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Aleksander Osipov ([email protected])

Alexander Osipov is a postdoctoral fellow at the Karelian Institute, the University of Eastern Finland. He received his diploma in history (2002) and Candidate of Sciences degree (2006) from Petrozavodsk State University, Russia. He completed his PhD at the University of Eastern Finland in 2022.
His research interests have ranged from the 19th century Finnish migration and the Russian Civil War to post-Soviet decolonization and environmental history. He is presently examining state-building processes and strategies in the post-Soviet space from an environmental history perspective. His study explores the role of natural landscapes in state-building in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Anna Kinnunen ([email protected])

I am a folklorist and cultural researcher specializing in cultural studies in mental health. In my doctoral dissertation (2020) I examined cultural conceptions and vernacular models of thought related to mental illness. I have also conducted research on old age and dementia. From 2016 to 2019, I worked in the research project Between the Normal and the Abnormal – Cultural meanings of Dementia and Old Age in Finland and Russia, funded by the Kone Foundation. The project resulted in the edited volume Babuškoja, teräsvaareja ja digisenioreita (eds. Kinnunen, Könönen & Vakimo 2022), which explores experiences of ageing and cultural imaginaries related to old age in Finland and Russia.

I work as a university lecturer in folklore studies in the degree programme of cultural studies. In addition to folklore studies, I teach common core courses in cultural studies and supervise theses in both folklore and cultural studies. I am also responsible for the study module Terveyden monikulttuuriset ulottuvuudet (Multicultural Dimensions of Health, 25 ECTS), which introduces students to cultural aspects of health, illness and well‑being across different populations and sociocultural contexts. Among other things, I am in charge of the courses Kulttuurinen mielenterveystutkimus (Cultural Mental Health Studies) and Vernakulaari terveyskulttuuri (Vernacular Health Culture). I have received the Good Teacher Award granted by the cultural studies student association Nefa in 2023 and 2024.

Anna Laakkonen ([email protected])

I defended my doctoral dissertation in the field of Finnish history at the University of Eastern Finland in September 2025. In my dissertation, I study how Finns operated as part of the Soviet press in Soviet Karelia during the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to press activities, my research also addressed ethnic relations in Soviet Karelia, changes in the language used in propaganda, the relationship between Moscow and Soviet Karelia, and the mechanisms of Stalin’s terror. My doctoral dissertation was completed in close collaboration with the researchers of the Finns in Russia 1917–1964 project at the National Archives of Finland.

From 2024 to 2025, I worked as a ERC research assistant in the international project The Age of Civil Wars in Europe, which investigates the transnational connections of European civil wars. The project is coordinated by University College Dublin and funded by the European Research Council.

Currently, I am writing a non-fiction book about Finnish journalists in Soviet Karelia, based on my dissertation. The project is funded by The Committee for Public Information, the Karelian Cultural Society, and the Association of Finnish Nonfiction Writers.

I will begin a two-year postdoctoral research project titled Punalippu (Red Flag), Glasnost, and the History of the Finns in April 2026. I study how the history of the Finns in the Soviet Union was remembered and written about in the Finnish-language newspaper Punalippu, which was published in Petrozavodsk, the capital of Soviet Karelia, during the years of glasnost. The project is funded by the Kone Foundation.

 

Between the Normal and the Abnormal – Cultural Meanings of Dementia and Old Age in Finland and Russia (DemOldCult)

The study focuses on perceptions and representations of old age and dementia. The main aim of the research project is to make visible those cultural practices and discourses that produce marginalising stereotypes and stigmatise aging people, by means of deconstruction and critical approach. The examination of two cultural spheres, Finnish and Russian, both together and apart, will help in discovering and deconstructing cultural stereotypes.

