Skip to content

Prof Melanie Ilic

Professor of Soviet History

I teach Russian and Soviet history and historical research methods.

Biography

I teach the modules in the Russian and Soviet History strand of the undergraduate degree course, covering from the late imperial period to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. I also teach on our historical methods course and I am the subject co-ordinator for our final year dissertations.

Qualifications

  • BA (Hons): Politics and Modern History, University of Manchester, 1983
  • MPhil: Economic and Social History and Russian Studies, CREES, The University of Birmingham, 1986
  • PhD: Economic and Social History and Russian Studies, CREES, The University of Birmingham, 1996

Awards

Professor Melanie Ilic has been awarded research projects by the ESRC, AHRC and the British Academy. She has also worked on a number of international research projects funded overseas.

Membership of professional bodies

British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies

Study Group on the Russian Revolution

Association of Women in Slavic Studies

Higher Education Academy

Teaching & Research

Teaching

Professor Melanie Ilic teaches Russian and Soviet history and historical research methods. She also co-ordinates the final year History dissertations.

Research

In her study, Women’s Experiences of 1937: Everyday Legacies on the Purges and the Great Terror in the Soviet Union, (2018), Melanie examines the experiences of repression recounted in a broad selection of Soviet women’s life narratives in primary source documentation. The study shows how the purges had a lifelong impact that reverberated across generations.

Publications

More publications from Prof Melanie Ilic can be found in the Research Repository.

External responsibilities

Link Tutor for Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham

Professional positions

National Advisory Board, Europe-Asia Studies

BASEES Membership Secretary (2014-2017)

External examining

I have served as External Examiner at Ruskin College, Oxford, and for Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.