Livadiya Palace, Yalta, 2018

We are delighted to welcome Neil Kent to talk about his research which laid the foundation for his publication Crimea: A History. This is a highly detailed study brilliantly depicting the multi-ethnic and multi-religious character of Crimea, from the time of the Russian Empire, as part of the Soviet Union, post-Soviet times up to the recent annexation of Crimea by Russia.

Neil’s book recounts the history of the Crimea over three millennia. A crossroads between Europe and Asia, ships sailed to and from Crimean ports, forming a bridge that carried merchandise and exchanged ideas and innovations.

Greeks, Scythians, Tartars, Russians, Armenians and Genoese are among those who settled the peninsula since antiquity, a demographic patchwork that reflects its geography. The religious beliefs of its inhabitants are almost as numerous: the Hebraicized beliefs of the Karaim Tartars, Islam, Judaisim, Russian and Greek Orthodoxy, as well as Roman Catholicism. This mosaic is also reflected in places of worship and the palaces which still adorn Crimea: imperial Romanov Massandra, the ‘noble nest’ of Prince Voronzov at Alupca or the Palace of Bakhchisaray built for the Tartar Khan. For some two centuries balmy Yalta and its environs were a veritable Black Sea Riviera, where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met at the end of the Second World War.

Monument to The Yalta Conference in 1945, Yalta, 2018

Neil Kent is al historian with a wide range of research interests, in particular Russia, Ukraine and Crimea. He is currently Associate Professor at the École Speciale Militaire de St-Cyr (France) and also associate at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. He worked for ten years as a Professor of European History and Culture at St Petersburg State Academy of Arts in Russia.

Neil Kent has published a number of books, including St Petersburg (Intercities) Signal Books (Oxford) 2017, and Crimea: A History Hirst (London); Oxford University Press (New York), 2016 among others. He is currently writing a history of the Russian Orthodox church.

He is an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, Academica Press, Washington D.C., and speaks eleven languages, including Russian.

Language: English, Q&As with Russian interpreting, when required.

Entry: £5, free for CamRuSS members

Followed by a drinks reception