Ala C. Graff

I am a historian of modern Russia and PhD Candidate (ABD) in Russian History at the University of Maryland, College Park. My research focuses on the rise of the press as a political actor in late nineteenth-century Russia. My dissertation, “Print and Politics Entangled: The Rise of the Russian Press and Its Influence on Politics and Public Opinion, 1860s-1880s”, examines the political entanglements of the Russian press and the monarchic state as they collaborated and competed to shape public opinion and political decision-making during the 1860s-1880s. My research has been supported by the AHA, ASEEES, The German Historical Institute in Moscow, The Cosmos Club Foundation, The University of Maryland, among others. At the University of Maryland, I designed and taught courses on Imperial Russian and Soviet history, culture, and communication. Beyond the academe, I have written for the The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and The Moscow Times.