On June 5, 2025, the Institute of Russian Studies (Director: Prof. Woo-Ik Choi) hosted the 13th IRS Forum in Room 506 of the Graduate School building. The invited speaker was Prof. Michael David-Fox of Georgetown University, a distinguished historian and Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies, who recently published his book Crucibles of Power: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi Rule with Harvard University Press.

In his lecture, Prof. David-Fox examined how the residents of Smolensk, a western border region of the Soviet Union, experienced life under two successive totalitarian regimes: Stalinism in the 1930s and Nazi occupation in the early 1940s. Drawing upon personal memoirs as well as Russian and German archival documents, he presented detailed case studies of how ordinary people survived and adapted under conditions of war and repression.

The lecture provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on the lives of ordinary people in times of terror and war, offering insights that resonate with the suffering of civilians in contemporary conflicts around the world.

Following the lecture, Prof. David-Fox visited HUFS’s History Hall, expressing deep admiration for the university’s academic progress. The Institute of Russian Studies and Georgetown’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies also discussed and finalized procedures for signing an MOU for academic cooperation, which will be formally concluded in the near future.