FULL PRO­FES­SOR­SHIP in Modern Russia Studies . vacancy number: 10-043

This chair will be installed for a period of five years, with the intention of converting this to a structural position once its success has been proven.

The successful candidate will be able to bring to the Faculty’s research and teaching his or her internationally recognised expertise on contemporary Russian society, in particular the country’s internal political system and its external political relations with former Soviet states, the European Union and other world powers. As this position is an integral part of the Faculty of Humanities, it is assumed that this field of expertise can be researched and taught using primary Russian-language sources.

The successful candidate will have broad knowledge of modern Russian society in a multidisciplinary scholarly perspective, combining tradition and modernity and expressly including Russia’s conduct in the international arena. The holder of this chair is able to propagate this field of expertise in the form of excellent research and teaching for international academics and students who specialise in the field of Russian studies. He or she will also have the necessary competences to communicate broader knowledge of modern Russian society (contemporary historic, socio-economic and constitutional developments) independent of language, within broader teaching programmes, specifically in the field of (comparative) regional studies.

The successful candidate should have the ability to play an active part in the University’s research profile area on the ‘Global interaction of people, culture and power through the ages.’ Specialist knowledge of Russian in a broader Eurasian perspective will be an advantage.

The successful candidate will be a team player within the Faculty community, in particular within the Institute for History and the different regional studies, and should be able and willing to make a contribution to knowledge transfer on Russia based on direct access to primary sources for the benefit of the societal and political debate in the Netherlands.

The successful candidate will, in terms of content and structure, be prepared and able to further develop the initiative taken in 2008 for a joint international MA programme in Russian Studies with the Catholic University of Leuven (specialisation in East European Studies within the MA programme on Comparative and International Politics, Faculty of Social Sciences) and, the administrative/management context permitting, to expand the initiative into a joint degree programme. In a future phase, the holder of the chair will also be required to involve the European University in Saint Petersburg (EUSP) in the programme. With effect from 2010, EUSP is the new partner institution that offers the compulsory semester abroad for Leiden BA students of Russian Studies and Slavic Languages and Cultures. The successful candidate should therefore be capable of setting up an international Leiden-Leuven-Petersburg study programme of 90 EC.

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