I am a project researcher at the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES, and the School of Social Sciences, participating in a research project called “What does it mean to be a father in Russia? State, civil society and citizen discourses about fatherhood in Russia.”

I cooperate with two colleagues in this project, Johnny Rodin and Pelle Åberg, who study discourses on fatherhood in contemporary North Western Russia. In my own study I put focus on official and public discourse and citizens’ attitudes towards fatherhood in late socialist Soviet Russia in the years 1960-1990. In order to find ideals as well as life experiences I use newspapers, advice books, citizens’ letter to the authorities and interviews. Researching this topic we aim at contributing to international scholarship on masculinity and fatherhood, a topic that, when it comes to Russia, is poorly explored.

I am an Associate Professor in History and my research interests cover Soviet Russian history of family politics and realities, gender relations, further I do research on contacts and connections between Sweden and Russia in the 20th century, such as Emigration of Swedes to Tsarist Russia during fifty years before the Russian revolution in 1917; Swedish-Soviet negotiations on “Exchanging Trade for Recognition” in the 1920s; and Images of Russia in Sweden, as well as other aspects of the relations between the two countries. I have also written articles and edited collection of articles on Soviet revolutionary women’s history and I have translated and published archival lists and documents on relations between Sweden and Soviet Union, foremost from the Second World War and the Cold War periods.

During my twenty years of work at Södertörn University I have participated in various research projects; I was the head of the multidisciplinary project “”Family and the strong state in Eastern Europe: liberation or coercion?”

I have also performed in various administrative and management positions, among them as Director of Studies of the Baltic and East European Graduate School, BEEGS (2002-2009), and as Director of the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES (2010-2013).