Dr. Sofia Gavrilova

Sofia Gavrilova is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department for Cartography and visual communication at IfL.

In 2019, she completed her doctoral dissertation at the University of Oxford on the Soviet project of kraevedenie (local studies) and the network of kraevedenie museums. During her first postdoc years, she adapted it into a monograph which presents the first comprehensive research on the rise and fall of the Soviet project of kraevedenie using post-colonial theory, embeds kraevedenie museums within the existing field of cultural and museum studies, and reveals the Soviet tradition of the imposition of “cultural myths” and “common silences” in the exposition of the museums, which are still visible in the post-Soviet permanent displays.

During her postdoctoral years, Sofia focused on the critical history of the geographical and cartographic knowledge production in the USSR and Russia. Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, she began researching the embodied imperialism of the Russian emigration in Tbilisi, Georgia, and how the locals perceive it.