BIO

A historian and cultural scientist. He is a professor of history and the Chair of Russia-Europe relations at the European University Institute.He is fellow of the European Institute for International Law and International Relations.

Etkind’s research focuses on European and Russian intellectual history, memory studies, natural resources and the history of political economy, empire and colonies in Europe, and Russian politics, novels and film in the 21st century.

His current interests are the political aspects of the Anthropocene, global decarbonization and security in Eastern Europe. In the past, he was also involved in memory studies, European intellectual history, empires and decolonization, and various aspects of Russian history.

A Fellow of King’s College Cambridge, Etkind was the Leader of Memory at War: Cultural Dynamics in Poland, Russia and Ukraine, a European research project (2010-13).

He is the author of Eros of the Impossible. The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia (Westview Press 1996); Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Experience (Polity Press 2011); Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied (Stanford University Press 2013); Roads not Taken. An Intellectual Biography of William C. Bullitt. (Pittsburgh University Press 2017); and Nature’s Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources (Polity Press 2021). Alexander coedited Remembering Katyn (Polity 2012), Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe (Palgrave 2013) and Cultural Forms of Protest in Russia (Routledge 2017). His most recent book, Russia against Modernity, was released by Polity in 2023.

Since 2024, Etkind is leading the Open Society Hub for the Politics of the Anthropocene at CEU.