A question for the historians

February 16, 2022 7:04 AM

If my fictional PhD candidate is writing his dissertation on some aspect of the Russian Revolution, or just before, would he have necessarily gone there to conduct research? Or would it depend entirely on what he's studying?

He's at a major US university, and let's assume he could get funding. The added wrinkle is that he's married and has a kid. Would that have changed the equation? I guess what I'm asking is: would going abroad have been a given from the outset? Would both he and his wife have known and expected that at some point they would be spending six months in Russia? Or would it be a big decision they'd have to wrestle with about whether or not to go? As I write this, I'm guessing it would all depend on what exactly he's writing. So if that's the case, any elaboration would be helpful. Thanks.

posted by swheatie to Education (9 answers total)

My neighbor is a PhD professor of Russian history, minted at a US university. He went to Russia.

Some academics take their families on field trips, some don't. It would be a lot harder for a grad student to swing, relative to professors, so I'd vote no on that, unless they are already affluent.
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:05 AM on February 16, 2022

Anecdotally, I know a number of (UK) historians with PhDs, all of whom did their doctorates on non-UK history, all of whom went abroad. This is slightly dated (all of them were in a 5-15 year period), but there's no way they could have done their primary research sat at home.

The AHA statement on historical research during COVID might have some relevance/context for if things have changed/are changing now, but in general, I think the push would have been to do a PhD on a subject where you could handle the primary research more easily.

I'd be surprised if you would ever get funding for a PhD on a topic like the Russian Revolution without original primary research, so you'd definitely need to work out how he was going to handle that.
posted by Hartster at 7:13 AM on February 16, 2022

Almost certainly. Archival research is an almost inescapable feature of getting a history Ph.D.; getting sufficient funding for it can be a real pain. Even though more material is digitized these days, it tends to be the most heavily used material and your job is to go off the beaten path at least somewhat.
posted by praemunire at 7:20 AM on February 16, 2022

Based on a profession friend of mine, yes. All of his work, books, dissertation, etc are based on primary source documents from Russia & former Soviet states. He visits every year or so for more archival research.
posted by Grandysaur at 7:34 AM on February 16, 2022

If he is doing a history PhD, absolutely. For most topics there will be archival sources that he must travel to Russia to look at. In fact, if he is working on something related to the Russian Revolution - a topic that has already been extensively studied - it stands to reason that he is looking at archival sources that haven't already been reviewed. And historians place a lot of weight on using archival sources; saying you've actually been to an archive gives you street cred, and if you haven't then a lot of historians will dismiss your work outright.

If he isn't doing a history PhD, he could do a topic that doesn't require archival work - e.g. looking at novels published during the Russian Revolution. You could conceivably make it a plot point that in order to avoid going to Russia he has to switch topics.
posted by googly at 7:39 AM on February 16, 2022

Nthing probably. Anecdata - my ex gf's flatmate's bf (tortuous, sorry) was doing his PhD in Russian history and spent a fair amount of time there (still does now that he's an academic). He was studying in the mid-2000's.
posted by sedimentary_deer at 8:07 AM on February 16, 2022

Yes, archival work would be considered absolutely necessary, including in Russia. If your fictional student ever tried the academic job market, he or she would definitely be given the side-eye if the dissertation didn't involve archival work in Russia, even if it focused on, say, news of the Russian Revolution as published in Anglophone newspapers.
posted by pleasant_confusion at 8:29 AM on February 16, 2022

Sorry, I forgot to add: digitized materials are a godsend, but the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of archival materials are not digitized and there is no other way to access what one needs than to do the archival work. This is especially the case if one is working in smaller archives (private libraries/archives, Church archives, etc.) that don't have the infrastructure of big government institutions. Your fictional student's archival choices would be very much shaped by the topic and the approach -- the experience of researching at a large state archive is totally different from, say, sitting across a small table from an elderly priest who's watching you closely to make sure you don't steal anything or pull anything down from the surrounding shelves full of yellowing paper, barely arranged by date/category, let alone any more complicated classification scheme (ask me how I know). There's a lot of discussion going on right now about the effects that growing reliance on digitization is having on historical research (the way it frames our questions, for example). These issues are connected to a larger discussion about the way that archives shape bodies of knowledge, are technologies of power, etc. But that's a whole 'nother issue.
posted by pleasant_confusion at 8:38 AM on February 16, 2022 [4 favorites]

In case it’s useful: he also probably already studied in Russia as an undergrad in order to become fluent enough in the language to get into his PhD program. (I studied Russian in undergrad.)
posted by Comet Bug at 10:36 AM on February 16, 2022 [2 favorites]