Christopher Asquith ([email protected])

Dr Asquith first completed a BSc and MSc in Chemistry at the University of Southampton. During this time, he worked for Prof. A. Ganesan on novel asthma targets and epigenetic prostate cancer modulators, which included a 3-month placement abroad at the University of Eastern Finland. He then went on to do a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry at University College London under the supervision of Dr S. Hilton, working on zinc abstractors as a treatment for retroviral infections. This work was part of a broad international Consortium including the University of Zurich, Switzerland and Zelinsky Institute, Moscow, Russia and others, targeting the nucleocapsid protein of FIV/HIV. Subsequently, he continued his interest in innovative ring systems with a short stay at the University of Cyprus working with Prof. P. Koutentis, before joining the Structural Genomics Consortium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working on chemical probe development for kinases with Prof. T. Willson. This was followed by a move to the School of Medicine to work as the lead medicinal chemist on the Illuminating the Druggable Genome (IDG) kinase program working with Prof. G. Johnson. Starting his own research team, he moved to the University of Eastern Finland to start a medicinal Chemistry program, working on novel kinase indications and understanding kinase solvation shells as a prognostic marker for Kinome wide inhibitor promiscuity.

Dawid Bunikowski ([email protected])

I am a legal philosopher of Polish descent, residing in Eastern Finland (North Karelia, Joensuu). I did my PhD in Poland in 2009 (on law and morality: abortion, euthanasia, human fertilisation, cloning, pornography, prostitution, same-sex couples, etc.). I did different postgraduate studies in: 1) human resources management, 2) economics, 3) MBA-sustainable and inclusive leadership, 4) Jews in Poland, 5) Diploma in iure matrimoniali et processuali/Canon law for lawyers. I carried out my postdoctoral research at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF, School of Law), in 2013-2015 (on the recent global financial crisis as an axiological crisis: the crisis of law and the crisis of morality; business ethics/corporate governance). My Docent title was granted by the University of Lapland in 2022 (in the field of philosophy of law in the Arctic).

I am Associate Member at the Oxford University: https://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-dawid-bunikowski/

I have been a Visiting Researcher at the UEF School of Theology since 2020. Additionally, I am a University Professor at the State University of Applied Sciences in Wloclawek (Department of Administration) in Poland. I am a Lecturer at the University of Guyana (Department of Law) in Guyana. I am a former Visiting Professor at Carleton University (Department of Law and Legal Studies) in Ottawa, Canada.

I am a law and religion scholar. I work on state church relations, religious freedom, Catholicism and Judaism, but also on relations between law, morality and religion. My main research interests concern as well: law and morality, law and politics, law and society, law and anthropology, law and language, etc. Much of my research has covered indigenous cultures in the Arctic like customary laws, recognition of indigenous rights or protection of sacred sites. I am also to ethical foundations of economy.

Moreover, I do “all things Polish”.

While in the School, I teach:

I also taught here (2022/2023):

  • “Jews and Judaism in Poland, Russia, the Baltic countries and East Central Europe”,
  • “Ukrainian-Polish relations: history, politics, culture, law, religion”.

Moreover, while in social sciences (2023/2024), I am the coordinator of the YUFE course “Global Migration and European Identity” and have taught “Populism in East Central Europe”.

Evgenia Amey ([email protected])

My research focuses on contemporary culture, media, language, place and society; topics I have studied include literary and media tourism, narrativisation of space, digitalisation, media consumption, spatial engagement with fiction, environmental storytelling, fan cultures and belonging. I work as a postdoctoral researcher in the project ‘Kieliviha/ Språkhat – a multidisciplinary study on hate speech directed at linguistic minorities in Finland, Sweden and Russia’ (Kone Foundation 2024-2026).

Gleb Iarovoi ([email protected])

Having defended my Russian “candidate of science” dissertation in 2007, I am currently writing my “European” PhD thesis, which was devoted to cross-border governance on the EU-Russian border, participatory arrangements in cross-border programmes and the role of non-state actors in inter-regional cooperation. However, after Russian invasion of Ukraine there is no more “cross-border cooperation” and “cross-border governance” on the EU-Russian border. So my current research is being revisited towards exploring the “subaltern geopolitics” of the Finnish-Russian border, i.e. the geopolitical imagination of subaltern groups having direct or indirect relations to this border. Also, as a research hobby and a natural scope of interest, I study academic freedoms in Russia (and Russian academia as subaltern).

As a freetime hobby, for many years now, I do journalism. Previously, I reported on sensitive issues of Russian political and social life, such as human rights violations by the state, by the Russian Orthodox Church, by security agencies and courts. Currently, I cover different issues of the Finnish-Russian relations for Russian readers.