Professor Marianna Muravyeva

I have been engaged in socio-legal research and policy activities with public and voluntary sector organisations since 1996. I have worked as a researcher, trainer and professor for academic and non-academic agencies and projects, including the UN (UNDP program in Central Asia), NGOs (including women’s shelters in St. Petersburg) and a number of universities in Russia, Finland, the US and the UK. My research and policy engaged projects include those sponsored by the EC, US State Department, Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils, Finnish Academy and Dutch National Research Organisation.

My research is interdisciplinary, bringing together history, social sciences and law to examine long-term trends and patterns in social development, with a special focus on normativity, gender and violence. Some of my most recent projects focus on family violence (violence against parents and domestic violence), the history of crime (homicide and, particularly, femicide), legal history, gender history, and history of sexuality. Currently, I am focusing on the study of everyday uses of law based on empirical data from Russian courts and how it contributes to thinking about rule of law and better governance.

I am a founding member of the Russian Association of Women’s Historians (RAIZhI) and co-chair of the Women and Gender Network of the European Social Sciences History Conference. I am also an editor for the Palgrave book series World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence and a member of a number of editorial boards, including for the Russian Law Journal and Comparative Legal History.

Marianna Muravyeva: Research outputs, projects, activities

Contact:

Phone: +358294122817

Email: marianna.muravyeva@helsinki.fi

Dmitry Kurnosov, Carlsberg Fellow, University of Helsinki

Dmitry Kurnosov joins the Development of Russian Law Team for the next two years as a Carlsberg Internationalization Postdoctoral Fellow. He will be working on the project ‘Evaluating the Efficiency of Electoral Rights under the European Convention: A Cross-Regime Perspective’. Specifically, Dmitry will study how the election jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights impacts the development of law, resolution of electoral disputes and election administration in Finland, Denmark, and several Post-Soviet countries,

Dmitry Kurnosov holds a PhD in Law from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD in Political Science from St. Petersburg State University. Prior to becoming a researcher, Dmitry has for several years been a Deputy Spokesperson of the Russian Constitutional Court.

Contact:

Email: dmitry.kurnosov@helsinki.fi

Larisa Shpakovskaya, Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki

Larisa Shpakovskaya, PhD, post-doctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. She has a long experience of studying social policy, child welfare reforms and social inequality in Russia. Her previous positions were: senior researcher, Sociological Institute, Russian Academy of Science, St Petersburg (2019-2021) and Associated Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg (2009-2019). In 2021-2022 she received a mobility grant form the Academy of Finland mobility scholar and worked for the project: “Academic Migration from Russia to Finland: institutional cultures, gender and race”. She also participated in the international research project “Aging and sexuality: transformation of intimacy in transnational perspective”, Väestöliitto (Finland), 2022.

Dr Shpakovskaya’s current research interests are related to migration, aging and gender with special attention to care, health, union formation, belonginess, including social effects of migration legal regulations and border regimes . Larisa Shpakovskaya is the author of more then 60 scientific articles in academic volumes and journal, and two books.

Email: larisa.shpakovskaya@helsinki.fi

Evgeny Shtorn, PhD candidate, University of Helsinki

Evgeny Shtorn is a PhD candidate in the University of Helsinki. He is a writer, activist, and researcher. Shtorn was born in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. In 2000 he moved to St. Petersburg, where he studied in LETI – St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University and in HSE – Higher School of Economics. For over 6 years Shtorn was working for the Centre for Independent Social Research, one of the oldest Russian independent think-tank, he was also collaborating with RIC Memorial and Russian LGBT Network. As a social researcher Shtorn is particularly interested in LGBT and queer studies, historical memory and human rights. Due to this work, he was forced to leave Russia in 2018. In 2019, he was granted international protection in the Republic of Ireland.

Evgeny’s writing has been published in academic journals, anthologies, and new media outlets in Russia, Spain, Germany, and Ireland. As an activist, he has been involved in human rights and LGBTIQ+ advocacy for almost two decades. In 2020, in recognition of his efforts Shtorn was awarded the GALAs Person of the Year by the National LGBT Federation of Ireland (NXF). Since 2022 Evgeny’s has been working on his PhD under the supervision of Professor Muravyeva and joined as part of DRL team.

Email: evgenii.shtorn@helsinki.fi

Yuliya Brin, Planning Officer, University of Helsinki

Yuliya Brin hold a master’s degree from Turku University in Comparative Law and is currently a master´s student in the MARS program at Aleksanteri Institute. Her topics of interest are related to the issue of implementation of the Istanbul Convention in the post-Soviet space.

She has been a part of the Development of Russian Law Team since February 2022. Yuliya runsthe webpage and helps in coordinating the events for post soviet legal choices project. In addition, she creates the newsletters, social media posts and facilitates communication with the partners and members of the Development of Russian Law community.

Aleksandra Butko, Research Assistant, University of Helsinki

Aleksandra Butko is a student at the University of Helsinki Master’s Programme in Global Governance Law. She has experience of working as a research assistant at HSE Moscow Laboratory of International Justice where she studied the influence of international human rights mechanisms on Russian legal system and the implementation of their decisions by the Russian authorities. She also worked for International Memorial as a lawyer involved in the project “the Children of GULAG” dedicated to the restoration of the housing rights of children of the Stalin’s repressions victims and as a coordinator for Free University, an independent online educational project in Russian language.

Sasha joined the Development of Russian Law Team in December 2023. Her main research interests are intersecting rights and vulnerabilities of diverse populations, including but not limited to women, LGBTQ+ people, individuals with medical conditions, people of color, and other communities, as well as ECHR law and ECtHR jurisprudence.