Dr Miriam Dobson

M.A. (Cantab.), M.A., Ph.D. (London)

School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities

Reader in Modern History

Widening Participation Officer

Miriam Dobson
Profile picture of Miriam Dobson
m.dobson@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2567
9 Mappin Street

Full contact details

Dr Miriam Dobson
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
9 Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 4DT
Profile

I studied Russian and French at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, before moving to the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, University College London, where I gained an M.A. in History and later my PhD.

I held a Scouloudi History Research Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research (2002-03) and a one-year lectureship at the University of Liverpool (2003-4), before starting at Sheffield in September 2004.

My first monograph won the awarded by Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 'for the most important contribution to Russian, Eurasian, and East European studies in any discipline of the humanities or social sciences published in English in the United States in the previous calendar year'.

I was principal investigator on a four-year AHRC-funded project entitled .

I have published four journal articles based on this research and I am currently completing the manuscript for a monograph provisionally entitled Unorthodox Communities in the Cold War: Protestants, Secularisation, and Soviet Atheism, 1945-1985.

Research interests

My research interests lie in the history of the Soviet Union, with a particular emphasis on the social and cultural history of post-war Russia and Ukraine. My first book explored popular responses to the reforms of the Khrushchev era, in particular the massive exodus of prisoners from the Gulag. Khrushchev's Cold examined the impact of these returnees on communities and, more broadly, Soviet attempts to come to terms with the traumatic legacies of Stalin's terror.

My second project explores the history of Baptist and Pentecostal communities in the Soviet Union. It draws on archival material and oral history interviews conducted as part of a AHRC-funded project entitled . I have published a major document collection (with N. Beliakova) and four articles relating to this research: on the sensationalist depiction of evangelicals in the Soviet press; on interviews conducted with believers by social scientists; on the role of women in Protestant communities; and on pacifism and apocalyptic fears during the early Cold War. I have completed a monograph provisionally entitled The Unorthodox: Soviet Atheism, Protestants, and the Cold War, 1944-1985.

My future research takes the form of a collaboration with Professor Polly Jones (University of Oxford) for a project called  The 101st kilometre: Banishment, belonging and the control of Soviet space. The concept 101st kilometre denotes the zones around major cities from which various politically or socially marginal populations were banished.

Publications

Books

  • Dobson MJ & Beliakova N (2015) 迮郇邽郇 赲 迮赲訄郇迣迮郅郕邽 郋訇邽郇訄 郈郋郅迮赲郋迮郇郇郋迣郋 苤苤苤. 1940-1980-迮 迣迣. 郅迮迡郋赲訄郇邽 邽 邽郋郇邽郕邽 [Women in the Evangelical Communities of the Post-War USSR (1940s1980s). Documents and Analysis]. Moscow: Indrik.
  • Dobson M (2014) 苭郋郅郋迡郇郋迮 郅迮郋 苭迮赲訄 赲郋郱赲訄迮郇 邽郱 苺訄, 郈迮郈郇郋 邽 迡郇訄 迡訇訄 迮郋邾 郈郋郅迮 苤訄郅邽郇訄. Moscow: 苤苤衪.
  • Dobson M (2009) Khrushchevs cold summer : Gulag returnees, crime, and the fate of reform after Stalin. Ithaca :: Cornell University Press,.

Edited books

  • (Ed.) (2008) Reading primary sources: the interpretation of texts from nineteenth- and twentieth-century history. London :: Routledge,.

Journal articles

  • Dobson M (2018) . Journal of Contemporary History, 53(2), 361-390.
  • Beliakova N & Dobson M (2016) . Canadian Slavonic Papers, 58(2), 117-140.
  • Dobson MJ (2015) . Slavic Review, 74(1), 79-103.
  • Dobson MJ (2014) . Russian Review, 73(2), 237-259.
  • Dobson MJ (2011) The Post-Stalin Era: De-Stalinization, Daily Life, and Dissent. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 12(4), 905-924.
  • Dobson MJ (2008) POWs and Purge Victims: Attitudes towards Party Rehabilitation, 1956-57. The Slavonic and East European Review, 86(2), 328-345.
  • Dobson M (2005) . Slavic Review, 64(03), 580-600.

