Yoko Aoshima

Education:

2010 Ph.D., European History, University of Tokyo
1999 M.A., European History, University of Tokyo
1997 B.A., European History, University of Tokyo

Field of Study:

My research theme is the ruling system of the Russian Empire. While working on my Ph.D. thesis, I examined the change of state and society during Russia’s Great Reforms, focusing on the field of education. In the process, I became interested in schools in the northwestern province. Since then, I have been engaged in topics on the relationship between the western border regions of the Russian Empire and the imperial core. I surveyed the governmental efforts to train elementary school teachers in the northwestern province after the Great Reforms, which affected the formation of an empire-wide schooling system. My recent research interests concern the change in the relationship between the border regions and the imperial core at the beginning of the twentieth century: the transforming process of the governmental policy, administrative practices of the western border regions, and the changing atmosphere of the various sections of imperial society. My current target areas are the Baltic provinces and the Grand Duchy of Finland as well as the northwestern and southwestern provinces. I attempt to consider all of these issues within the framework of the wide-ranging history of central and eastern Europe as well as the whole system of the Russian and Soviet Empires.

Recent Publications (Selected):

Edited Books:

(with Darius Staliūnas) Dilemmas of Nationalization in Russia's Western Borderlands, 1905-1915 (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2021).
Entangled Entangled Interactions between Religion and National Consciousness in Central and Eastern Europe (Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2020)

Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

Catherine Gibson, Anton Kotenko, Andrei Cuşco, and Yoko Aoshima, “ASI Conversation: Navigating the Eastern European Borderlands in the Aftermath of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine,” Acta Slavica Iaponica 44, 2024, 145-166.
"The Age of Imperial Rule: Ukraine under the Russian and Habsburg Empires," Lectures on the History of Ukraine, Yamakawa Shuppansha, August 2023, pp. 100-131(in Japanese).
“‘Imperial Turn’ in the Study of Russian History: The Case of the Western Border Regions of the Russian Empire,” Shigaku-Zasshi 131-7, 2022, 60–86 (in Japanese).
“Views of the Ministers of Public Education on Policies toward Non-Russians in Late Imperial Russia (1904-1910),” Roshiashi-Kenkyu 108, 2022, 41–65 (in Japanese).
“The Russian Empire: A Gigantic Contiguous Empire and the View of an “Indivisible State,” Rekishigaku-Kenkyu, vol, 1007、2021.3, 156–162 (in Japanese).
Реформа имперского общества: перемены в языковой политике в школах западных окраин Российской империи в 1904–1905 гг.// Миллеровские чтения—2018: Преемственность и традиции в сохранении и изучении документального академического наследия: Материалы II Международной научной конференции, 24–26 мая 2018 г., Санкт-Петербург / сост. и отв. ред. д.и.н. И.В.Тункина. СПб.: «Реноме», 2018. . С. 506-514.
“Memoirs of Dmitri Milyutin,” in Series: The Turning Point of the History, vol.9, ed. Hisao Komatsu (Tokyo: Yamakawa Shuppansha, 2018), 128–175 (in Japanese).
“The Paradigm of the Imperial Ruling: In the Case of “Confessional Engineering” in the Russian Empire,” in Rethinking on Verfassungsgeschichte, eds. Yoshiro Ikeda and Kayoko Yoshida (Tokyo: Tosui Syobo, 2015), 121–157 (in Japanese).
“Between Indifference and Overreaction: A Note on ‘Narod Schools’ in the Northwestern Provinces of the Russian Empire in the 1860s,” in From Krakow to Vilnius, ed. Tokimasa Sekiguchi (Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) 2013, 37–46.
“Professionals or Bureaucrats?: Pedagogues and the State During Russia’s Great Reforms,” Acta Slavia Iaponica 25, 2008, 89–111.

Courses Taught:

- Society and Culture in Eastern Europe and Russia
- Slavic Cultures
- Modern European History
- Modern Russian History
- General Russian History
- Theory of History
- Russian Area Studies
- Study on Materials of European History
- Russian Text Reading
- Elementary Russian Language

Grants and Fellowships:

- Emerging Nationalisms and Transformation of the Ruling System in Late Imperial Russia: The Case of the Western Borderlands (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research B, 2018–2020)
- A Social History of Cultural Interactions among Nations of the Eastern Part of Europe (Mitsubishi Foundation, 2016)
- Formation of Modern Russian Nationalism through Interactions with Nations of the Western Part of the Russian Empire (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research C, 2015–2017)
- A Social History of Cultural Interactions among Nations of the Eastern Part of Europe (Academic Promotion Fund, Kikawada Foundation, 2015)
- Uniting Peoples in the Peripheries of the Russian Empire: A Comparative Study on Educational Policies toward the Educational Districts (JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Young Scientists, 2009–2012
- Trans-Border and Comparative Approaches (The Program for the Development of Post-Doctoral Slavic Eurasia Specialists, 2010)
- Teachers in Tsarist Russia and Their Roles in Reconstructing the Imperial Society (JSPS Start-Up Fellowship for Young Scholars, 2007–2009)
- Fellowship for Young Scholars (The Japan-Russian Friendship Organization under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2000–2001)

- Editorial Committee, Study of Russian History (in Japanese) (2006–2007, 2017–2018)