Dr. Alexandr Osipian

Aktuelle Forschungsprojekte

Ukraine’s Industries and Critical Infrastructure before and after the War with Russia: Perspectives for the Reindustrialization and Cooperation between the EU and Ukraine.

Critical infrastructure as a crucial factor in the Russo-Ukrainian war of attrition, 2014-2025

 
Abgeschlossene Forschungsprojekte

1.“Armenische Kaufmannsnetzwerke und Fernhandel zwischen Polen-Litauen, Osmanischem Reich, Persien und Russland in der Frühen Neuzeit.“ (2022-2025). DFG Forschungsprojekt OS 652/2-1

2.“Deindustrialization and its political implications: the armed conflict in the Donbas in comparative perspective.” (Freie Universität Berlin, 2020-2022). Supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

3. “Between the Near East and Eastern Europe: Armenians in Early Modern Eastern Europe.” Supported by Philipp Schwarz-Initiative der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (2017-2020)

4. “Uses of History in Ukrainian Politics: Memory and Identity in the Insurgency in Donbas in 2014.” Supported by Forum Transregionale Studien, Prisma Ukraïna, and Zentrum für Osteuropa und internationale Studien / Centre for East European and International Studies, Berlin (May-June, 2017).

5.“Corruption and Trans-Cultural Trade: The Christian Merchants and the Ottoman Authorities in European Travellers’ Accounts, 1500-1700.” Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, Germany) (June-November, 2016).

6. “Mercantilism and Intolerance: Attitudes to Armenian Merchant Network in Early Modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.” Thesaurus Poloniae program, Międzynarodowe Centrum Kultury, Krakow, Poland (September-December 2013)

7. “Trans-Cultural Trade in the Black Sea Region, 1250-1700: Integration of Armenian Trading Diaspora in Moldavian Principality.” New Europe College, Bucharest, Romania (March-July 2013)

8. “Construction and Deconstruction of National Historical Myths in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland.” Carnegie Corporation of New York, Field Development Project. (The Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES) at the University of California, Berkeley, CA, the USA). (2012)

9. “Uses of History and Regional Diversity in Ukraine’s Elections: the Contested Past as an Electoral Resource.” National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER, Seattle, WA, the USA). (2012)

10. “Economic Pragmatism and Limits of Tolerance in Discourse and Practice: Perceptions about Armenians, Germans and Jews in Polish Towns, 1350-1700.” Deutsches Historisches Institut Warschau (2011)

11. “Memory Politics and Identity Construction in the Borderlands: Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, 1991-2011.” Leader of collective research project. Supported by grant of Center for Advanced Studies and Education (CASE) in cooperation with Carnegie Corporation of New York and ACTR/ACCELS. (2010)

12. “The image of Empire in historical grand-narratives and memory politics in Ukraine: Uses of the past in the context of nation-building.” Grant of Center for Advanced Studies and Education (CASE) in cooperation with Carnegie Corporation of New York and ACTR/ACCELS. (2009)

13. “The past in the relations between the German Catholic community and the Armenian community in Lviv at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century.” Deutsches Historisches Institut Warschau (2008)

14. “Basic topics in the anti-Armenian and anti-Jewish pamphlets from a comparative perspective, 1600-1625.” Grant of “Kasa im. Józefa Mianowskiego” foundation (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland). (2007)

15. “Uses and Misuses of History and Memory in Modern Politics: The Ukrainian Case in European Perspective.” Curriculum Development Competition grant, Central European University, Budapest (2005-2006)

16. “New Perspectives in Historical Writing on Pre-Modern Ukraine.” American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) short-term grant in humanities (2003-2004)

Publikationen in Englisch, Deutsch und Französisch

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4243-2939

Zeitgeschichte und Politik

1. From Donbas to “Novorossiya”: the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict over South-East Ukraine. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2025 (forthcoming)

2. “Novorossiya” in Russian spatial imaginaries from Catherine II to Putin, in: Räume in der Internationalen Geschichte, ed. by Sönke Kunkel, Michael Homberg, Johanna Sackel, Martin Deuerlein, Jonas Klein. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025, pp. 179-201. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783112213278-008

3. Der Donbass, 1991–2014. Politik, Identität und der Weg zum Aufstand, in: Osteuropa 75, 5 (2025): 95-114. https://doi.org/10.35998/oe-2025-044

