Mirela Ivanova
Lecturer in History. Pre-modern Balkans, Russia, Turkey. BBC New Generation Thinker. Social climber🎓. Rock climber 🧗. Loves context.
- Tomorrow at 3pm: David Edgar's brilliant play, the New Real, airs on Radio 4. It offers an origin story of far right populism set in Eastern Europe. It was a joy and privelege to play a small part in this project by doing some translation. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
- Universities continue to brand themselves as 'global' and chase international students whose culture and languages they appear uninterested in. Take a min to save modern langauges at Uni of Nottingham! www.change.org/p/stop-the-r...
- People of Oslo! Come about my book on the invention of the Slavonic alphabet next Wednesday at 4.15pm. Details here: www.hf.uio.no/iakh/english...
- nearly thirty years ago Bill Readings published this prophetic book The University in Ruins. Essential reading today as the sector is on the brink of collapse.
- "LLMs don’t learn except by going through a whole new training process. ChatGPT doesn’t learn from any of the millions of exchanges it has with human users. It can’t afford to [...] it is frozen to prevent it being contaminated by any new knowledge.." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
- Loved this review of Lea Ypi's new book Indignity by @lilylynch.bsky.social - on class, communism, and family in Albania's twentieth century jacobin.com/2025/10/lea-...
- Istanbul folk - @drvukovich.bsky.social and I will be hosting a workshop on the Byzantine and Ottoman heritage of the Balkans in a few weeks at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul! Come join us and our amazing speakers!
- For a full timetable, titles and (free!) registration: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/legacies-o... With thanks to the @britishacademy.bsky.social Small Grant scheme for the funding!
- Excited on route to York for a workshop entitled Multilingual Lives and organised by @emiliekmmurphy.bsky.social and Purba Hossain!
- "the funding freeze has had a devastating effect on civil society in Central and Eastern Europe" Excellent on the various agencies and media organisations fighting for civil liberties and rights in Eastern Europe which have been shut down by the USAID cuts. briefeasterneurope.eu/p/march-31-2...
- Fascinating YouGov poll shows over half of americans 'dislike' the Middle Ages; they like the Renaissance, even more than the Englightenment. Medieval things they do love: castles and chivalry! 16% love the Inquisition. today.yougov.com/entertainmen...
- "The flavour of crisis we are experiencing in UK higher education is far less about malice, and far more about political indifference." www.historyworkshop.org.uk/education/a-...
- "Increasingly desperate, universities have made things even worse by taking the one-size-fits-all advice of a handful of consultancies to cut services in each department and centralise everything from recruitment to IT." www.ft.com/content/0ec7...
- I published a piece in @neweasterneurope.eu on how the history of multiculturalism in the Balkans has been sidelined thanks to nationalism, population exchanges and war.
- Essenial reading for historians of nationalism, byzantium and the theory of territory!
- Very excited that this article is finally out! I hope it'll be of interest to anyone who: 1) is interested in the history of #nationhood & #nationalism; 2) is into the debate over Romanness in "#Byzantium"; & 3) wants to develop critical #Marxist frameworks before & after capitalism. A short 🧵/1
- Just discovered that @bunyaminanderson.bsky.social and I's open access article on the Politics of Byzantine studies has made it onto the Wiki page for the 'Byzantine Empire'! Thanks to the anonymous editor!
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- I second this - actually my favourite of the three!
- Kalyan Minaret (12c.) in Bukhara. The oldest still standing in Central Asia, it was apparently (acc. to local man) spared by Genghis Khan because his hat fell off when he looked up at it. Also apparently (acc. to British spy) it was used for public executions in the late 19th/early 20thc.
- excited to see that @bunyaminanderson.bsky.social and I's aritcle is now in physical print! what is byzantine studies all about?? find out now, open access!
- Reflections Article in our 600th Issue: Mirela Ivanova @mirela.bsky.social and Benjamin Anderson @bunyaminanderson.bsky.social on 'The Politics of Byzantine Studies: Between Nations and Empires' academic.oup.com/ehr/article/...
