. The Economic Struggle for Power in Tito’s Yugoslavia: From World War II to Non-Alignment (I.B. Tauris, 2016) explores the ways in which a global dynamics shaped and undermined early but flawed attempts at crafting a participatory economy, contributing to the re-emergence of the pre-war national question that was later central to the bloody collapse of the country.
With a continued, but not exclusive, focus on the Balkans, I am now investigating how various state and non-state actors responded to the ‘global shocks’ of the 1970s and ever since. This research agenda will run along several connected tracks:
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Western foreign policy and competition with the USSR/Russia in the Balkans since the 1970s;
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Regional and continent-wide movements or initiatives interested in ‘alternative globalisation(s)’;
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Longer-term patterns acting as a backdrop to contemporary tensions in the Balkan region.
I am on the editorial board of the journal Europe-Asia Studies and of several websites outside academia like LeftEast.
Research interests
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Yugoslav and Balkan history
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Communism
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International history of the Cold War and its legacies
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The European left and social movements
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Town or regional twinning
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Uneven and combined development
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Nationalism and federalism
Supervision
I welcome enquiries from potential PhD applicants in any of my main areas of research. I also supervise undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations.
Current Research Students
Matthew Blackburn, ‘Understanding Changing Russian Nationalism: A Cross-Generational Study’
Christopher Campbell, ‘The West and the Russian Orthodox Church's Role in Soviet Diplomacy’
Jamie Allan, ‘Gorky, Bukharin and the Politics of Rapprochement in the Soviet Cultural Sphere’
- Campbell, Christopher
The Splintering of an Empire: US policy towards the non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union 1977-1992
Teaching
Undergraduate
Contributor, Convenor, CEES 1A: CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE IN THE AGE OF STALIN
Contributor, Convenor, CEES 1B: COMMUNISM AND ITS COLLAPSE
Honours option, THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS OF 1917
Honours option, WAR AND REVOLUTION IN THE BALKANS, 1804-2012
Postgraduate
Contributor, ISSUES IN RUSSIAN, EAST EUROPEAN, AND EURASIAN STUDIES
Contributor, RESEARCH METHODS FOR STUDYING RUSSIA, EASTERN EUROPE, AND EURASIA