4. Political justification of territorial expansion from Catherine II to Putin: inventing Novorossiya in imperial and in post-imperial context, in: Politics of pasts and futures in (post-)imperial contexts, ed. by Sebastian Fahner, Christian Feichtinger and Rogier E. M. van der Heijden. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025, pp. 165-195. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111229591-008

5. Straits, Bridges, and Canals: the Black Sea Region and Russo–Ukrainian Conflict 2014-2022, in: Handbook on the History and Culture of the Black Sea Region, ed. by Ninja Bumann, Kerstin Jobst, Stefan Rohdewald, and Stefan Troebst. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024, pp. 721-738. DOI: 10.1515/9783110723175-040

6. Uses of the History of WWII in Russian Foreign Policy, 1991–2022, Globalgeschichte / Global History 2, 1 (2024): 151-179.

7. The decline of the Left, populist mobilization and insurgency in the old industrial region of Donbas, 1991-2014, Totalitarismus und Demokratie 19, 1 (2022): 73-95.

8. World War II Memory Politics in Russia and Ukraine, and Their Uses During the Conflict in the Donbas (Spring–Summer 2014), in: Official History in Eastern Europe, ed. by Korine Amacher, Andrii Portnov, and Viktoriia Serhiienko. Osnabrück: fibre Verlag, 2020, pp. 267-290.

9. Historical Myths, Enemy Images and Regional Identity in the Donbass Insurgency (Spring 2014), Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 1, 1 (2015): 109-140.

10. Regional Diversity and Divided Memories in Ukraine: Contested Past as Electoral Resource, 2004-2010, East European Politics and Societies 26, 3 (2012): 616-642.

11. The Overlapping Realms of Memory and Politics in Ukraine, 2004-2012, Interstitio. East European Review of Historical and Cultural Anthropology, special issue “Politics and Practices of Memory in Eastern Europe” 4, 1-2 (7-8) (2012): 39-60.

12. Why Donbass Votes for Yanukovych: Confronting the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 14, no. 4 (Fall 2006): 495-517.

Frühneuzeitliche Geschichte

1. Contract Enforcement and Predictability in Long-distance Trade: Armenian Merchant Networks between the Middle East and Eastern Europe, 1350–1650, in: How to Ensure Predictability in Legal Pluralism. Merchants and their Interaction in Late Medieval Europe, ed. by Ulla Kypta and Gregor Rohmann. Köln: Böhlau, 2025, pp. 61-100.

2. Material practices as identity markers: Constantinople/Istanbul and its residents in the travelogue of the Russian pilgrim Ioann Lukyanov, 1702, in: Visible strangers: Early modern urban identities, social visibility, and the Mediterranean paradigm, ed. by Filomena Viviana Tagliaferri. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2025, pp. 229-272.

3. Armenian merchant networks in South-Eastern Europe, 1350-1850: mobility, interactivity and adaptability, Progressus. Rivista di Storia. Scrittura e Società 1 (2024): 25-46.

4. Long Distance Trade and Armenian Migration to the Lands of Poland-Lithuania in 1350–1795, Historische Mitteilungen der Ranke Gesellschaft 33 (2022): 155-182.

5. Playing chess with Boris Godunov and living in a guesthouse: Attitudes toward Armenian merchants in early modern Muscovy, in: Foreigners in Muscovy. Western Immigrants in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Russia, ed. by Simon Dreher and Wolfgang Müller. London: Routledge, 2022, pp. 188-205.

6. The Ottoman and Persian Luxury between Fashion and Politics: Armenian Merchant Network and the Making of Sarmatian Culture in the Early Modern Poland-Lithuania, in: The Land between Two Seas: Art on the Move in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, 1300-1700, ed. by Alina Payne. Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2022, pp. 311-333.

7. Uses of oriental rugs in early modern Poland-Lithuania: social practices and public discourses, in: Transottoman Matters: Objects Moving Through Time, Space, and Meaning, ed. by Arkadiusz Blaszczyk, Robert Born, and Florian Riedler. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlag, 2022, pp. 173-217.

8. Debt, Trust and Reputation in Early Modern Armenian Merchant Networks, in: Early Modern Debts, 1550-1700, ed. by Laura Kolb and George Oppitz-Trotman. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020, pp. 155-182.

