Professor Matt Pauly

Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University

Matt Pauly is an Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University. He is the author of Breaking the Tongue: Language, Education, and Power in Soviet Ukraine (University of Toronto Press, 2014), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters on early Soviet nationalities policy, education, and childhood in the Russian Empire and Soviet Ukraine. He is currently engaged in the writing of a research monograph, “City of Children: Juvenile Poverty, Crime, and Salvation in Odesa, 1890–1940.” The project examines continuities and disruptions in the practice of children’s welfare in this important southern Ukrainian city. Pre-revolutionary and Soviet authorities in Odesa demonstrated a commitment to the socialization of homeless children despite their fundamentally different political expectations, but progress was still subject to individual human efforts, beliefs, and limitations. The study marries a history of science with a social history that considers ideas as well as actions, achievements, and self-interest pursued. Abandoned and orphaned children were a persistent concern that pervaded Odesan society and demanded attention because of their high numbers, perceived susceptibility to the moral ills of port city life, and potential to disrupt well-laid municipal plans.

The Oxford Ukraine Hub offers a critical forum to link scholars and students engaged in varied disciplinary research about Ukraine. I am excited by the opportunity to converse with other scholars who also privilege notions of space and local identity in their work and to collectively advance a complex, multifaceted view of Ukrainian studies.