International Women’s Day 2024

Main image: Former SSEES professor Doreen Warriner.

Yulia Navalnaya

“I would like to express my admiration for Yulia Navalnaya, who, the day after her husband's murder, found the courage, dignity and strength to speak in the European Parliament and blame Putin for her husband's death. The future of Russia is very uncertain but looking at Yulia Navalnaya, it is almost possible to believe that there is one.” – Dr Svetlana McMillin, Associate Professor (teaching) in Russian language

Margit Szlachta de Zadjeli

"Margit Szlachta de Zadjeli, a Hungarian Catholic Nun born into an old Polish noble family in Košice, in today’s eastern Slovakia in 1884, dedicated her life to Christian Social Values. Initially a teacher and editor of a women's newspaper, she then went on to became Hungary's first female MP in 1920, representing a party advocating for the restoration of the House of Habsburg. Despite being forced to resign by her religious order, she founded her own. During the war, she was recognised by Israel as among the righteous Gentiles that helped rescue Jewish people during the war, she was re-elected to parliament in 1945 and 1947. However, the communist dictatorship forced her into exile in America, where she died in 1974. It was said that God's soul shone through her.” – Dr Thomas Lorman, Lecturer (Teaching) in Central European History

Oleksandra Matviichuk

Oleksandra Matviichuk, a human rights lawyer and civil society activist, chairs the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Centre for Civil Liberties. Renowned for her relentless advocacy against Russian war crimes in Ukraine, here you can watch a talk she delivered at Ukrainian Institute London/Royal Society of Arts.

Viktoria Amelina 

Viktoria Amelina, a Ukrainian writer and war crimes investigator, was killed in a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk in 2023. Despite her tragic death, her novels ‘Dom’s Dream Kingdom’ and a non-fiction book on Ukrainian women’s experiences under Russian occupation, will be soon available in English. Read Viktoria’s obituary written by Dr Uilleam Blacker, Associate Professor in Ukrainian and East European Culture at SSEES.

In tribute to International Women’s Day, we invite you to read an article by Dr Olesya Khromeychuk, a UCL SSEES alumna, recently published in NATO Review. This article delves into the pivotal role of women in the context of war in Ukraine. Read the article in full.

Remarkable former SSEES staff

Doreen Warriner

Former SSEES professor Doreen Warriner helped rescue thousands of Jews from Czechoslovakia in 1938-1939. Doreen is featured in the new British film One Life, a biographical drama film about the British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton MBE (played by Anthony Hopkins), who saved hundreds of children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during the Second World War. A plaque honouring Doreen's work is housed on the fourth floor of the SSEES building, unveiled in 2020.  

Phyllis Auty

Phyllis Auty was a pioneer of post-war East European studies in at least two senses: as a joint-founder of an academic enterprise that put Yugoslavia on the scholarly map in Britain and North America, and as a woman who helped blaze a trail for other women in the new field. Obituary: Professor Phyllis Auty

Margaret Hasluck

Margaret Masson Hasluck (1885-1948) began her ethnographic fieldwork in the Balkans in 1921 following the death of her husband, the archaeologist Frederick William Hasluck, the previous year. They shared an interest in Balkan culture, had married in 1912 and had travelled extensively in the area prior to the First World War. She based herself in Albania from 1923 until the eve of the Second World War and made notable contributions to Albanian ethnographic research. View Hasluck's digitised photographs (UCL SSEES Library Special Collection)

Dorothy Galton

Dorothy Galton worked at SSEES from 1928 till she retired in 1961. Described in the School’s history as a tower of strength, her role in the development of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies should not be underestimated.  Her archives are held in the SSEES Library.

Lindsey Hughes

Lindsey Hughes, professor of Russian history wrote about the 17th-century westerniser Prince VV Golitsyn (1984) and Sophia, regent of the country in the 1680s, in 1990. These were carefully researched monographs, and the second brought her much acclaim. Available at SSEES Library Collection. Classmark:  R.IX.d HUG

Dorothy Goodman

Dorothy Goodman was an American educationist who helped to found the consumer magazine Which? in the 1950s while she was living in London. Read Dorothy Goodman’s obituary

Isabel de Madariaga

An expert on Russian history who wrote acclaimed books on Catherine the Great and Ivan the Terrible. Read more about Isabel de Madariaga