This competition is dedicated to the memory of IU Slavic alumnus, teacher, scholar, and administrator Professor Daniel Armstrong (1942-1979). Awards are presented to students for papers written for a class taken during the previous academic year in Russian, East European, or Central Eurasian studies.
The award is given in three categories: a graduate student paper, a Master of Arts essay, and an undergraduate paper. Winners receive a modest monetary prize and certificate of recognition.
The papers are read during the summer by a panel of REEI faculty. The identity of the students submitting the papers will not be shared with the jury. Papers are submitted directly by students, who may submit only one entry per year. Papers must be submitted by the third Friday after the Spring semester final exams week.
Awards are presented to the authors of the winning papers in September at the annual REEI Fall Reception for faculty and students. Only winners will be notified.
Support the Armstrong Award
For information on how to give to the Daniel Armstrong Memorial Research Paper Award, please contact Lindsey Grutchfield at lwgrutch@iu.edu
How to submit a paper for the Armstrong Award
Submit clean copies without comments electronically in .pdf format to Elliott Nowacky, REEI Student Services Coordinator, (enowacky@iu.edu). The author's name should be omitted from all pages.
In addition, please include a single cover sheet in .pdf format with the following information:
Author's name and student ID number
Paper title
Course information (number/title, instructor, semester)
Papers copies will not be accepted.
The deadline to submit entries for the 2024 competition was Friday, May 22nd at 5 p.m.
Past winners of the Daniel Armstrong Memorial Research Paper Award
2020-21
Nicolas Ingersoll - "Shipping Without Convoy: Informality and Conflicting Visions for Economic Development Through Forced Labor in the Postwar Kolyma River Basin"
Filip Mitrievi - "Rethinking Rebellion, Rethinking the Nation: The Central State Holiday in Socialist and Post-Socialist Serbia"
Griffin Edwards - "GRAND PRINCE PUTIN: How and Why Today's Russian State Reminds Us of its Premodern Past"
Anabel Aguiar - "Examining Soviet Representations of Age Through the Theory of the Interval The Films of Dziga Vertov"
2019-20
John DiCandeloro - "A Bouquet of Words The Making of Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani's Dictionary in Persian Imperial Context"
Amanda Lawnicki - "'Abandoned? Not in my neighborhood.' Perceptions of Abandoned Buildings in Tuzla, Bosnia & Herzegovina"
Stuart Sones - "Uzbek Estrada on the World Stage: Navigating Cultural Reform, Institutions, and Soviet Internationalism"
2018-19
Leah Valtin-Erwin - "A Bag for All Systems: Shopping Bags and Urban Grocery Shopping In Late Communist and Early Post-Communist Eastern Europe, 1980 - 2000"
Madeline McCann - "The Neighborhood as a Site of Political Mobilization: Challenging Housing Renovation and Pension Reform in Moscow"
Daniel Schumick - "The Challenges of Containment: Yugoslavia's Role in Truman's Grand Strategy"
2017-18
Samuel Fajerstein - "The Transformation of Puti sel’skogo khoziaistva and the 'Army of Soviet Agronomists.'”
NO MA Essay Winner
NO UG Essay Winner
2016-17
Rebecca Mueller - "Mental Health Reform and Post Socialism in Albania"
Szabolcs Laszlo - "Reclaiming the Hearts and Minds - Thick Description of Cold War Encounters at the Iowa International Writing Program"
No UG Essay Winner
2015-16
Bryan Holyfield - "A Cultural Uniform? Secondary Education and School Culture in Late Imperial Russia"
Kristoffer Hellen - "Shifting Religious Boundaries: Colonial Power, Modernism, and the Re-urbanization of Traditional Volga-Ural Life (1552 - 1917)"
Madeline Steup - "Tangled Web: Expression, Duality, and the Creation of Text in Sasha Sokolov's A School for Fools"
2014-15
Hannah Kay - "Revolutionary Road: Georgia's Difficult Path from Independence to a Functioning Market Economy"
Geoffrey Durham - "Schrodinger's Peasants: Social Transformation in Rural Russia"
Tyler Bonnet - "The Road to NATO - Russian Missile Defense Cooperation"
2013-2014 Sarah Friedline, English/Germanic Studies: "Perception and Adoption of Ethnic Ukrainian Identity through Religious Customs by non-Ukrainians at the St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church" Andrew Jacobs, History: "An Important Role to Play: African Americans and the Soviet Union, 1920-1938" Anna Arays, Russian and East European Institute/SOIC: "Revolution in Reverse: Early Printing and Manuscript Practices in Russia as 'Agents of Change'";
2012-2013 Ilana Miller, History: "Co-opting Tevye: Fiddler on the Roof Productions in Communist Czechoslovakia, 1968-1970" Emily Young, Russian and East European Institute/SLIS: "Alt-SHIFT: Queer Online Discourses on Coming Out in Serbia" Mallory Thayer, International Studies: "Environmental Movements and Class in the Czech Republic"
2011-12 Katie Hiatt, History: "Writing Herself into the Camp Narrative: Gulag Survivor Memoirs of Soviet Women Intellectuals" H. Blake Reinhold, Russian and East European Institute: "Reexamining the Soviet Union's Decision to Invade Afghanistan"
2010-11 Katherine Pruess, Russian and East European Institute: "Krokodil Tears: Ridicule, Praise, and the 'Big Deal'" Justin Classen, History: "A Secret Power: American Multinationals and the Construction of Greater Romania, 1919-1926."
