Associate Professor of History
Office: Swift 24
Phone: 437-5669
Contact Michaela Pohl
Miki Pohl received her B.A. in Liberal Studies from the Evergreen State
College in Olympia, Washington (1989), and Ph.D. in modern Russian history from Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana (1999). Her research focuses on the Soviet Union after Stalin. Other research and teaching interests include the history of Kazakhstan and Chechnya, diasporas in the borderlands of the former Soviet Union, youth and children in Russia and Europe, and Russian and Eurasian popular culture.
Pohl is working on a book on the Virgin Lands campaign, a settlement drive that started under Nikita Khrushchev. It focuses on destalinization and the interaction of various ethnic groups in the Astana region of Kazakhstan, based on archival research and oral history fieldwork. Other on-going projects include research on the Chechens in Kazakhstan (they were deported from the Caucasus in 1944), and on the Kazakhstan Germans.
“Between Budennovsk and Beslan,” co-authored with Zaindi Choltaev, Focaal
European Journal of Anthropology (Utrecht) No. 44 (November 2004), pp. 155-162.
“The Planet of One Hundred Languages: Ethnic Relations and Soviet Identity in the Virgin Lands,” forthcoming. Published in Russian as: “‘Planeta Sta Iazykov’. Etnicheskie otnosheniia i sovetskaia identichnost’ na tseline,” Vestnik Evrazii / Acta Evrasica [The Herald of Eurasia] (Moscow), No. 1 (24), 2004, pp. 5-33.
“Women and Girls in the Virgin Lands,” in Melanie Ili_, Susan E. Reid, and
Lynne Attwood, Women in the Khrushchev Era (Basingstoke and New York,
2004), pp. 52-74.
“‘It Cannot Be That Our Graves Will Be Here:’ The Survival of Chechen and
Ingush Deportees in Kazakhstan, 1944-1957,” Journal of Genocide Research,
Vol. 4, No. 3 (2002), pp. 401-430. Published in Russian as: “Neuzheli eti zemli nashei mogiloi stanut? Chechentsy i Ingushi v Kazakhstane (1944-1957 gg.),” Diaspory (Moscow), Vol. 4, No. 2 (2002), pp.158-204.
Ideologies of Identity: Volk and Narod in Nazi and Stalinist Folkloristics, Occasional Paper No. 28, MacArthur Scholar Series (Bloomington, 1995), 95 pp.
“Das Lebensbornheim Taunus in Wiesbaden, 1939-45,” co-authored with Georg Lilienthal, Nassauische Annalen (Wiesbaden), No. 5 (1992), pp. 295-310.