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Historisches Seminar
Vassily Klimentov

Vassily Klimentov, Dr.

  • SNF Ambizione Principal Investigator/ Lecturer
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044 634 36 47

Vassily Klimentov obtained his PhD in International History, with a minor in Political Science, from the Geneva Graduate Institute in 2020. Thanks to two grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, he has then worked for three years at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence. He has obtained two more individual grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation, including the Ambizione grant, to conduct research at the University of Zurich starting in 2024. Since 2020, he is also affiliated with the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Vassily Klimentov has taught Bachelor and Master classes in Contemporary History and International Relations at the University of Zurich, the Geneva Graduate Institute, and the University of Fribourg. He is currently supervising a PhD thesis at the University of Zurich. He has supervised seven Master theses at the Geneva Graduate Institute.

Vassily Klimentov graduated with a Bachelor in General History and in Russian Studies from the University of Geneva in 2008, a Master in General History from the University of Geneva in 2011, and an interdisciplinary Master in Asian Studies – a joint program between the University of Geneva and the Geneva Graduate Institute – also in 2011.

Between his Master studies and his PhD, Vassily Klimentov has worked for six years as a humanitarian assesment officer and safety advisor for international humanitarian NGOs. He has notably been posted for two years in the Middle East on the Syrian Crisis.

Research

Vassily Klimentov’s research focuses on politics, security, and memory in Eurasia since 1947. His research has notably dealt with Soviet/ Russian attitudes toward Muslims, Soviet/Russian-Western relations after 1985, and conflicts in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Chechnya. Thematically, his research explores concepts such political violence, the role of ideology in foreign-policy making, the construction of national narratives by the state, and the inter-relation between history and memory.

Vassily Klimentov is currently leading a four-years research project titled ‘A War Without End? The Legacy of the Cold War in Russia’ that looks at Russia’s failed transition to democracy and relations with the West in the 1990s. As part of the 'A War Without End?' project, Vassily Klimentov supervises the PhD ofDaria Khokhlova at the University of Zurich.

He has published articles in Europe-Asia Studies, the Journal of Contemporary History, Cold War History, the Journal of Cold War Studies, Central Asian Survey, Kritika, Small Wars & Insurgencies, and other peer-reviewed journals. He has also written multiple articles for Swiss media and think tanks.

Vassily Klimentov’s book, titled A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists, and Islam, has been published by Cornell University Press in 2024.

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Peer-Reviewed Articles

  • 'Foreign Threat(s): Vladimir Putin’s Securitizations of Separatism, Terrorism, & the West', Europe-Asia Studies, (2025).
  • 'Between the Domestic and the Foreign: The KGB and Soviet Muslims in the Late USSR', Journal of Contemporary History, 60:2 (2025): 318-337.
  • 'Coping with Defeat: The Russian State Duma’s Views of Chechnya After the First Chechen War’. In State-building and Historical Memories in Chechnya, ed. by C. Druey, M. Shogenov, and V. Tanailova, 211-28 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2024).
  • 'Not a Threat? Russian Elites’ Disregard for the “Islamist Danger” in the North Caucasus in the 1990s’, Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 24:4 (2023): 817-838.
  • ‘The Tajik Civil War and Russia’s Islamist Moment’, Central Asian Survey, 42:2 (2023): 341-358.
  • ‘In Search of Islamic Legitimacy: The USSR, the Afghan communists, and the Muslim world’, Cold War History, 23:2 (2023): 283-305.

  • ‘“Communist Muslims”: The USSR and the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan’s Conversion to Islam’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 24: 1 (2022): 4-38.

  • ‘Bringing the war home: the strategic logic of ‘North Caucasian terrorism’ in Russia’, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 32:2 (2021): 374-408.
  • ‘The Allure of Jihad: the de-territorialization of the war in the North Caucasus’, Caucasus Survey, 8:3 (2020): 239-257. (With Dr Grazvydas Jasutis as second author)
  • ‘Out of Reach: How Insecurity Prevents Humanitarian Aid from Accessing the Neediest’, Stability: International Journal of Security and Development, 6:1 (2017): 1-25. (with Abby Stoddard*, Shoaib Jillani, John Caccavale, Peyton Cooke, David Guillemois)

Book Reviews

Media, Think Tanks, and Interviews

Weiterführende Informationen

A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists, and Islam

Mehr zu A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists, and Islam