The centre’s main focus of interest is the study of longer-term trends in the social and economic history of twentieth century Russia and the Soviet Union, traversing customary boundaries between the pre-revolutionary, Soviet and post-Soviet periods as well as between economics, history and the social sciences.

This interdisciplinary, comparative approach stems from the belief that tracing lines of continuity and change can open up fruitful new perspectives on both past and present.

Political change, the periodization of history and scholarly specialisation tend to blur these lines. This is particularly true in the case of Russia’s twentieth century, dominated by the rise and fall of a social system of which the history has only just started to be written.

The sheer size of this task, and the many blind spots in our knowledge concerning some of the most elementary aspects of this history have had the perhaps inevitable effect of deepening the divides between scholars of different periods, particularly across the soviet/post-soviet boundary.

As a counterweight to this specialisation the Interdisciplinary Centre for Studies in History, Economy and Society is committed to approaches which combine longer time frames and comparative perspectives.