Book chapters

  • Dobson M (2023) Ferment in the Congregation: Gender Dynamics and Conflict within the Moscow Baptist Congregation in the 1950s and 1960s In Maxwell M & Scales TL (Ed.), Baptists and Gender Papers for the Ninth International Conference on Baptist Studies Mercer University Press
  • Dobson MJ (2016) Building peace, fearing the apocalypse? Nuclear danger in Soviet Cold War culture In Grant M & Ziemann B (Ed.), Understanding the imaginary war: Culture, thought and nuclear conflict, 194590 (pp. 51-74). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • Ziemann B & Dobson M (2009) READING PRIMARY SOURCES THE INTERPRETATION OF TEXTS FROM 19TH and 20TH CENTURY HISTORY Introduction, READING PRIMARY SOURCES: THE INTERPRETATION OF TEXTS FROM NINETEENTH- AND TWENTIETH-CENTURY HISTORY (pp. 1-18).
  • Dobson M (2008) , Reading Primary Sources the Interpretation of Texts from Nineteenth and Twentieth Century History (pp. 57-73).
  • (2006) , The Dilemmas of De-Stalinization (pp. 35-54). Routledge
  • Dobson M (2005) , Dilemmas of De Stalinization Negotiating Cultural and Social Change in the Khrushchev Era (pp. 21-40).

Book reviews

  • Dobson M (2024) Tuts on the Trolleybus Bone Music: Soviet X-Ray Audio by Stephen Coates.. London Review of Books, 45(7).
  • Dobson M (2021) Kid Gloves. Review of In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated by Sasha Dugdale. London Review of Books, 43(19).
  • Dobson M (2021) How to Flip a Church. Review of Journeys through the Russian Empire: The photographic legacy of Sergei Prokudin-Gorsky by William Craft Brumfield.. London Review of Books(43).
  • Dobson M (2020) . The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review, 47(3), 379-382.
  • Dobson MJ (2018) Who can I trust after this? Review of Red at Heart: How Chinese Communists Fell in Love with the Russian Revolution by Elizabeth McGuire.. London Review of Books, 40(22), 21-22.
  • Dobson MJ (2017) What did Khrushchev say? Review ofMoscow 1956: The Silenced Springby Kathleen E. Smith. London Review of Books, 39(21), 31-34.
  • Dobson M (2016) . Slavic Review, 75(4), 1048-1050.
  • Dobson M (2016) De-Stalinization Reconsidered: Persistence and Change in the Soviet Union. SLAVIC REVIEW, 75(4), 1048-1050.
  • Dobson M (2014) . The Journal of Modern History, 86(3), 741-742.
  • Dobson M (2013) . The American Historical Review, 118(1), 288-288.
  • Dobson M (2012) . The English Historical Review, 127(529), 1603-1605.
  • DOBSON M (2012) . The Historical Journal, 55(2), 563-569.
  • Dobson M (2012) . Slavic Review, 71(3), 708-709.
  • Dobson MJ (2012) D矇port矇s en URSS. R矇cits dEurop矇ens au Goulag. Annales: Histoire Sciences Sociales, 68(2), 605-607.
  • Dobson M (2012) Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cultural Cold War. SLAVIC REVIEW, 71(3), 708-709.
  • Miriam Dobson (2012) . The Slavonic and East European Review, 90(4), 735-735.
  • Dobson MJ & Dobson MJ (2011) Arctic Scientist, Gulag Survivor: The Biography of Mikhail Mikhailovich Ermolaev, 19051991. Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue canadienne des slavistes, 53(1), 106-108.
  • Dobson M (2011) The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin. SLAVIC REVIEW, 70(3), 702-703.
  • Dobson M (2010) Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism. KRITIKA-EXPLORATIONS IN RUSSIAN AND EURASIAN HISTORY, 11(4), 902-910.
  • Dobson M (2010) Russian Protestantism and State Power, 1905-91. KRITIKA-EXPLORATIONS IN RUSSIAN AND EURASIAN HISTORY, 11(4), 902-910.
  • Dobson M (2009) . The English Historical Review, CXXIV(509), 1005-1007.
  • Dobson M (2009) . Journal of Contemporary History, 44(2), 354-356.
  • Dobson M (2009) The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin's Special Settlements. SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN REVIEW, 87(3), 572-574.
  • Dobson M (2009) Stalin's Terror Revisited. SLAVONIC AND EAST EUROPEAN REVIEW, 87(1), 161-163.
  • Dobson M (2008) . The English Historical Review, CXXIII(501), 521-522.
  • Dobson M (2007) Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. COLD WAR HISTORY, 7(1), 161-162.
  • Dobson MJ (2006) Russia's Sputnik Generation. Soviet Baby Boomers Talk about Their Lives. H-Soz-Kult.
  • Dobson MJ (2005) Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 19451953. Reviews in History.
  • Dobson M () . The English Historical Review, CXXIII(505), 1597-1600.
Research group

