History

The Russian Research Center was established in 1948 with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, for the purpose of fostering the comprehensive understanding and multidisciplinary study of Russia and the Soviet union.

The sense of urgency that sparked its creation derived largely from the postwar international situation. The Center's founders believed not only that Russia and Soviet Communism were of great intellectual interest, but also that the training of specialists in this field was vital to deal with the challenge of the Soviet superpower.

The Center provided an environment in which scholars from different disciplines could collaborate fruitfully in order to reach a better understanding of the USSR. It also helped shape standards for scholarship in what was initially an undefined and exotic field of study.

Soviet studies were further invigorated by the burst of public and academic interest in the field in the 1980s due largely to Gorbachev's reforms. Political liberalization in the USSR created exciting opportunities of archival research, surveys, and other types of fieldwork, and multiplied contacts with Soviet citizens, scholars and officials. It also affected the agenda of research and discourse, especially for students, and increased the attention paid by non-specialists.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has raised provocative questions about the past, present, and future of the Russian Federation and other successor states. Processes such as democratization and privatization invite fresh scholarly approaches and full utilization of newly released material.

In April 1996, the Russian Research Center was renamed the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian Studies in honor of the generous support of the Davis Foundation. The current name was adopted in July 2002 to more fully represent the core mission of the Center, which is to advance the study of all countries of the region, beginning with—but not restricted to—the current-day Russian Federation.