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, focusing 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 cultural transfer and publication practices, Soviet approaches to literary heritage and canonization, language policy/sociolinguistics and the culture, history and literature of modern Belarus, Estonia and Russia. She has taught courses in Russian language and literature at Harvard.

Natasha is a 5th year PhD student in 2025-2026. She is currently 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