9. Restraining-encouraging violence: Commerce, diplomacy, and brigandage on the steppe routes between the Ottoman Empire, Poland-Lithuania, and Russia, 1470s-1570s, in: A Global History of Early Modern Violence, ed. by Peter H. Wilson, Marie Houllemare, Erica Charters. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020, pp. 124-141.

10. Performing the Ottoman Threat: Visual and Discursive Representations of Armenian Merchants in Early Modern Poland and Moldavia, in: The Representation of External Threat: From the Middle Ages to the Modern World, ed. by Eberhard Crailsheim, Maria Dolores Elizalde. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019, pp. 155-185. DOI: 10.1163/9789004392427_009

11. Legal pluralism in the cities of the early modern Kingdom of Poland: the jurisdictional conflicts and uses of justice by Armenian merchants, in: The uses of justice in global perspective, 1600–1900, ed. by Griet Vermeesch, Manon Van Der Heijden, Jaco Zuijderduijn. London: Routledge, 2019, pp. 80-102. DOI: 10.4324/9780429022333

12. Voting at home and on the move: elections of mayors and caravanbashi by Armenian merchants in Poland and the Ottoman Empire, 1500-1700, in: Cultures of Voting in Pre-modern Europe, ed. by Serena Ferente, Lovro Kunčević and Miles Pattenden. London: Routledge, 2018, pp. 310-328.

13. The “Invitation” of the Armenians into the Galician Rus’ in the Renaissance Historical Imagination: Sources and their Interpretations in the late 16th – early 17th century Lemberg, in: Armenier im östlichen Europa. Eine Anthologie / Armenians in East Central Europe. (Anthology). Herausgegeben von: Tamara Ganjalyan, Bálint Kovács und Stefan Troebst. Köln: Böhlau, 2018, pp. 231-245.

14. Between Mercantilism, Oriental Luxury and the Ottoman Threat: Discourses on the Armenian Diaspora in the Early Modern Kingdom of Poland, Acta Poloniae Historica 116 (2017): 171-208. https://doi.org/10.12775/APH.2017.116.07

15. Les diasporas marchandes et la notion de commerce illegal: le cas des marchands arméniens dans la Pologne de l’époque moderne, Rives méditerranéennes 54 (numér thématique: Aux marges du marché. Circuits d'échange alternatifs dans les économies préindustrielles) (2017): 59-72.

16. The Construction of Historical Identity among Polish and Armenian Patricians in Lviv, 1570s–1670s, in: Social and Political Elites in Eastern and Central Europe (15th–18th centuries), ed. by Cristian Luca and Laurentiu Radvan. London: University College London, 2015, pp. 65-83.

17. Forgeries and Their Social Circulation in the Context of Historical Culture: the Usable Past as a Resource for Social Advance in Early Modern Lemberg/Lviv, Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal 1 (2014): 95-134. https://doi.org/10.18523/kmhj25714.2014-1.95-134

18. Constructing Noble Ancestors and Ignoble Neighbours: Uses of the Cornelius Tacitus’ “Germania” and “Annales” in J.-B. Zimorowicz’s “Leopolis triplex” (1650s-1670s), in: Latinitas in the Polish Crown and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Its Impact on the Development of Identities, ed. by Giovanna Siedina. Florence: Florence University Press, 2014, pp. 47-67.

19. The Usable Past in the Lemberg’s Armenian Community Struggle for Equal Rights, 1578-1654, in: Memory before Modernity. Practices of Memory in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Erika Kuijpers, Judith Pollmann, Johannes Müller, Jasper van der Steen. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2013, pp. 27-43. (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004261259_003

20. The Lasting Echo of the Battle of Grunwald: the Uses of the Past in the Trials between the Armenian Community of Lemberg and the Catholic Patricians in 1578-1631, Russian History 38, no. 2 (2011): 243-280. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/187633111X566057

21. German Humanist Ioannes Alembek from Lemberg and his ‘Topographia civitatis Leopolitanae’ (1603-1605), in: Berichte und Forschungen. Jahrbuch des Bundesinstituts für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa, Bd. 17 (2009): 39-59.