Research supervision

Current Students

Primary Supervisor

Scott Lishak

PhD Student (History)
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities

Title: Das Magazin and its readers: State and society in the German Democratic Republic, 1954 - 1990.
Email
salishak1@sheffield.ac.uk
S L
Completed Students
  • Mirjam Galley - Builders of Communism, 'Defective Children and Social Orphans. Soviet Children in Care after 1953.
  • Hannah Parker - Voices of the New Soviet Woman: Gender, Emancipation and Agency in Letters to the Soviet State, 1924-1941.
  • Alun Thomas (Russian and Slavonic Studies, co-supervisor) - Kazakh Nomads and the New Soviet State, 1919-1934.
  • Joel Baker (second supervisor) - 'Anti-politics', infrastructure policy and civil society mobilisations in Spain under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship (1923-1930)
  • James Yeoman (second supervisor) - Print Culture and the Formation of the Anarchist Movement in Spain: 1890-1915.
  • Matthew Kerry (second supervisor) - Radical Politics in the Spanish Second Republic: Asturias, 1931-1936.
  • David Lyon (second supervisor) - Bitter Justice: The Penitentiary of El Puerto De Santa Maria and it's Basque Dimension 1936-1949.

Find out more about 壅翌腦瞳 in History

Teaching activities

Undergraduate:

  • HST112 - Paths from Antiquity to Modernity
  • HST202 - Historians and History
  • HST232 - Holy Russia, Soviet Empire: Nation, Religion and Identity in the 20th Century
  • HST3027/8 - Stalinism and De-Stalinisation, 1929-1961
  • HST3303 - Identity and Belief

Postgraduate: 

  • HST6085 - Under Attack: The Home Front during the Cold War
Professional activities and memberships

- Member

Administrative roles:

  • Deputy Admissions Tutor (2018-)
  • Senior Tutor (2010-2013)
  • Director of MA Programmes (2008-09)
  • Member of Teaching Committee (2005-present), Postgraduate Committee (2008-09), Research Committee (2008-09) and Admissions Committee (2004-07)
  • History Department Teaching and Learning Advocate (2005-08)
Public engagement

I have given talks to local audiences including lectures for Sheffield University of the Third Age and Sheffield Historical Association, and a pre-concert talk for Music in the Round. I have blogged for and for the departments . I am enthusiastic about engaging school-age students with history and have organized various events including a History Taster Day, workshops in collaboration with Music in the Round, and a talk and exhibition on the Soviet Empire

As part of the Schools History Network the department has made a series of videos for use in the classroom. Below is a short video of myself talking about Khruschev's Secret Speech.

In the media:

I contribute to a variety of history blogs including the where I blog on topics ranging from Soviet baby boomers, the meaning of 1991 and the Soviet imagery of nuclear work.

I also contribute to the department's  blog. This blog exhibits cutting-edge research, the history behind the headlines and why we think history really matters.