Marianna Petiaskina specializes in the history and policies of the Russian Empire and modern authoritarian regimes that emulate imperial models. Her research encompasses intellectual history, East European, Baltic, and Slavic studies, along with 19th and 21st-century studies and discourse analysis. She focuses on the emancipatory practices of marginalized communities under authoritarian rule, exploring the centralization of authority and the institutionalization of culture. Her current projects examine the politics of Russification of the Western governorates of the Russian Empire through educational reforms, the resistance of communities on the fringes of the Empire to its imperial logics, and anti-Western discourse in the Slavic and East European countries.