Mittelalterliche Geschichte

1. Armenian Diasporas between the Golden Horde, Rus’, and Poland: Long-Distance Trade and Diplomatic Services, in: The Routledge Handbook on the Mongols and Central-Eastern Europe, ed. by Alexander V. Maiorov and Roman Hautala. London: Routledge, 2021, pp. 405-424. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367809959

2. Who was Nekomat Surozhanin? An Armenian Merchant in the Big Politics in Eastern Europe in 1375-1383, in: Armenier im östlichen Europa. Eine Anthologie / Armenians in East Central Europe. (Anthology). Herausgegeben von: Tamara Ganjalyan, Bálint Kovács und Stefan Troebst. Köln: Böhlau, 2018, pp. 220-230. DOI: 10.7788/9783412212155.220

3. Practices of Integration and Segregation: Armenian Trading Diasporas and Their Interaction with the Genoese and Venetian Colonies in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, 1289-1484, in: Union in Separation. Diasporic Groups and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean (1100-1800), Georg Christ, Franz Julius Morche, Roberto Zaugg, Wolfgang Kaiser, Stefan Burkhardt et Alexander D. Beihammer. Roma: Viella, 2015, pp. 349-361.

4. Armenian Involvement in the Latin-Mongol Crusade: Uses of the Magi and Prester John in Constable Smbat’s Letter and Hayton of Corycus’s “Flos historiarum terre orientis,” 1248–1307, Medieval Encounters 20, no. 1 (2014): 66-100. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12342157

5. Trans-Cultural Trade in the Black Sea Region, 1250-1700: Integration of Armenian Trading Diaspora in Moldavian Principality, New Europe College Black Sea Link Yearbook (2012-2013): 113-158.

6. Baptised Mongol Rulers, the Prester John and the Magi: Armenian Image of the Mongols Produced for the Western Readers in the mid-thirteenth – early fourteenth Centuries, in: Caucasus during the Mongol Period – Der Kaukasus in der Mongolenzeit, ed. Jürgen Tubach, Sophia G. Vashalomidze and Manfred Zimmer. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2012, pp. 153-168.

Book reviews for Ab Imperio, Slavic Review, Medieval Encounters, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, Ukrainskyi Istorychnyi Zhurnal, Ukrainskyi Humanitarnyi Ohliad, Ukraina Moderna.

Seit Oktober 2025 hat er eine Lehrstuhl (Vertretungsprofessur) für “Entangled History of Ukraine“ an der Europa-Universität Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) (Wintersemesters 2025/2026).

2022-2025 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europas, Leipzig.

2020‒2022 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Osteuropa-Institut der Freien Universität Berlin.

Oktober 2018 bis März 2019 Gastdozent am Gießener Zentrum östliches Europa der Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen.

2017‒2020 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Europas, Leipzig.

2014‒2017 Habilitationsstipendiat der Nationalen Taras-Schewtschenko-Universität Kiew, Ukraine.

1994‒2014 Dozent für Geschichte des östlichen Europas am Institut für Wirtschaft und Gesellschaftswissenschaften, Kramatorsk, Ukraine.

Didaktische Ausbildung:

University of California, Berkeley, CA, Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, CASE/CRRC Field Development Project. October-November 2012

Central European University / Summer University (Budapest, Hungary). July 14-25, 2008

European University Institute (Florence, Italy), Summer Academy (Florence, Italy). June 30 – July 8, 2005

European University Institute (Florence, Italy), Summer Academy (Olympia, Greece). July 1-10, 2004

Central European University / Summer University (Budapest, Hungary). June 30-July 11, 2003

Civic Education Project (Open Society Institute) / Winter School (National University of Lviv, Ukraine). 3-9 February, 2003

Central European University / Curriculum Resource Center (Budapest, Hungary). 19-23 March, 2001

Lehrpreise:

2010 Grant of Center for Advanced Studies and Education (CASE) in cooperation with Carnegie Corporation of New York and ACTR/ACCELS.

2009 Grant of Center for Advanced Studies and Education (CASE) in cooperation with Carnegie Corporation of New York and ACTR/ACCELS.

2005 Central European University / Curriculum Development Competition grant (Budapest, Hungary).

Übersicht der aktuellen Kurse

Mitgliedschaften

Mitglied in der Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)

Mitglied in der Association Internationale des Etudes Arméniennes (AIEA)

 
Funktionen

Mitglied des Redaktionsbeirats der Zeitschrift und der Buchreihe unter dem Namen »Transponticae: the Black Sea Studies«

 
Ausbildung

1988-1993 Studium der Geschichte an der Nationalen Universität Czernowitz, Ukraine.

1999 Promotion an der Nationalen Universität Donezk, Ukraine.