2009-10 M. Benjamin Thorne, History: "The Anxiety of Proximity: The Cultural and Social Origins of the 'Gypsy Question' in Romanian Society During the Interwar Period." Lauren Butt, Russian and East European Institute: "Authentic Bosnia: (Re)constructing Nostalgia in Post-War Bosnia and Herzegovina" Kylie Poulin, Political Science: "Circumstantial Engagement: Soviet Military Intervention in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution."
2008-09 Erin K. Biebuyck, Russian and East European Institute: "The Collectivization of Pleasure: Normative Sexuality in Post-1966 Romania" David Stira, Russian and East European Institute: "Remembering the Baltic Deportations" Alexandra Tipei, History : "How to Make Truth from a File: Private and Public Uses of Secret Archives"
2007-08 Colin Dietch, Russian and East European Institute: "Nation and Regime: Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy in Post-Soviet Belarus and Ukraine" Michael Gold, Spanish: "Restoring Indo-Russian Relations: An Evaluation of Russian Foreign Policy/Strategy" (undergraduate) Ryan Kilgore, Russian and East European Institute: "The Shtetl and Jewish Resettlement in Soviet Cinema in the Interwar Period" Joanna Matuszak, Art History: "Self-Portrayal of a Soviet Artist: The Case of Aleksander Deineka's Self-Portrait of 1948"
2006-07 Colleen Moore, History: "Popular Response to War and Mobilization in Russia in 1914" Kathleen Minahan, Slavic Languages and Literatures/History: "'Political Perestroika'; Interrupted: Education in the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949" (undergraduate) Andrew Ringlee, Russian and East European Institute: "The Military Gymnazia in Reform Era Russia, 1863-1882"
2005-06 Andrew Burton, Russian and East European Institute: "Minority Self-Governance: Minority Representation in Flux for the Hungarian Roma" Nicole McGrath, History: "The Tercentenary Celebrations and the Romanov Identity Crisis" Anna Muller, History: "'To Not Yield Means to Win' Fordoniarki-Stalinist Women Prisoners, the Experience, Sense of Suffering, and Memory of Women Fighters" Jeremy Stewart, Political Science: "An Explanation of Differences in Hungarian and Romanian Responses to Perestroika" (undergraduate)
2004-05 Philip C. Hart, Russian and East European Institute: "Red Dusk? The Defeat of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the 2003/04 Elections" Leslie Lutz, School of Public and Environmental Affairs/Russian and East European Institute: "Russian Nonprofit Tax Law: A Call for Reform" Lyndsay Miles, Russian and East European Institute: "Russo-Georgian Relations and the Impact of the Rose Revolution" (graduate) Sarah Milianta, Political Science: "The Chernobyl Catastrophe: Stalin's Influence and Glasnost's First Test"; (undergraduate)
2003-04 Jennifer Maceyko, Russian and East European Institute: "Political and Cultural Mobilization among Ethnic Minorities in Post-Soviet Ukraine: Russians, Poles, and Hungarians" Matthew C. Curtis, Russian and East European Institute: "Small Nations, Tall Tales: Three Balkan Epics and National Identity in Slovenia, Serbia, and Albania" Siobhan C. Reardon, Slavic Languages and Literatures: "Fascism Under the Blue Star: Constructions of the Holocaust under Khrushchev and Brezhnev" (undergraduate)
2002-03 Mark Betka, School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Russian and East European Institute: "Integration of Polish Farming to the European Common Agriculture Policy: Challenges and Opportunities" Christian Kanig, History: "The Evolution of the Soviet Reeducation Program" Naomi Shulman, English and Jewish Studies: "Moments of Insufficiency: And Analysis of Halkin's Translation of Mendele's The Brief Travels of Benjamin the Third" (undergraduate)
2001-02 Janis Cakars, Journalism and Russian and East European Institute: "Soldiers of the Pen: The Use of Media in the Nonviolent Liberation in Latvia" Christian Kanig, History: "Engineers of the Human Soul: Upravelinie Propagandy" Patrick Kinney, Russian and East European Institute: "National Religions and Religious Nationalities: Complexities of Identity in Communist and Post-Communist Romania"
2000-01 Mustafa Tuna, History: "Gaspirah vs. Il'minskii: Two Identity Projects for the Muslims of the Russian Empire" Angela White, History: "The 'Perfect Compromise': Bernard Singer, Acculturation, and the Polish-Jewish Press"
