Professor of Russian History, Author
Dr. Lynne Viola, a specialist in twentieth century Russian history who speaks Russian fluently, is a 1973 graduate of Nutley High School. Her focus on political and social history guides her research interests which include women, peasants, political culture and Stalinist terror. She is the author of more than 30 articles; four books including “The Best Sons of the Fatherland: Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization” (1987), “Peasant Rebels Under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant Resistance” (1996), “The War Against the Peasantry, 1927-1930” (2005), and “The Unknown Gulag: The Lost World of Stalin’s Special Settlements” (2007); and the editor or co-editor of more than six additional studies including the five-volume “The Tragedy of the Soviet Countryside, 1927-37: Documents and Materials” series for the Yale University Press Annals of Communism.
In a glowing review, “The Nation,” a periodical that seldom reviews books and has a reputation for exacting criticism of the few it chooses to discuss, stated, “Marked ‘top secret’ throughout the Soviet period, these records [of peasant exiles forced into labor in northern gulags] were declassified in the 1990s. Using them with great sensitivity and skill, Lynne Viola, a leading scholar of the Soviet peasantry, has created a monument to the residents of Stalin’s lost settlements. Her book, ‘The Unknown Gulag,’ is an indictment of the utopian folly and criminal neglect of Soviet officials, and a moving account of human suffering.” (Source: “The Nation,” 3/3/2008)
Dr. Viola is currently a professor in the Department of History, University of Toronto. She received her Bachelor’s Degree from Barnard College, Columbia University (1978), a Master’s Degree from Princeton University (1980), and a Ph.D. from Princeton University (1984). Her doctoral thesis, “The Campaign of the 25,000ers: A Study of the Collectivization of Soviet Agriculture, 1929-31” was supervised by Cyril E. Black.
Prior to her appointment as a professor of history, Dr. Viola served at the University of Toronto as Associate Professor (1989-96), and Assistant Professor (1988-89). In 2008, she served in cross-appointments to Munk Centre for International Studies. She was appointed to the Graduate School, University of Toronto in 1989. She also taught at the State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of History, 1985-88 as Assistant Professor. From 1984-85, she served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University, Russian Research Centre.
Among her many honors, Dr. Viola is listed in “Canadian Who’s Who” for 1996-2008, received the University of Toronto Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award (1997), the Dean’s Excellence Award (1997, 1998 and other years), the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize, Honorable Mention for “Peasant Rebels Under Stalin” (1997), a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2003), a Killam Research Fellowship (2004 and 2005), and Honorable Mention for “Best Book by a Woman in Slavic Studies,” Heldt Prize, Association of Women in Slavic Studies for her book “Unknown Gulag” (2007).
Dr. Viola has been awarded the Fowler Hamilton Visiting Research Fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford for 2010. She has been the recipient of 26 additional research awards.
Dr. Viola is currently in the early stages of three new projects, each planned as a book: a comparative study of the gulag and the Nazi concentration camps, a study of the question of the perpetrator in Soviet history, and a collection of essays on political violence in the 1930s. (Sources: “Faculty Profile” Department of History, University of Toronto, www.chass.utoronto.ca/history, 12/12/2008; “Curriculum Vitae” Lynne Viola; Nutley Hall of Fame Nomination, Joanna Conrad, 2009).