Professor Rory Finnin

Robinson College
  • Professor of Ukrainian Studies
  • Slavonic Studies
Professor Rory Finnin

Contact

About

Rory Finnin is Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge. He launched Cambridge Ukrainian Studies in 2008. He is former Head of the Department of Slavonic Studies (2014-18) and former Chair of the Cambridge Committee for Russian and East European Studies (CamCREES) (2011-18). 

Finnin received his PhD (with distinction) in Slavic Languages and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. He also holds Certificates from the Harriman Institute and from the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. He is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Ukraine 1995-97) and a native of Cleveland, Ohio.

Since launching the Cambridge Ukrainian Studies program in 2008, Finnin has also curated and organised over 40 exhibitions and cultural events, from the Cambridge Festival of Contemporary Ukrainian Film to the Cambridge Vsesvit Literary Evening, which have enriched public understanding of Ukraine’s language, history, and society in Great Britain and beyond.

Finnin is also convener (with Sander van der Linden in Social Psychology) of the University's Disinformation and Media Literacy Special Interest Group, a community of scholars and practitioners committed to advancing creative interventions against disinformation and ‘fake news’. The DML SIG is part of Cambridge's Trust and Technology Strategic Research Initiative. 

In 2015 Finnin won a Teaching Award for Outstanding Lecturer from the Cambridge University Students' Union (CUSU), the representative body for all students at the University. He has supervised an award-winning cohort of postgraduate students who have secured posts at leading universities. He welcomes inquiries from potential MPhil and PhD students with research interests in the culture and society of Ukraine.

Research interests: 

Finnin's primary research interest is the interplay of culture and identity in Ukraine. He also focuses on the history of colonialism in Crimea and studies Crimean Tatar literature and culture. His broader research interests include nationalism studies, solidarity studies, and cultural memory in the region of the Black Sea. 

His new book, Blood of Others: Stalin's Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity (University of Toronto Press, 2022), has won eight international book awards, earning distinctions in the fields of Ukrainian Studies, European Studies, Slavic Studies, nationalism studies, and genocide studies.

Research

Published works: 

Selected publications:

  • Blood of Others: Stalin's Crimean Atrocity and the Poetics of Solidarity, University of Toronto Press (April 2022)
    • 2024 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies
    • 2023 Joseph Rothschild Book Prize in Nationalism and Ethnic Studies
    • 2023 ASEEES Omeljan Pritsak Book Prize in Ukrainian Studies
    • 2023 University of Southern California Book Prize in Literary and Cultural Studies
    • 2023 American Association for Ukrainian Studies Best Book Prize
    • 2023 MLA Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Book Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures
    • 2023 AATSEEL Best Book in Literary Studies Prize
    • 2023 BASEES Alexander Nove Prize
    • 2023 Raphael Lemkin Book Award Finalist
    • 2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
    • "One of the Best Books of 2022", The Hill Times
  • 'Beyond "Narrating the Nation": Cultural Producers and Multilingualism in Wartime Ukraine', with Ivan Kozachenko, Multilingualism and Identity: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. Wendy Ayres-Bennett and Linda Fisher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022)
  • 'Introduction: Ukraine's Multilingualism', with Ivan Kozachenko, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 6:1 (2020)
  • '"A Bridge Between Us": Literature in the Ukrainian - Crimean Tatar Encounter', Comparative Literature Studies 56.2 (July 2019) 
  • 'Captive Turks: Crimean Tatars in Pan-Turkist Literature', Middle Eastern Studies 50.2 (Spring 2014)
  • Remembering Katyn, co-authored with Alexander Etkind, Uillieam Blacker, Julie Fedor, Simon Lewis, Maria Mälksoo and Matilda Mroz, Polity Press (2012)
  • 'The Poetics of Home: Crimean Tatars in Nineteenth-Century Russian and Turkish Literatures', Comparative Literature Studies 49.1 (January 2012)
  • 'Forgetting Nothing, Forgetting No One: Boris Chichibabin, Viktor Nekipelov, and the Deportation of the Crimean Tatars', Modern Language Review 106.4 (September 2011)
  • 'Nationalism and the Lyric; or, How Taras Shevchenko Speaks to Compatriots Dead, Living, and Unborn', Slavonic and East European Review 89: 1 (January 2011)
  • 'Silence and Extinction in Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors', Slavic and East European Performance 28.1 (Winter 2008) 


  • 'Attendants to the Duel: Classical Intertexts in Desportes's "Adieu a la Pologne" and Kochanowski's "Gallo Crocitanti"', Comparative Literature Studies 44.4 (Winter 2007)
  • 'Mountains, Masks, Metre, Meaning: Taras Shevchenko's Kavkaz,' Slavonic and East European Review 83:3 (July 2005) 