1999-2000 Donald A. Preuefer, Jr., Russian and East European Institute: "From Throw Weights to Metric Tons: The Radioactive Waste Problems of Russia's Northern Fleet" Nathaniel D. Wood, History: "Becoming a 'Great City': Metropolitan Imaginations and Apprehensions in the Cracovian Popular Press, 1900-1914"
1998-99 George D. Jones, III, History: "Homosexual Identity in the Art of Turn-of-the-Century Russia" Melissa A. Cakars, Russian and East European Institute: "The Tlingit and Aleut Experience in Russian America"
1997-98 John V. Tarpley, History: "Portrait of an Empire: Russian Approaches to Asia in Aziatskaia Rossiia" Katherine H. Currie, Russian and East European Institute: "Nourishment of the Soul: The Importance of Culture During the Siege of Leningrad"
1996-97 Daniel G. Prior, Central Eurasian Studies: "Patron, Party, Patrimony: A Cultural History of Kirghiz Epic from 1856 to the present" Braeson E. House, History: "A History of Significance: The Kuban Cossacks in the Service of the Volunteer Army"
1995-96 David Fisher, History: "Priests of the Marxist Parish? Americanists and American Studies in the Former Soviet Union, 1953-1996" Lynn M. Sargeant, History: "The Social Politics of Music: Revolutionary Legitimacy and Artistic Integrity in the Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories, 1917-1932"
1994-95 David Korfhage, Russian and East European Institute: "Interpretation and Reinterpretation of Rukopis Královédvorský and Rukopis Zelenohorský" Mark C. Temple, Russian and East European Institute: "The Politicization of History: Marshal Antonescu and Romania"
1993-94 John Gaffney, Russian and East European Institute: "A New Era in Russian Relations in Northeast Asia" David Korfhage, Russian and East European Institute: "Social Movements and Democratization: The Case of Civic Reform" Caterina Panos, Russian and East European Institute: "The Hardest Path: A Political Biography of Aleksander Tvardovskii"
1992-93 Richard Terrell, Russian and East European Institute: "Stalinist Interpretation of Lenin's Theory of National Self-Determination" Michaela Pohl, History: "Peasant Women in Soviet Chastushki, 1922-1941"
1990-91 Shoshana Keller, History: "Islam in Soviet Central Asia, 1917-1930: The Struggle for Control" William Raisner, Russian and East European Institute: "The Effect of the Invasion of Afghanistan on Soviet-Pakistani Relations: And Historical Perspective"
1989-90 Virginia L. Clough, Russian and East European Institute: "From Transmission Belt to Spark Plug: The Union of Cinematographers Under Gorbachev"
1988-89 Curt Woolhiser, Slavic Languages and Literature: "Expletive Pronouns in Slavic: Subject or Topic" Vicki Williams, Slavic Languages and Literature: "Towards an Interpretation of Pautina"
1987-88 Robert Montgomery, History: "Aspects of Buriat Nationality Policy: Native-Language Education and Alphabet Reform, 1917 - c.1930" Robin M. Bisha, History: "Disputed Dowries in Imperial Russia"
1986-87 Hal Kosiba, History: "Stalin's Balkans Aims: Turkey, the Percentages Agreement, and the Resumption of the Cold War" Robert Clough, Political Science: "Eastern Europe's Successful and Unsuccessful Policy Choices in the Development of the Computer Industry"
1985-86 Paul E. Richardson, Political Science: "Intervention in Afghanistan: Soviet Motives, Strategy, and Effectiveness" Brendan Kiernan, Political Science: "Lenin's Theory of Imperialism and Soviet Theories of Neocolonialism"
1984-85 Robert Clough, Political Science: "A Critique of Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism A Lesson in Over-Reliance on Two Sources" Steven Merritt Miner, History: "The Brief Resurrection of Maksim Litvinov, May 1939 - June 1942" Mark A. Pearcy, History: "Emperor Karl and Hapsburg Dissolution, 1916-1918" (undergraduate)
1983-84 James Felak, History: "The Slovak State, 1939-1945: How Independent Was It?" Marina Ashanin, Journalism: "Self-Management in the Post-Tito Press: Who's Managing Whom?"
1982-83 Catherine Albrecht, History: "Savings Banks in Bohemia, 1852-1900" Vincent Kirk Bennett, Slavic Languages and Literatures: "Soviet Historiography and the question of Russian Colonization of Turkestan"
1981-82 Paul Latawski, History: "The Anglo-Polish Dispute on the Disposition of Eastern Galicia, 1918-1919" John Norman, History: "Snegurochka: The Odessy of a Folk Tale"
1980-81 Stefan Troebst, History: "Some Aspects of Anti-Semitism in Bulgaria, 1878-1912" Roger Kodat, Kelley School of Business: "Evaluating the Rush Succession Model: An Empirical Analysis of Political Succession in Postwar Czechoslovakia"
Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute resources and social media channels