Alice Volfson graduated from Connecticut College in 2023 with a degree in government and Slavic studies. Her undergraduate thesis focused on Black American migration to the Soviet Union between the First and Second World wars. She conducted archival research at Yale University’s Beinecke Library, the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the National Library of the Kyrgyz Republic. In her thesis, she was able to trace the history of race consciousness within the Soviet Union and the Communist Internationale and begin to explore the “myth” of Soviet anti-racism in practice. Her current research focuses on the African student exchange programs during the Cold War, the evolution of Soviet applications of anti-racism, and shifting public and private perceptions of race in Soviet society.
Alice Volfson
Graduate Student Associate
A.M. Candidate in Regional Studies—REECA
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