  • 'Prelude to a Revolution: Reflections on Observing the 2004 Presidential Elections in Ukraine', with Adriana Helbig, Harriman Review 15:2-3 (May 2005). Reprinted in Aspects of the Orange Revolution, ed. Ingmar Bredies et al., vol. 4 (Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2007)

Selected commentary:

  • '"Where Are Your Poets, the Monsters Ask": Reading Verse in a Genocidal War', Slavic Review 83 (2024): 510–515
  • '"Опыт чисток, колонизаций и травм": Книга о прошлом и настоящем Крыма', Radio Liberty (November 2024)
  • 'Deoccupying Crimea in the Western Mind', London Ukrainian Review (May 2024)
  • 'Mike Johnson, Meet Maksym Butkevych', Los Angeles Times (January 2024)
  • 'Die Krim und die Krimtataren', Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (January 2024)
  • 'Why Crimea Is the Key to Peace in Ukraine', Politico (January 2023). Story about the op-ed in BBC Ukrainian.
  • 'Ukraine Is a Homeland of Homelands', The Atlantic (May 2022)
  • 'We Need to Stop Appeasing Putin -- with Our Words', with Thomas D. Grant, The Conversation (April 2022). In Dutch translation: 'Het Westen moet zeggen waar het op staat: Rusland is de agressor', MO*
  • 'Don't Look Away', with Jon Roozenbeek, Politico (March 2022). In Polish translation: 'Prawdziwy cel kremlowskiej dezinformacji nie jest taki, jak myślisz,' Onet.pl.
  • 'How the West Gets Ukraine Wrong', Politico (February 2022). In Ukrainian translation: 'Захід хибно розуміє Україну і цим допомагає Путіну', Mind.ua. In Russian translation, 'Запад неправильно понимает Украину и этим помогает Путину', Mind.ua. In Turkish translation: 'Batı'nın Ukrayna'ya dair yanlış algıları ve yakın tarih', Mepa News
  • 'Handmaidens of Disinformation', Technology, Humanity, Society, Democracy (2020)
  • 'Krimnesia', Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Magazin #2020 (2020)
  • 'A Revolution of Languages, One Hundred Years On', Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (March 2018)
  • 'Reality Check: Ukraine's Multilingualism', Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (January 2017)
  • 'Don't Call It a Civil War: Ukraine's Conflict Is an Act of Russian Aggression', with Thomas D. Grant, The Conversation (August 2015). In Russian translation: 'Не называйте конфликт в Украине гражданской войной', Новое время (26 August 2015)
  • 'Fighting "Crimnesia": The Question of Crimea in the Russia-Ukraine War', Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (April 2015). In Ukrainian translation: 'Поборюючи “кримнезію”: постійне питання Криму в російсько-українській війні', Historians.in.ua (April 2015). Also in Ukrainian as 'Не про Україну...', Всесвіт 5-6 (2015), pp. 225-27
  • 'Ukrainian Studies in Europe: New Possibilities', Journal of Ukrainian Politics and Society (April 2015)
  • 'Navigating the "Arm Ukraine" Debate', Huffington Post (February 2015)
  • 'After Russia's Annexation of Crimea, a Nation under Siege', Huffington Post (September 2014)
  • 'The Crimean Tatar Sürgün: Past and Present', Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (May 2014). In Turkish translation: 'Kırım Tatar Sürgünu: Geçmis ve Bügün', Emel 246 (December 2014)
  • 'A Divided Ukraine: Europe's Most Dangerous Idea', Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (March 2014)
  • 'Ukrainians: Expect-the-Unexpected Nation', Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (December 2013). In Ukrainian translation: 'Українці: сподівано-несподівана нація', Krytyka.com (December 2013). In Russian translation: 'Украинцы: ожидаемо-неожиданная нация', Historians.in.ua (January 2014)
  • 'The Rebels and Risk-Takers of Ukrainian Literature', Huffington Post (November 2012)
  • 'Understanding Katyn', Huffington Post (September 2012)
  • 'Ukraine: Europe's Terra Malecognita', Huffington Post (July 2012)

Teaching and supervision

Supervisor of: 

Ivan Kozlenko

Katerina Sviderska

Dr Daria Mattingly

Dr Jon Roozenbeek

Dr Iryna Shuvalova

Dr Maria Terentieva

Dr Bohdan Tokarskyi

Course contact for: 

Paper SL9: Introduction to the Language, Literature, and Culture of Ukraine

Paper SL10: Studies in Twentieth-Century Ukrainian Literature and Film

MPhil Module SL Nationalism: Literature and Nationalism in Poland, Russia, and Ukraine