Iryna Skubii

Iryna Skubii is the inaugural Mykola Zerov Fellow in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Melbourne. She obtained her PhD in History at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario and a Candidate of Science Degree in History at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine). Previously, Iryna taught in Ukraine and Canada and held visiting research positions in Germany, Poland, Austria, and Canada. Her research projects dealt with the history of consumption, materialities, and human-environmental relationships during the Soviet famines in Ukraine and Soviet social and economic history more broadly. Her first monograph was titled “Trade in Kharkiv in the Years of NEP: economy and everyday life” (Torhivlia v Kharkovi v roky NEPu (1921–1929): ekonomika ta povsiakdennist’) (Kharkiv: Rarytety Ukrainy, 2017). She is also currently working on two monographs, one based on her recent thesis, “Survival Under Extremes: Human, Environmental, and Material Relationships Amidst the Soviet Famines in Ukraine,” and another one focused on her research on consumption and material culture in early Soviet Ukraine. Her new research will explore the economic, environmental, and cultural history of sunflowers in Ukraine.