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Profile Photo

Dr. Katja Bruisch

Ussher Assistant Professor (History)
ARTS BUILDING
      
Profile Photo

Dr. Katja Bruisch

Ussher Assistant Professor (History)
ARTS BUILDING

 bruischk@tcd.ie

 3531896 3192


Ussher Assistant Professor in Modern Environmental History (Trinity College Dublin, since 2016), Research Fellow (German Historical Institute Moscow, 2010 - 2016), Phd (Eastern European History, University of Goettingen, 2013); MA (Eastern European History & Economics, University of Goettingen, 2008).
Project Title
 RePEAT- A Modern Resurvey of Mapped Irish Peatlands to Refine Assessment of Land Use Change and Progress Greenhouse Gas Removal and Emissions Inventories
From
Jan 2022
To
Dec 2024
Summary
Funding Agency
DAFM
Project Title
 Diffuse Water Pollution: NUtrient capture REcovery and reCycling systems (NuReCycle)
From
2021
To
2026
Summary
Funding Agency
Trinity College Dublin
Programme
Kinsella Challenge-based E3 Multi-disciplinary Project Awards

Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
French Medium Basic Medium
German Fluent Fluent Fluent
Russian Fluent Fluent Fluent
Details Date From Date To
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde 2016
European Society for Environmental History 2017
Katja Bruisch, Burning Swamps: Peat and the Forgotten Margins of Russia's Fossil Economy, Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2025, 300pp, Book, IN_PRESS  URL
How Wetlands Entered the Transnational Spaces of Late Soviet Environmentalism in, editor(s)Catherine Evtuhov, David Moon, Julia Lajus , Thinking Russia's History Environmentally, New York, Berghahn, 2023, pp201-221 , [Katja Bruisch], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Reclaiming the Land: The Drainage Paradigm and the Making of Twentieth-Century Rural Europe in, editor(s)Liesbeth van de Grift, Dietmar Müller, Corinna Unger , Living with the Land: Rural and Agricultural Actors in Twentieth-Century Europe - A Handbook, Berlin, DeGruyter, 2022, pp37-60 , [Katja Bruisch and Liesbeth van de Grift], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch, Mensch und Moor in der Moderne: Die Geschichte einer komplizierten Beziehung, Politische Ökologie, 169, (2), 2022, p32-37 , Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch, Nature Mistaken: Resource-Making, Emotions and the Transformation of Peatlands in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, Environment and History, 26, (3), 2020, p359 - 382, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Katja Bruisch, The State in the Swamps: Territorialization and Ecosystem Engineering in the Western Provinces of the Late Russian Empire, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung / Journal of East Central European Studies, 68, (3), 2019, p345-368-, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
Katja Bruisch, Layers of Meaning and Layers of Time in a Former Russian Peat Mining Region, 2019, -, Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED  URL
Knowledge and Power in the Making of the Soviet Village in, editor(s)Liesbeth van de Grift and Amalia Ribi Forclaz , Governing the Rural in Interwar Europe, New York, Routledge, 2018, pp139-163 - [Katja Bruisch], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text
Herrschaft, Ökonomie und Utopie: Russlands ländliche Räume im 20. Jahrhundert in, editor(s)Magdalena Marszalek, Werner Nell, Marc Weiland , Über Land: Aktuelle literatur- und kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven auf Dorf und Ländlichkeit, Bielefeld, transcript, 2018, pp285 - 307, [Katja Bruisch], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 65, 3, (2017), Katja Bruisch; Nikolaus Katzer, [eds.], Notes: [Reconciling Failure and Success: Soviet Elites and the Collectivized Village], Journal, PUBLISHED
  

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Katja Bruisch and Lily Toomey, 'RePEAT: Reimagining Ireland's Peatlands in Precarious Times', NLI and other locations across Ireland, 2025, -, Notes: [https://www.nli.ie/exhibitions-events/exhibition-repeat-reimagining-irelands-peatlands-precarious-times], Exhibition, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch, Review of Power and the Politics of Oil in the Soviet South Caucasus: Periphery Unbound, 1920-29. London: Bloomsbury, 2024, by Sarah G. Brinegar , H-Environment, H-Environment, 2024, Review, PUBLISHED
Umweltgeschichte: Der Mensch im Moor, in, editor(s)Heinrich Böll Stiftung, BUND, Michael Succcow Stiftung, Greifswald Moor Centrum , Mooratlas: Daten und Fakten zu nassen Klimaschützern, Heinrich Böll Stiftung, 2023, pp20-21 , [Katja Bruisch], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch, Review of Black Earth, White Bread: A Technopolitical History of Russian Agriculture and Food, by Susanne A. Wengle , Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 71, (2), 2023, p327-329 , Review, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch, Smouldering past: How a fire event turned me into an environmental historian, 2022, -, Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch and Jennifer Keating, History is Abused to Underwrite Politics of Putin's Russia, 2022, -, Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch and Benjamin Beuerle, Putin's War in Ukraine and Europe's Carbon Democracies: Paying the Price of Half-Hearted Climate Politics, 2022, -, Miscellaneous, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch, Review of Tektonik der Perestroika. Das Erdbeben und die Neuordnung Armeniens, 1985-1998, by Katja Doose , HSozKult, 2021, Review, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch, Review of Istoriia zakreposhcheniia prirodnogo resursa: Lesnoe khoziaistvo v Rossii 1696 - 1802 gg., by Evgeniia Lupanova , Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, 67, (2), 2019, p319-321 , Review, PUBLISHED
Katja Bruisch, Brennendes Erbe: Staat und Nature in der jüngeren Geschichte Russlands, Zeitgeschichte Online, (März ), 2018, Journal Article, PUBLISHED

  


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Award Date
Provost's Project Award 12/2019
Visiting Fellowship 2019/20, Aleksanteri Institute Helsinki 04/2019
Conference Funding, Thyssen Foundation (Co-PI: Alexandra Oberländer, Berlin) 08/2018
ASSBF, TCD 01/2018
Charlemont Travel Award, Royal Irish Academy 03/2017
Grace Lawless Lee Award, Department of History, TCD 06/2017
Visiting Fellowship, German Historical Institute, Moscow 2010
German Research Foundation DFG, Doctoral fellowship 2008-2010
German Academic Exchange Service DAAD 2005-2006
A historian of modern Russia, I am interested in the interplay between social, political and environmental change, particularly in the Russian countryside. My first book dealt with the relationship between politics, science and the public sphere, and the role played by experts in dealing with the "agrarian question" in late Imperial and early Soviet Russia. In my current project, I explore ways to integrate environmental perspectives into the history of the modern Russian economy. Specifically, I trace the transformation of peatlands into hinterlands of industrializing cities and the social and environmental legacies of peat extraction and wetland drainage. Contributing to a more nuanced picture of Russia's industrialization, this research offers new perspectives on the country's pathway into the fossil fuel age and highlights the importance of regional perspectives for understanding the spatial and social dimensions of modern energy transitions.