Dr Matt Rendle

My research focuses on Russian history during the late Imperial and revolutionary periods. My first book focused on the role of elite groups, such as nobles, officers and landowners, in the revolutionary process; Defenders of the Motherland: The Tsarist Elite in Revolutionary Russia (Oxford University Press, 2010) [http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199236251], whilst I was a guest editor of a special issue of Historical Research commemorating the centenary of 1917: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hisr.v90.247/issuetoc. My second book, The State versus The People: Revolutionary Justice in Russia's Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2020), uses a study of revolutionary tribunals during Russia's civil war (1917-22) to examine changing definitions of crime during this period, the interaction between state and society, and the role of law and violence in the formation of the Soviet state [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-state-versus-the-people-9780198840428?cc=gb&lang=en&]. Future projects include an examination of the print culture of 1917, and the historical and international influences on the Russian Revolution.

I am the Co-Editor of Revolutionary Russia, a longstanding interdisciplinary journal focusing on the revolutionary period in Russian history [http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/09546545.asp]. The journal is also on Twitter: https://twitter.com/russia_journal

I am also a Series Editor for the BASEES / Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies [https://www.routledge.com/carees/series/BASEES].

I studied for a BA in History, MA in European History, and PhD in History at the University of Exeter, completing my PhD thesis in 2003. I remained at Exeter as a part-time Teaching Fellow in 2003-04 before taking up a fixed-term lectureship in modern Russian history at Newcastle University in September 2004. In 2007, I moved to a permanent lectureship in Eastern European history at Aberystwyth University before returning to Exeter as a Lecturer in History in September 2010. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in May 2015 and then to Associate Professor in July 2023.

I am particularly interested in supervising students wishing to research any elements of the political, social or cultural history of late Imperial and revolutionary Russia. I am also happy, however, to supervise work on many other aspects of modern Russian history. I have extensive experience of working in Russian archives - government, party and military - and libraries, as well as among collections in other countries, particularly the US and UK.