Contact

➤ LOCATION

School of Historical and Philosophical Studies
Room 516, Arts West (West Wing) The University of Melbourne Victoria 3010

☎ CONTACT

medele@unimelb.edu.au
+61 3 8344 0523

Key Research Areas

Soviet Union in the Second World War, historiography, Stalinism, war and post-war Soviet society, war and displacement, History of veterans (Soviet and comparative), Russian neo-imperialism, Russia’s way of war, KGB prosecutions 1954-1985

Historian of the Soviet Union

Mark Edele is the inaugural Hansen Professor in History at the University of Melbourne. He is a historian of the Soviet Union and its successor states, in particular Russia. He has served as Deputy Head of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies (SHAPS) at the University of Melbourne and as Deputy Associate Dean (academic performance) as well as Deputy Dean and Deputy Dean (People & Planning) in the Faculty of Arts. He was trained as a historian at the Universities of Erlangen, Tübingen, Moscow and Chicago. His publications include Soviet Veterans of the Second World War (2008), Stalinist Society (2011), Stalin’s Defectors (2017), Shelter from the Holocaust: Rethinking Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union (edited with Atina Grossmann and Sheila Fitzpatrick, 2017), The Soviet Union. A Short History (2019), Debates on Stalinism (2020); The Politics of Veteran Benefits in the Twentieth Century. A Comparative History, with Martin Crotty and Neil Diamant (2020); Stalinism at War. The Soviet Union in World War II (2021); Russia’s War against Ukraine. The Whole Story (2023). He is one of the editors of Elements in Soviet and Post-Soviet History (Cambridge University Press).

A history of Russian and Soviet studies at the University of Melbourne is available here and information on the University of Melbourne Research Initiative on Post-Soviet Space (RIPSS) is here.

Reviews

“Standout of all the recent … works to deal with the Russo-Ukrainian conflict of the 21st century. Edele eschews all the standard narratives of history, and indeed exposes them for the cultural manufactures that they are.” The book “demonstrates great expertise, clear writing and a highly theorised understanding of a contemporary issue in European politics that is presented in an accessible and enlightening mode. The author’s voice is strong and clear and his thesis that what we are seeing in this violent war is an example of failed decolonisation of Empire is revealed with telling evidence. This a great read and is truly the ‘whole story’, both the finest scholarship and a major public intervention.”

On Russia’s War against Ukraine, the book won prize of the Australasian Association for European History (AAEH) in 2025.

“A reliable account of this war and the issues surrounding it… a brief but authoritative guide to the historical evolution of Ukraine, Russia, and relations between them…. written in a lively and engaging style.”

Marko Pavlyshyn on Russia’s War against Ukraine in The Conversation.

“[The book] Effortlessly makes sense of the long and complex histories of the two countries [Ukraine and Russia] and their relationships. Some of the historical material is intricate, nuanced and difficult to analyse. Professor Edele writes with clarity and brevity, even if the events described were not. Nor does he shirk the responsibility of an outsider writing for outsiders to examine the evidence and present it objectively… Mark Edele’s densely packed information meticulously weaves  the many threads of history into the events that inhabit our news feeds every day. It should be compulsory reading for anyone wanting to make sense of the forces at play. It is an important book whose relevance is unlikely to be diminished by the passage of events.”

Norrie Sanders on Russia’s War against Ukraine in The Queensland Reviewers Collective.

"A fine, detailed general history of the USSR in 1937-49 … better fits the domestic history of the USSR than do previous works on the subject."

On Stalinism at War, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies.

“[The book] impresses in its ability to integrate individual wartime experiences within the wider sweep of history;” provides “a far more nuanced, complicated, and less Russocentric account of the European War … another of the strengths of this work is its appreciation of the multinational nature of the Soviet state and war effort. … the strength of this account lies in its ability to synthesise military events, political reforms, economic processes, and the experiences of individuals or particular social groups.”

Robert Dale on Stalinism at War in Kritika.

“Stalin’s Defectors is a great introduction to the complex issues of defection and collaboration, and a successful synthesis of different subfields and specializations in history. “ “Edele’s greatest strength is his careful and nuanced evaluation of the sources and the circumstances under which they were collected, and he refrains from unwarranted judgments.”

Helmut Langerbein on Stalin’s Defectors in Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

“This brief review cannot do justice to the sophisticated quantitative and qualitative analysis Edele has produced. This is a highly readable, thought-provoking book that addresses key issues of both wartime defection and loyalty to the Stalinist regime."

Jonathan House on Stalin’s Defectors in Russian Review.

“For those who think that there is nothing new to be said in Holocaust Studies, this book will come as a revelation. Although research into the Polish Jews who spent the war years in the Soviet Union has been steadily growing in recent years, it remains a remarkably under-researched topic. As a result, this volume, with its carefully researched chapters and wide scope, is hugely welcome. Although conceived as a place-holder, promising much more research to come, it represents the state of the art and offers not only an accessible introduction to a much-neglected topic, but also explanations as to why it has been neglected and why that situation is rapidly changing.”

Dan Stone on Shelter from the Holocaust in Patterns of Prejudice.