Cardiff welcomes first Historian awarded European Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship

Dmitry Asinovskiy has become the first Historian awarded a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship at Cardiff University.

Dr. Asinovskiy joined the School of Global Humanities in September 2026 to embark on his project exploring Anti-Zionism as an element of Soviet Foreign Policy’s Ideology in the context of Soviet-Israeli relations during the Global Cold War. He will work under the mentorship of Dr James Ryan in the Department of History, Archaeology and Heritage, enhancing the Department's research strengths in Eastern European and global histories.

The Postdoctoral Fellowships are designed to help early-career researchers enhance their skills and career prospects by giving them the opportunity to research and work abroad.

Asinovskiy received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2021 and went on to receive consecutive prestigious postdoctoral appointments in Budapest, Oxford, Bucharest and Tel Aviv. His previous research addressed Soviet Anti-Imperialism and its application in the Soviet reaction to the 1978-79 Iranian Revolution. Asinovskiy’s monograph based on this research is due to be published in March 2027 by Stanford University Press under the title A Curse of Anti-Imperialism: The Ideological Worldview and Soviet Support for Ayatollah Khomeini. When carrying out archival research for that project, Asinovskiy noticed that Zionism often appeared alongside imperialism among the main ideological foes of the Soviet Union in Soviet sources.

Explaining, he said, “While working in the Moscow archives, I began investigating newly declassified collections on Soviet-Israeli and Soviet-Palestinian relations, as well as the foreign-policy implications of Soviet Jewish emigration and campaigns for the rights of Soviet Jews in the West. I was lucky to gather them when it was possible to do so (before the war in Ukraine) and it was evident from them that this required a separate largescale piece of research.”

Speaking of his arrival in Cardiff, Asinovskiy said, “I’m very excited to be in Cardiff with my project. I’m looking forward to integrating into the community of historians and other humanities professionals at the School of Global Humanities. Although I’m still settling in, I’ve already had a chance to explore the John Percival Building and the lovely Arts and Social Studies Library, which will certainly be the places where this project begins to take shape.”

Cardiff University has extensive experience in hosting Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral fellows across a range of research areas, including Archaeology, Catalysis, Cognitive Neuroscience, Genetic Engineering, Materials Engineering, Sustainable Development and more. Funded by the European Commission, the European Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to researchers of any nationality, moving within Europe or coming to Europe from another part of the world to pursue their research career.