Emory’s Tam Institute for Jewish Studies (TIJS) published a feature story on recent doctoral graduate student Anastasiia Strakhova, whose work TJIS supported throughout her graduate career. Strakhova completed her dissertation, titled “Selective Emigration: Border Control and the Jewish Escape in Late Imperial Russia, 1881-1914,” in 2022 under the advisement of Dr. Eric Goldstein and Dr. Ellie R. Schainker. This spring Strakhova is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Jewish Studies at Duke University. Read an excerpt from the TJIS feature below, along with the full article: “Recent TJIS Graduate Highlight: Anastasiia Strakhova.”

“My research interest evolved gradually,” Dr. Anastasiia Strakhova explains when asked about her scholarly development. After getting her BA in her home city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, and then her MA from the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, Dr. Strakhova traveled to the United States to continue her education. While studying Yiddish in New York, Dr. Strakhova found her curiosity about Jewish migration. “I was so fascinated about the attachment that Jews felt to the United States, and the romanticization of the old country… And then I got very interested in seeing the archives and reading about the way that people were living [at that time in history].” Dr. Strakhova’s dissertation addresses late Imperial Russian migration policies through the prism of racialization and criminalization of Jews.