A view of singleton campus including singleton park and the beach, with the sea stretching into the horizon.

Dr Eugene Miakinkov

Senior Lecturer

History

+44 (0) 1792 606167

j.miakinkov@swansea.ac.uk

Available For Postgraduate Supervision

Research Links

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4637-1857

About

I arrived to Swansea in 2014 from Canada, where my training consisted of a number of quite separate specialities. My fields of interest and research are, first, Russian history, then, war and society, and finally European history. This makes me a cultural historian with a special interest in war as a cultural practice, who researches Russia in the wider European context. I published my first book, “War and Enlightenment in Russia: Military Culture in the Age of Catherine II”, in 2020 with University of Toronto Press. The book won the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences award and received the honourable mention in the book prize adjudication from the Canadian Association of Slavists.

I am now working on two new, but different monograph-length projects, that take me to new research areas, both temporally and topically. One project I am pursuing is located in the field of information history, and will examine the rise of the “information state” in Russia, and the second project will explore the militarisation of Russian culture, politics, and society under President Vladimir Putin up to the annexation of the Crimea.

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and in 2016, I was selected for the executive leadership training program “Challenging Human Environments and Research Impact for a Sustainable and Healthy Digital Economy” (CHERISH-DE), which annually brings together early-career researchers across disciplines in the United Kingdom.

I am currently the Admissions Officer for the War and Society programme and the convenor of the MA degree in War and Society. Simultaneously, I am also the Academic Integrity Officer for the Department of Political and Cultural Studies.

Areas Of Expertise

Russian History
Militarization of Society and Culture
War and Society
Information History
18th century European History

Career Highlights

Research

War and Enlightenment

Militarization of Russian culture, politics, and society

Information History

Publications

Research Highlights

Miakinkov, E. (2020). War and Enlightenment in Russia: Military Culture in the Age of Catherine II
https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487518196, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa50636
Miakinkov, E. (2009). Chapter 5: Space Support for Terrestrial Military Operations. Space Security (pp. 102-123). Pandora Press
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40838
Miakinkov, E. (2011). The Agency of Force in Asymmetrical Warfare and Counterinsurgency: The Case of Chechnya. The Journal of Strategic Studies, 35(5), 647-680.
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40837
Perez, V., Robert, H., Eugene, M., & Miakinkov, E. (2017). When AI goes to war: youth opinion, fictional reality and autonomous weapons. The ORBIT Journal, 1(1), 1-20.
https://doi.org/10.29297/orbit.v1i1.19, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40836
Miakinkov, E. (2016). “Your Excellency needs only to wish it”: Awards and Promotion Culture in the Army of Catherine II. The Russian Review, 75(3), 457-476.
https://doi.org/10.1111/russ.12085, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa28640
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/russ.12085/abstract

All Research

Journal Articles

Dunnage, J., Jackson, S., Miakinkov, E., & Sheehan, M. (2019). Understanding militarism after the end of the Cold War: History, international relations, and media studies ask new questions. History Compass, 17(12)
https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12600, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa53082
Perez, V., Robert, H., Eugene, M., & Miakinkov, E. (2017). When AI goes to war: youth opinion, fictional reality and autonomous weapons. The ORBIT Journal, 1(1), 1-20.
https://doi.org/10.29297/orbit.v1i1.19, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40836
Miakinkov, E. (2016). “Your Excellency needs only to wish it”: Awards and Promotion Culture in the Army of Catherine II. The Russian Review, 75(3), 457-476.
https://doi.org/10.1111/russ.12085, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa28640
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/russ.12085/abstract
Miakinkov, E. (2011). The Agency of Force in Asymmetrical Warfare and Counterinsurgency: The Case of Chechnya. The Journal of Strategic Studies, 35(5), 647-680.
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40837

Book Chapters

Miakinkov, E. (2009). Chapter 5: Space Support for Terrestrial Military Operations. Space Security (pp. 102-123). Pandora Press
SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa40838

Other Research Outputs

Miakinkov, E. (2020). War and Enlightenment in Russia: Military Culture in the Age of Catherine II
https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487518196, SU Repository: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa50636

Supervision

Untitled (current)

PhD

Other supervisor: Dr Yan Wu
Nationalism and Militarism in Azerbaijan: Visible and Invisible Groups (1905-1939) (current)

PhD

Other supervisor: Dr Tomás Irish
Techno-Military Diplomatic Crises and Cooperation in British-Soviet Relations during the Late Cold War. (current)

PhD

Other supervisor: Dr Christoph Laucht
A Peculiar Form of Militarism: Military Culture and the Militarisation of Victorian and Edwardian Youth. (current)

PhD

Other supervisor: Dr Leighton James
From Kowalski to Kowalski: Internal Identity Formation and External Perception of the Polish Diaspora in American Popular Culture and Immigration Policy During the Cold War and Beyond (current)

PhD

Other supervisor: Dr Christoph Laucht

Taught Modules

HI-M01 Historical Methods and Approaches

This module provides training in advanced historical research. It is designed to introduce students to methods of historical investigation, writing, and presentation, and to important historical resources (including archives, collections of sources, and museums). Attention will be given to the use of IT in historical work work as well as more traditional paper-based methods.
HIH121 Europe of Extremes, 1789-1989