- Sheffield-area folk who love high quality local journalism: please subscribe to @sheffieldtribune.bsky.social! It's a great paper, and local journalism is more improtant than ever! Plus - an excellent Xmas gift! www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/get-us-over-...
- Amazing to take some of my students to the British Museum exhibition “The Silk Roads”! One highlight - a wall painting from a Sogdian house in Bukhara dated to 709 shortly after the Umayyad conquests.
- This is happening today!
- John Ma's Polis was one of my books of the year for @historytoday.com this year! See my praise: www.historytoday.com/archive/revi... This workshop will be a treat!
- A workshop about my book on the Greek city-state, this Tuesday, in person and on zoom sofheyman.org/events/celeb...
- I'll be talking about my recent book, Inventing Slavonic: Cultures of Writing between Rome and Constantinople in Princeton next Tuesday at 4:30pm for anyone in the NY/NJ area!
- For more info and the link to register: csla.princeton.edu/events/lectu...
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- Congratulations!!
- 🚨 JOB CLAXON 🚨 : Two Post-Docs till Sept 2028 at the @univie.ac.at Cluster of Excellence 'Eurasian Transformations' - Deadline Dec 15. One on Christian identities, the other on Steppe nomads in Central Asia. #medieval #academicjob #medievalhistory
- FIRST POST: Christian identities and the influence of late antique/early medieval Latin Christianity on other forms of identification in a global perspective www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/su...
- SECOND POST: Eurasian steppes, their perceptions and their impact on Europe, for example on identities, on ways to deal with diversity, on the effects of imperial projects or on migration and mobility www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/su...
- Concluding panel at the EurAsia excellence cluster conference in Vienna, on Russia’s management of cultural difference and its ideological repositioning as an Eurasian power.
- @univie.ac.at speaking: Michael Khodarkovsky, @psardor.bsky.social and Violeta Davoliute
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- I literally read Zeynep’e post and instantly thought of you and then bam it’s like I conjured you
- Heading to Vienna for the first conference of their new excellence cluster: EurAsian Transformations! Anyone in Vienna?
- Welcome to everyone new! I will post about: 🏺heritage from Central Asia to the Balkans; 📖 medieval translation and multiculturalims; 🏛️ literature, culture from post-USSR world. Am looking for: interesting new books 📚, films 🎞️, podcasts and news about Liverpool FC ⚽.
- The Samanid Mausoleum in Bukharra (10th c.): oldest funerary monument in Central Asia! Survived almost entirely in tact underground (left). Local man outside told me Genghis Khan didn't destroy it because he was "scared of cemetaries".
- My review of McGeer's welcome translation of the fascinating Continuation of the Chronicle of John Skylitzes is now online in the early preview of Early Medieval Europe with some other exciting papers!
- 📖 Available open access: Ben and I’s review article for the English Historical Review: “The Politics of Byzantine Studies: between Nations and Empires” academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...
- My TedX talk about history, borders, nationalism and my roots and routes around the Balkans is now available online! www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFmm...
- Really looking forward to this symposium on information technologies, graphospheres and their evolution through time to honour the work of the great Simon Franklin in Cambridge next week!
- My book has just been published! Find out about the medieval invention of the Slavonic alphabet, and its various contemporary refractions in nationalist politics!
- This Thursday at 10pm I’ll be live on BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking talking about the first ever Bulgarian novel to win the International Booker! Makes for a perfect Xmas present - tune in!
- Ben and I did a fun podcast about how to de-colonize Byzantine Studies with Anthony Kaldellis which is now available online! www.medievalists.net/2023/10/how-...
- I will be on Radio 3 Free Thinking tonight at 10pm talking about a new book collecting Slavic myths and fairytales. Tune in to hear about how the vampire came form Serbia!
- My first post blue sky on the week of the U.K. publication of me and Ben’s book!
- Grab a copy from Penn State University Press’ website for just over 15£ with the code NR23!
