Dr. Christine Varga-Harris will present “Russia and Ukraine in Historical Context: Facts and Maps” at 4 p.m. March 23 at the University Galleries in Uptown Circle. The lecture will focus on the history of relations between Russia and Ukraine.  

Sponsored by the European Studies Program at Illinois State University, the event is free and open to the public.  

Varga-Harris is an associate professor of history at Illinois State, who specializes in the postwar Soviet Union.  Her first book, Stories of House and Home:  Soviet Apartment Life during the Khrushchev Years (Cornell University Press, 2015), explored Soviet daily life, ideology and society.  Her current research focuses on Soviet cultural relations with non-aligned countries during the Cold War, from the perspective of gender.  Her most recent publication is “Between National Tradition and Western Modernization: Soviet Woman and Representations of Socialist Gender Equality as a ‘Third Way’ for Developing Countries” (Slavic Review, 2019).