Natasha Kadlec

Natasha studies the cultural history of the Soviet Union. Her research investigates Soviet narratives on world literature and their interaction with national politics, with a focus on Belarus, Estonia, and Russia. She examines official Soviet cultural/nationalities/language policy and the strategies of individuals who worked within the system to promote competing cultural agendas.

Her dissertation project, ‘Jubileemania: World Literature and Soviet National Politics after Stalin,’ considers these issues through the prism of state-sponsored jubilee celebrations of world authors. Jubilee dates served as planning mechanisms for top-down cultural policy, but these celebrations were also microcosms where questions of the global and the national within Soviet culture(s) were worked out at various levels.

More broadly, Natasha’s academic interests include canonization processes and approaches to literary heritage, the pragmatics of cultural transfer, language policy/sociolinguistics, and the history, literature and culture of modern Belarus, Estonia, and Russia. She has taught courses in Russian language and literature at Harvard.

In 2026-27, Natasha is in residence at the University of Tartu (Estonia) as a visiting research fellow.

M.A. 2020 University of Tartu

B.A. 2018 University of Pennsylvania