Geoffrey Alan Hosking (born 28 April 1942) is a British

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and formerly Leverhulme Research Professor of Russian History at the

School of Slavonic and East European Studies The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES ) is a University College London#Faculties and departments, school of University College London (UCL) specializing in Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and South-Easte ...

(SSEES) at

University College, London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. He also co-founded

Nightline ''Nightline'' (or ''ABC News Nightline'') is ABC News (United States), ABC News' Late night television in the United States, late-night television news program broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC in the United States with a franchis ...

Education

Born in Troon,

Ayrshire Ayrshire (, ) is a Counties of Scotland, historic county and registration county, in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. The lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area of Ayrshire and Arran covers the entirety ...

, Scotland, Hosking studied Russian at

King's College, Cambridge King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...

, earning an MA, before studying

Russian history The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' people, Rus' state in the north in the year 862, ruled by Varangians. In 882, Prin ...

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

. He then studied European history at St. Antony's College, Oxford, before earning a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in modern Russian history at Cambridge.

Career

He taught at the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, it is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. The university comprises three camp ...

as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and then Reader from 1966 to 1984, before joining SSEES, where he held the established chair of Russian History from 1984 to 2007. He also held a Leverhulme Research Professorship in Russian History at SSEES from 1999 to 2004. He has been a visiting lecturer in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

, a research fellow at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

's Russian Institute, and a visiting professor at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...

. Hosking presented the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Reith Lectures in 1988. His aim was to explain the dramatic changes of the

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

era in their historical context. Most of Hosking's works until this point had dealt with twentieth-century Russia and the Soviet Union, but after the collapse of the Soviet system he turned his attention to earlier periods of Russian history, producing ''Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917'' and ''Russia and the Russians''. In these books, Hosking emphasized the polarity between the Russian Imperial idea (denoted by the term 'Rossia') and Russia's ethnic nationhood (defined by the older term of 'Rus'). According to Hosking, the development of the Russian Empire prevented the development of Russia as a nation state. In his next book ''Rulers and Victims - The Russians in the Soviet Union'', Hosking examined aspects of this polarity in the Soviet context. Hosking retired from UCL SSEES in December 2007. The established chair that he held was reinaugurated in 2008 as the Sir Bernard Pares chair of Russian History. Its first incumbent was Hosking's former research student, Simon Dixon. From 2016 to 2017, he served as a director/trustee of the School of Civic Education in London (formerly the School of Political Studies in Moscow), which forms part of an association of schools of political studies, under the auspices of the Directorate General of Democracy (“DGII”) of the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; , CdE) is an international organisation with the goal of upholding human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it is Europe's oldest intergovernmental organisation, represe ...

. Hosking was appointed

Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(OBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to higher education and to students.

Bibliography

* ''The Russian Constitutional Experiment: Government and the Duma 1907–1914'' (1973) * ''Beyond Socialist Realism: Soviet Fiction since Ivan Denisovich'' (1980) * ''A History of the Soviet Union'' (1985) * * ''The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within'' (1992, Second Enlarged Edition of ''A History of the Soviet Union'') * ''A History of the USSR: 1917–1991'' (1992) * ''Russia: People and Empire, 1552–1917'' (1998)

Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is an academic publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University. It is a member of the Association of University Presses. Its director since 2017 is George Andreou. The pres ...

* ''Russia and the Russians'' (2001) * ''Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union'' (2005) * ''Epochs of European Civilization: Reformation to the Twenty-First Century'' (2006) audio lecture.

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

* ''Trust: Money, Markets and Society'' (2010) * ''Trust: A History'' (2014)

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

References

External links

Profile on SSEES website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hosking, Geoffrey 1942 births Living people Historians of Russia 20th-century Scottish historians Columbia University staff Academic staff of the University of Cologne University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Academics of the University of Essex Academics of University College London People from Troon People educated at Maidstone Grammar School Officers of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the British Academy Fellows of the Royal Historical Society 21st-century Scottish historians