Dr Victoria Donovan

Dr Victoria Donovan

Senior Lecturer
University of St Andrews

Victoria Donovan is a Senior Lecturer in Russian at the University of St Andrews. She is primarily interested in questions of cultural memory politics, national and local identity (trans)formations, visual culture, and Soviet and post-Soviet culture and history. Victoria’s current research explores the visual heritage of industrialization with a focus on Ukraine’s heavily industrialized Donbas region. Placing the Donbas case in a comparative research frame, her work underlines the common experiences and challenges faced by post-industrial regions across Europe and demonstrates industrial heritage’s potential for generating new thinking about post-industrial regions and fostering new forms of creativity. She has collaborated on a number of projects in this area, including the Carnegie Trust-funded Enthusiasm (2017-2018), the GCRF-funded De-Industrialization and Conflict in Donbas (2019), and the House of Europe-funded (Un)archiving (Post-)industry (2020-2021). This work has enhanced industrial archival collections (through digitization and institutional transfers); strengthened the networks and capacities in the industrial heritage industries (through collaborations and knowledge exchange); stimulated new forms of creativity around (post-)industrial themes (musical compositions, photography exhibitions, film); and improved public awareness of (post-)industrial history and heritage (through public-facing arts events, print media coverage and radio broadcasts on project themes).

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