The nineteenth century saw the rise of a western European civilization, characterized, as Eric Hobsbawm has noted, by capitalist economics, liberal politics, and the dominance of a middle class that celebrated morality and science. In the twentieth century this civilization faced unprecedented challenges from new political ideologies, and from a working class demanding the right to govern in its own name. The result was an eruption of violence not seen on the continent for centuries; in its wake, the Cold War divided the Europe with an Iron Curtain, and saw the continent become the client of two world superpowers ¿ the USA and the Soviet Union. This team-taught module relies on the specialist knowledge of its tutors to examine economic, political and social themes in the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe.
HIH289 The Rise and Fall of the Russian Empire

With modern Russia on the forefront of contemporary world affairs, a critical understanding of its imperial past is becoming not only important but also increasingly relevant. How much do you know about Russia before the rise of Putin, the Russian meddling in the US elections, or the war in Ukraine? Can you name anything from before the Soviet Union or the Russian Revolution? Starting in the 18th century, Russia became a major global power, destined to participate in shaping the modern world and the lives of millions of people within its ever-expanding frontiers. How did the Russian Empire establish itself on the European stage? By what means the Russian autocrats managed to keep their multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire together for so long? Did the enserfed populations really have no means to resist their nobles masters and the state? Was there really no civil society and no public sphere in Imperial Russia? How did the elites justify their power and what were the obstacles to political reform? And to what extent Russia became a European state during its imperial period? With academic literature and first-hand accounts as our guides, this survey module engages these larger questions and issues of ethnicity and gender whose echoes still reverberate in Russia today. Our major themes will include the persistence and evolution of autocracy, the relationship between Russia and the West, which continues to plague Russian identity in the 21st century, alienation of the elites from the government, and the government from its people. On our journey we will meet the giant Russian first Emperor, Peter the Great, bending horseshoes and rolling down in a barrel from hills around London, we will read the luminaries of world literature such as Leo Tolstoy and Vissarion Belinsky, and encounter the mad-monk Rasputin.
HIH3300 History Dissertation

The History dissertation is a free-standing, 40-credit module that runs across both semesters of Level Three. Candidates conduct research upon a subject of their choice, devised in consultation with a member of staff teaching for the degrees in History, and concerning a topic that falls within staff research and teaching interests.
WS-305 The Russian Civil War

The module looks at the origins, the course and the political and cultural legacy of the Russian Civil War, 1917-1922. The lectures and seminars will focus on debates about the origins of the civil war, examine different groups involved in the conflict, as well political, economic and cultural policies during the conflict. Finally, the module will analyse why the Bolsheviks won, how the civil war created the Soviet Union from the ashes of imperial Russia, and what role the civil war plays in Russian national consciousness. With modern Russia on the forefront of contemporary world affairs, the civil war that toppled the Tsarist regime and created the Soviet Union is not only historiographically relevant, but is critical for our understanding of events in Eastern Europe today.
WS-M94 War, Technology and Society

From the late Eighteenth century onwards the relationship between war and society was changed by two permanent revolutions in France and America. Industrialisation, coupled with the growth of centralised nation states dramatically modified the conduct of large scale warfare. In this module students will seek to understand the impact of industrialisation, nationalism, technology and ideology on warfare. The course will follow the development of industrialised mass warfare from the Napoleonic period, through to the era of the 'total warfare' of WWI and WW2 and the limited conflict of the Cold War/nuclear era.
WS-M95 War, Identity and Society

This module is the companion module to WS-M94. It takes a pluri-disciplinary approach to understanding the impacts of war on society and vice-versa. The module evaluates the ways in which conflict changes and reshapes society and analyses the problems of war, its representations and its social outcomes. 'War' in thus not viewed solely in terms of military history, but rather through a broader context of changing social, economic and cultural trends both as a motor for change and as part of those broader changes. The module is taught over a ten week period. The weekly two hour sessions include at least an hour of seminar style `teaching¿, to make sure that there is ample time for discussions, questions, student presentations, etc. Hence, it is expected of all students to read the compulsory reading for each session beforehand, so that meaningful discussions can take place. .
WS-M96 Research Folder (War and Society)

The Research Portfolio is a collection of written pieces based upon research undertaken, up to 6000 words, in preparation for the dissertation.

Dr Eugene Miakinkov

Telephone number

Email address

Research Links

About

Areas Of Expertise

Career Highlights

Publications

Research Highlights

All Research

Journal Articles

Book Chapters

Other Research Outputs

Supervision

Untitled (current)

Nationalism and Militarism in Azerbaijan: Visible and Invisible Groups (1905-1939) (current)

Techno-Military Diplomatic Crises and Cooperation in British-Soviet Relations during the Late Cold War. (current)

A Peculiar Form of Militarism: Military Culture and the Militarisation of Victorian and Edwardian Youth. (current)

From Kowalski to Kowalski: Internal Identity Formation and External Perception of the Polish Diaspora in American Popular Culture and Immigration Policy During the Cold War and Beyond (current)

Taught Modules

HI-M01 Historical Methods and Approaches

HIH121 Europe of Extremes, 1789-1989

HIH289 The Rise and Fall of the Russian Empire

HIH3300 History Dissertation

WS-305 The Russian Civil War

WS-M94 War, Technology and Society

WS-M95 War, Identity and Society

WS-M96 Research Folder (War and Society)