The Centre is home to a range of excellent young scholars working on Eastern Europe and/or Eurasia. Their work is located within academic disciplines such as Anthropology, History, Political Science and Sociology and, in some cases, is interdisciplinary.
This broad range of research activity is supported by national and international funding bodies such as the Irish Research Council the Jean Monnet Programme of the European Union, the National University of Ireland and the Open Society Foundations. Within Maynooth University scholars are associated with the Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute (MUSSI) and the Maynooth University Arts and Humanities Institute.
The Centre welcomes research proposals from individuals interested in doctoral work on themes related to the European Union, Eurasia and Wider Europe, in Anthropology, History, Political Science, and Sociology. Inter-disciplinary proposals will also be considered.
For more information contact:
Professor John O’ Brennan ([email protected]) or Dr. John Paul Newman ([email protected])
Blasco Sciarrino is a doctoral student enrolled in the Comparative History Program of the Central European University (CEU), in Budapest https://www.ceu.edu/ . His work focuses on the processes through which Great War veterans were integrated into the Italian and Romanian political systems, between 1918 and 1945. His research interests include state policies for veterans, fascism, transnational political entanglements and cultural diplomacy. Blasco is being jointly hosted by the Maynooth University Department of History and Maynooth Centre for European and Eurasian Studies, and will be writing a relevant part of his doctoral dissertation at Maynooth, which concerns the political activism of Italian and Romanian Great War veterans, between 1918 and 1945.
Aideen Elliot is a PhD candidate co-supervised by Dr. Mark Maguire (Dean of Social Sciences, Anthropology) and Prof. John O’Brennan (Sociology). Aideen received her MA in Social Anthropology of Development from SOAS, University of London, where she conducted research on anti sex-trafficking policy. Her PhD research 'Beyond the Borders: EU Migration Policy Making' is funded by the Irish Research Council (IRC) Government of Ireland Scholarship. Her study uses extensive fieldwork in Brussels to examine EU migration policy from the perspectives of the policy makers and influencers, exploring the ways in which migration policy is perceived, conceived and lived by those charged with policy making and professionally implementing it.
Keith Harrington is also engaged in PhD research, supervised by Dr. John Paul Newman and Professor John O’Brennan, which examines the causes of the conflict between Moldova and its separatist territory Transnistria, which unfolded between 1989 and 1992. The research focuses specifically on the linguistic dimension of the conflict. Keith holds a particular interest in the dynamics of separatism and separatist movements and so-called ‘frozen conflicts’. He holds an honours degree in History from Maynooth University and in 2018, he was awarded the prestigious NUI Travelling Studentship in Humanities and Social Sciences http://www.nui.ie/awards/travelling_Studentships.asp to support his work on Moldova-Transnistria.
Sandor Magyarosi is a third-year PhD student located in the Department of History, under the supervision of Dr. John Paul Newman. He completed an MA in Central European History at the Central European University, Budapest, and a second MA in Military History and Strategic Studies at Maynooth University. His research interests include aspects of both the First and the Second World War, the experiences of rank-and-file soldiers on the eastern front, as well as the history of nationalism and state socialism in Eastern Central Europe.
Oleg Chupryna is currently enrolled in the PhD programme, under the supervision of Professor John O’Brennan in the Department of Sociology. The title of his dissertation is ‘Discourses of civil society in the process of democratisation in post-totalitarian Ukraine’. In his research, Oleg seeks to understand the role of civil society in Ukraine in the post-Communist transition era and the nature of democratic transformation since the early 1990s. This work interrogates the historic and cultural roots of civil society in Ukraine, how specific civil society discourses emerge from various internal and external forces and how these discourses contribute to understandings of democracy, institutional checks and balances, and elite-society interactions. His academic career began in Ukraine where he studied History and Social Sciences at Kharkiv Karazin National University. After having completed his studies, Oleg worked as an assistant professor of Politics and Modern European History at the TUCA State University of Kharkiv http://www.univer.kharkov.ua/en Subsequently, he moved to Ireland where in 2016-2017 he completed the HDip. in Further Education at Maynooth University and is fluent in English, Spanish, Russian and Ukrainian.
Dr. Dilyana Kiryakova-Ryan successfully defended her doctoral thesis in February 2018. Dilyana is from Bourgas, Bulgaria and her research focuses on civil society in Bulgaria analysed through the lenses of Europeanisation theory. The PhD thesis examined the landscape of civil society in post-Communist Eastern Europe and posits a ‘bottom-up’ perspective on contours of change within the Bulgarian social milieu (External Examiner: Professor Ben Rosamond, University of Copenhagen). A graduate in philology from Sofia University, Dilyana holds MA degrees from Leiden University and Trinity College Dublin. She also worked for the United Nations International Development Organisation (UNIDO) in Istanbul.
Sven Milekić is engaged in doctoral research on Croatian war veterans from the 1990s ‘Wars of Yugoslav Succession’ in the Department of History. His project is entitled “Defenders of the Homeland: How Croatian Veterans of the War of the 1990s Kept the Dominant War Narrative Alive“. His research interests include conflict resolution, the politics of memory and memory studies in general, historical revisionism, nationalism, and transitional justice. Sven has worked as a reporter and later Coordinator, for the Balkan Transitional Justice Programme in the regional media network Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) http://birn.eu.com/ He also worked as the Coordinator of the Transitional Justice Programme in the Zagreb-based NGO, Youth Initiative for Human Rights. Sven is a graduate of political science at the Faculty of Political Science on the University of Zagreb https://www.fpzg.unizg.hr/en/about_us
