2020-21

Nicolas Ingersoll - "Shipping Without Convoy: Informality and Conflicting Visions for Economic Development Through Forced Labor in the Postwar Kolyma River Basin"

Filip Mitričević - “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 Habsuburg 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"