Not every university provides an opportunity to defend a dissertation in History. But SUSU does! The Dissertation Council accepts candidate and doctoral dissertations for defence both in Russian History (speciality code 5.6.1) and in Historiography, Source Studies, and Methods of Historical Research (speciality code 5.6.5).
The Council was created in 2003, and at its origins stood the specialist in ancient Russian music Nikolai Parfentiev and the researcher of Ural science Viktor Balakin.
The Council is headed by Doctor of Sciences (History) Evgeniy Volkov. The Scientific Secretary of the Council is Maria Miroshnichenko. The Council also includes famous Ural historians from various universities in Chelyabinsk. More than half of them work at SUSU.
Defences of dissertations take place several times a year, once there were 17 of them. In total, in the course of work of the Council 116 dissertations, including 7 doctoral and 110 candidate dissertations were successfully defended.
Last 2024 year, five council meetings took place in May and December.
At the May meeting, Evgeniy Yakovkin (academic advisor Nikolay Podpryatov) from Perm presented for defence a dissertation on the "Interaction of Russian Emigration with Japanese Administration in Manchuria (1932-1945)". As it is known, in the thirties of the last century, Japan had occupied the north-eastern part of China, where it had created the puppet state of Manchukuo. The city of Harbin with a strip of the Chinese Eastern Railway, a railway where Russian white emigres had fled from the Soviet authorities, had also ended up there. The Japanese had organized a Bureau for Russian Emigrants in the Manchu Empire, a special bureau for registering such people, and then had offered them work, including in government and security agencies. Evgeniy Yakovkin examined in detail not only the activities of Russian military personnel (Cossacks, members of volunteer units) who had fought on the side of the Japanese, but also the state of the press, the public, and the spiritual life of the Russian emigration in Manchuria in those years. The Council unanimously awarded Evgeniy Yakovkin the degree of Candidate of Sciences (History).
Another dissertation for the degree of a candidate of sciences was presented in May by Elena Kravchenko, a teaching staff member of the SUSU Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities (academic advisor Olga Nikonova). Her work is related to such a relevant area as the history of childhood in pre-revolutionary Russia. The topic of dissertation is the "Russian Magazines for Children in the Late 19th - Early 20th Centuries: Institutionalization and Evolution of Texts for Children". The following publications, such as Spring (1884), Galchonok (1911-1913), Gymnazist (1915), Soul Word (1877-1918), Mayak (1909-1918), Guiding Light (1904-1918), Rodnik (1882-1917), Student (1910-1914), Young Life (1907-1918), Young Reader (1899-1908), had been considered. Elena Kravchenko had analyzed the genre specifics of the texts published there, the patriotic position of the authors, and aspects of publishing activities. She had paid special attention to "children’s narratives" ‑ letters from young readers published in magazines. The present members of the council also unanimously voted to award Elena the degree of Candidate of Sciences (History).
The next meeting was held in December 2024. Three candidate dissertations were considered at it.
Aleksandra Likhacheva from Yaroslavl (academic advisor Natalia Surzhikova) presented her work on the "Militarized Landscapes of Galicia in the Narratives of Russian Participants in the First World War (1914-1917)". The subject of her research were narratives: descriptions of landscapes by Russian military personnel who had fought on the South-western Front. A wide variety of sources had been used: along with regulatory legal acts, office documents, periodicals, and political essays, sources of personal origin (letters and diaries), as well as photographic documents, had been considered. Aleksandra Likhacheva’s work was unanimously approved by all members of the council.
The work by the teaching staff member of the SUSU Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities Pavel Stromov (academic advisor Nadezhda Korshunova) on "The Creation of Defensive Structures on the Borders of the Russian Empire in the Second Quarter of the 18th - mid-19th Centuries (Based on the Example of Fortification Support of the Orenburg Border Line)" was devoted to the history of Russian colonization of the South Ural region. His work is based on the concept of "frontier modernization", the author had used a large number of documentary and cartographic sources. At the meeting, during an open discussion, the dissertation candidate was supported by a well-known Ural scientist, Senior Research Fellow of the Eurasian Studies Research and Education Centre Gayaz Samigulov and a well-known Chelyabinsk writer Kirill Shishov. The dissertation was approved by an overwhelming majority of votes.
Yulia Savicheva, Deputy Director of Gymnasium No. 53 of the City of Magnitogorsk, presented her work on the "Everyday Life of Women at Defence Enterprises in the Cities of the Chelyabinsk Region during the Great Patriotic War" (academic advisor Marina Potemkina). The dissertation was about female workers of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, Asha Metallurgical Plant, Plastic Materials Plant in Kopeysk, Kirov Plant, the electrode and automatic-mechanical plants of Chelyabinsk and other enterprises. The subject of the study was the "gender structure of defence enterprises": from legislative acts to the description of working conditions and home life. Yulia Savicheva was awarded the degree of Candidate of Sciences (History) by a majority of votes.
The Dissertation Council continues its work and is open to accepting new dissertations in 2025.