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Eric Lohr Professor and Dr. James H. Billington Chair of Russian History and Culture History

Additional Positions at AU
Chair of the History Department
Degrees
PhD, History, Harvard University
MA, Russian and East European Studies, Harvard University
BA, History and BS, Economics, University of Wisconsin at Madison

Languages Spoken
Russian, German
Bio
Eric Lohr is Chair of the History Department and author of Russian Citizenship: From Empire to Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 2012) and Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign Against Enemy Aliens during World War I (Harvard University Press, 2003). He previously taught at Harvard as an assistant professor of History (2000-2003). He is currently writing The Brothers Trubetskoi: Between Tsar and Revolution and Russian Autocracy: A History.
See Also
Department of History
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Research Interests

He is currently working on a general history of Russia's World War I along with a more focused study of Russian mobilization for the war and demobilization as the driver of the revolutionary process in 1917.

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

  • Visiting Scholar, L’Ecole des Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris 5/19/06-6/10/06
  • Kennan Institute Research Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington D.C., awarded for 1/1/05 – 9/30/05
  • Post-Doctoral Fellow, Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University, 7/99-12/99
  • International Research and Exchanges Board Dissertation Research Fellowship, 11/96-8/97
  • Davis Center for Russian Studies Graduate Travel Grants, 6/96-8/96, 6/98-8/98
  • Derek Bok Center Award for Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University, 6/96
  • Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowships, 9/92-5/93, 6/93-8/93, 9/94-5/95
  • Howard M. Groves Economics Writing Award, University of Wisconsin, 8/90
  • Senior Thesis Writing Award: University of Wisconsin, 6/90
  • Raymond and Marie Goldbach Foundation Full Tuition Scholarship, 9/86-5/90

Media Appearances

  • Interviewed on the war in Georgia (2008) by cfr.org and Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.”

Work In Progress

A general study of Russia's World War I and a more specialized analysis of mobilization for war and demobilization as key to the revolutions of 1917. 

 

 

Selected Publications

    Russian Citizenship: From Empire to Soviet Union. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, October 2012.    

    Empire and Nationalism at War: The Russian Empire in WWI (Lead editor with Alexander Semyonov and Vera Tolz) (Bloomington: Slavica, November 2014).

  • Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign Against Enemy Aliens during World War I, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.

    • “Economic Nationalism, Confiscation, and Genocide: A Comparison of the Ottoman and Russian Empires during World War I,” with co-author Uğur Ümit Üngör, Journal of Modern European History 12, no. 4 (November 2014): 500-522. 

    “Russian Citizenship and Migration in Historical Perspective,” Problems of Post-Communism 60, no. 6 (November – December 2013): 3-15.

    “Introduction: Grigorii Nikolaevich Trubetskoi’s Career and Background” for the English language edition of Russian Diplomacy and War in the Balkans: Notes of a Tactful Diplomat (1914-1917) (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, forthcoming 2015).

    “War Nationalism” in Eric Lohr, Alexander Semyonov, and Vera Tolz, eds., Empire and Nationalism at War: The Russian Empire in WWI (Bloomington: Slavica, 2014), 91-108.

  • The Military and Society in Russian History, 1450-1917 (co-edited with Marshall Poe).  Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002.
  • The Papers of Grigorii Nikolaevich Trubetskoi (edited and wrote introduction and inventory).  Published on-line by the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, on the Online Archive of California, 2006.
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  • “The Ideal Citizen and Real Subject in Late Imperial Russia,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 7, no. 2 (Spring 2006): 173-194.
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  • “The Papers of Grigorii N. Trubetskoi: A new source publication for the study of diplomacy, Orthodoxy, and liberalism, 1900-1931,” Cahiers du Monde russe 46, 4 (October-December 2005): 851-854.
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  • “Russian Economic Nationalism during World War I: Moscow Merchants and Commercial Diasporas,” Nationalities Papers 31, no. 4 (December 2003): 471-484.
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  • “Novye dokumenty o Rossiiskoi Armii i evreiakh vo vremena Pervoi mirovoi voiny,” Vestnik evreiskogo universiteta, no. 8 (26) (Moscow, 2003): 245-268.
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  • “Patriotic Violence and the State: The Moscow Riots of 1915” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 4, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 607-626.
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  • "The Russian Army and the Jews: Mass Deportation, Hostages and Violence during World War I,” The Russian Review (July 2001): 404-419.
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  • "Arkady Volsky's Political Base," Europe-Asia Studies 45, no. 5 (1993): 811-829.

