UrFU’s School of History is one of the largest in Russia. Since its foundation in 1938, the School has become a major center of historical education and research. Younger scholars and their experienced mentors continue together the School’s unique and vibrant 80-year-long scholarly tradition by experimenting with new approaches and methods, while sharing their experience with Russian and international partners and launching exciting research projects. In 2020, these activities merited global recognition and culminated in the University’s entering the top-200 of the QS World University Ranking for Archeology.
The Department offers five programs on both Bachelor's and Master's levels:
Several disciplines in the Master's programs are taught in English.
There are doctoral majors in Russian history, world history, source studies and historiography.
The Department boasts two research schools whose history encompasses at least three generations of researchers:
Source Studies and Paleography
The research school founded by N.N.Tikhomirov and R.G.Pikhoya and now led by D.A.Redin focuses on the general problems of social history, culture, and source studies of Russia from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. One of the school's distinctive features is its cross-disciplinarity, which means that old manuscripts are studied not only from the historical but also philological perspective, with special emphasis being made on textual studies, literary history and archeography.
Byzantine Studies
The school evolved in the 1960s under the leadership of Prof.M.Y. Syuzyumov. An important contribution to the school's success was made by M.A. Polyakovskaya.
The research school focuses on the genesis of the Byzantine civilization and its development. Unlike the Medieval European civilization, which to a great extent originated in the 'barbarian' culture, the Byzantine Empire drew on the fundamental values of the Greek and Roman world. In order to collect evidence for the continuity of the Byzantine tradition in Chersonesos, the Department's archeological team has been conducting excavations in the Crimea since 1958.
Research areas:
The Laboratory of Archeographic Studies has a collection of early printed and handwritten books of the Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic tradition. Beyond Moscow and St.Petersburg, this collection is the largest in Russia as it encompasses about 6,000 units dating as far back as to the 15th century and ranging in provenance from the Volga region to Eastern Siberia. The collection contains unique materials that show the development of book culture in Urals and Siberia, Russia and the neighbouring countries.
The archeological collection, which began several decades earlier, is worthy of special attention and features unique finds and reports of the expeditions that explored the past of the Greater Urals and Eastern Siberia from the Stone Age to modern times.
The Department's archeological team engage in active expedition work: for decades, our students and professors have participated in archeological excavations at the site of Tauric Chersonesos (Crimea) in search of ancient and Byzantine artefacts.
Every year our students go to Veliky Novgorod (or Novgorod the Great) for the excavations of this Russian medieval city, famous for its birchbark manuscripts.
Members of the Department also carry out excavations in the Greater Urals and Eastern Siberia.
Projects supported by Russian Sciencе Foundation
2018
2019
2020
The School faculty members are also the members of the editorial boards of the high-impact journals Quaestio Rossica (AHCI WoS, Scopus, Q1) and Izvestia. Ural Federal University Journal. Series 2. Humanities and Arts (ESCI WoS) indexed in Web of Science and Scopus.
Antichnaya drevnost' i srednie veka (Antiquity and the Middle Ages) is an international open-access journal on theoretical and empirical questions in the field of history, literature, culture and archeology of Late Antiquity, the Byzantine Empire and Eastern Mediterranean in the Middle Ages.
Problemy istorii Rossii (Problems of Russian History) is a journal of the Chair of History of Russia, which covers a wide range of topics from the field of historiography and source studies, in particular those related to the social history of Russia and the Ural-Siberian region. Website in Russian.
Dokument. Arkhiv. Istoriya. Sovremennost' (Document. Archive. History. Modernity) is a journal that publishes research manuscripts in the field of source studies, historiography and methodology of Russian history. The journal deals with the theoretical and practical aspects of archiving, in particular it publishes archival texts and papers written by young scholars. The journal is intended for students, doctoral students and specialists in the sphere of archival science, documentation and information support of management. Website in Russian.
Voprosy arheologii Urala (Questions of Archeology of the Urals) was established in 1961. Research areas of the journal include but are not limited to historiography and archeological research methodology; ancient manuscripts; archeological exploration and excavations in the territory of the Urals and Western Siberia; historical and cultural processes, archeological cultures and epochs. Website in Russian.
The School is engaged in extensive international networking and maintains partnerships with historians from the leading world universities, including Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, the University of Strasbourg, Université de Rennes (France); Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin and the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (Poland); Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary); the University of Graz (Austria); University College Longon (UK); the University of Tromsø (Norway); Max Planck Institutes and the University of Cologne (Germany); Umeå University (Sweden); Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania); and Sofia University (Bulgaria).
The School is also developing partnerships with the leading Russian universities and institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Director of the School of History
Address: 4 Turgenev Str.
Room: 453
Phone: +7 (343) 389-94-50
Email: a.s.palkin@urfu.ru
Address: 4 Turgenev Str.
Room: 453
Phone: +7 (343) 389-94-50, +7 (343) 389-94-51
Email: hist@urfu.ru
For more, please, visit the School’s website
Created / Updated: 4 June 2020 / 15 April 2021