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History student wins national Slavic studies paper award E-mail
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Emily Baran of Milwaukee, Wisc., a doctoral student in history in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, won a national paper award for her research on Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Soviet Union after World War II.


Baran, who speaks fluent Russian, won the best graduate student paper award from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. The organization brings together Russian, Eurasian and East European studies specialists from all disciplines. Her paper won the regional award earlier this year.

Baran’s paper examines how the Soviet media portrayed Jehovah’s Witnesses in order to justify to the Soviet public the government’s harsh persecution of religion after World War II. Entire Witness communities were committed to mass exile in Siberia in 1949 and 1951.

“Emily Baran has distinguished herself as an original, imaginative and tenacious researcher,” said Donald J. Raleigh, Jay Richard Judson distinguished professor of history and Baran’s Ph.D. adviser. “She has established invaluable contacts with Russian scholars and Jehovah’s Witnesses organizations in Russia, Moldova and Ukraine. Her work is a virtuoso performance.”

For more on the Slavic studies association, visit http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~aaass/.

Photo: For a photo of Emily Baran, click on http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/releases/baran_emily.JPG

College of Arts and Sciences contact: Kim Weaver Spurr, (919) 962-4093, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it