Professional Presentations

  • “The Georgian-Russian Conflict: Past, Present and Future,” Lecture at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, Washington DC, November 10, 2008.
  • “Copied from Germany? Late Imperial Russian Citizenship, Immigration and Naturalization Policies.” Paper delivered at the conference “Imperium Pares: Reflections on Imperial Identity and Interimperial Transfers in the Russian Empire (1700-1917), September 8-12, 2008, German Historical Institute, Moscow.
  • “Paradoxes of the Illegality of Jewish Emigration in late Imperial Russia,” Opening address for the conference ‘Points of Passage: Jewish Transmigrants from Eastern Europe in Germany, Britain, Scandanavia, and other Countries, 1860-1929’, Hamburg Emigration Museum BallinStadt, Hamburg, Germany, September 13-15, 2008.
  • “Russian and Ottoman Subjecthood Boundaries: Population Policy vs. Citizenship in Kars, Batum and Ardahan Provinces, 1877-1917.” Talk for the conference: Empire, Conquest and Faith: The Russian and Ottoman Interaction, 1650-1920, Columbia University, April 24-26, 2008.
  • Workshop presentation on the history of Russian subjecthood at the Harvard Russian and East European History Workshop, April 23, 2008.
  • Workshop on “Methodology in History”—on the teaching of nationalism in graduate history programs in East Europe. National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy", Ukraine, December 15-20, 2007. Discussion leader.
  • “What the Archives have told us about the Russian Revolution since 1991.” Lecture and panel discussion on the Russian Revolution, The 92nd Street Y, November 4, 2007.
  • “Core Nationalism in the Russian Empire.” Lecture at the conference “Chancen und Krisen multi-ethnischer Grossreiche im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert,” Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany, October 4-6, 2007.
  • “Citizenship in Imperial Russia.” Lecture at the Humboldt University, Berlin, May 23, 2007.
  • “1915 and the War Pogrom Paradigm.” Paper presented at the workshop “Borderlands: Ethnicity, Identity and Violence in the Shatter-Zone of Empires Since 1848, Herder Institute, Marburg, Germany, May 17-20, 2007.
  • Cold War International History Project, Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. Presentation and panel discussion on Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953, by Geoffrey Roberts. April 18, 2007. A video of the event is posted on the web at: http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=topics.event&event_id=224842
  • Conference on The Putin Era in Historical Perspective sponsored by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research of the U.S. Department of State and the National Intelligence Council on November 15, 2006. Commentator on panel “managing society from the top down.”
  • Series of three lectures at L’Ecole des Haute Études en Sciences Sociales and L’Institut National D’Études Demographiques, Paris 5/19/06-6/10/06.

Professional Services

  • Hillary Clinton Campaign for President: Member of advisory committee on Russian and European Foreign Relations, 11/07-6/08
  • InterMedia: Consultant for Russian Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty radio programming, 8/04-11/04.

AU Experts

Area of Expertise

Russia and the former Soviet Union

Additional Information

Lohr is a historian who engages in current discussions about U.S.-Russian relations, including service on the Russia/Europe advisory group for the Hillary Clinton campaign for president in 2007-2008. Lohr is writing a book, Russia’s Great War, 1914-1918, with Lafayette College history professor Joshua Sanborn. Lohr's other books include Russian Citizenship: From Empire to Soviet Union(Harvard University Press, 2012) and Nationalizing the Russian Empire: The Campaign Against Enemy Aliens during World War I(Harvard University Press, 2003). Before coming to Washington, D.C., Lohr was an assistant professor at Harvard University.

For the Media

To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

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