Bard College and Russian Independent Media Archive Announce Inaugural Fellowship Recipients

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA), a joint initiative of PEN America and the Gagarin Center at Bard College, has selected its inaugural RIMA fellows. Elise Giuliano, Andrey Simonov, and George Beknazar-Yuzbashev have been named RIMA Semester Senior Fellows. Awarded to senior scholars and researchers who demonstrate a commitment to advancing research on independent Russian journalism and media, Semester Senior Fellowships include a $6,000 stipend and weeklong visit to Bard College. Fellows will collaborate with PEN America and Bard College, participate in a residency, and engage with RIMA-related discussions and events.

Elise Giuliano is senior lecturer in political science, director of the MARS-REERS Program, and director of the Program on US–Russia Relations at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. During her fellowship, Giuliano will delve in the RIMA to analyze independent media articles for insight into ethnic minority populations, ethnic NGOs, and government activity in the republics over the past 10 years. She plans to write and publish academic journal articles about ethnic politics in Russia’s republics as well as incorporate her findings into a project that she is co-organizing at Columbia University, “Russia after Putin,” which is aimed at the US policy community. Researchers Andrey Simonov, who is the Gary Winnick and Martin Granoff Associate Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, and George Beknazar-Yuzbashev, who is a sixth year PhD candidate in economics at Columbia University, will be working together with RIMA to create better ways to identify and measure media bias, misinformation, and disinformation in Russian language media during their fellowship.

Additionally, recipients of the RIMA Course Development Fellowships include Artyom Melnik (Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Montenegro), Anastasiya Osipova (University of Colorado, Boulder), Olga Klimova (University of Pittsburgh), and Kirsten Rutsala (Virginia Tech). These grants are designed to support the creation of innovative courses that utilize RIMA's resources to foster critical thinking, media literacy, and a deeper understanding of independent journalism under authoritarian regimes. Fellowships offer $2,000 grants to faculty members integrating RIMA into their curricula, helping to shape the next generation of scholars, journalists, and activists.

Recipients of the RIMA MA and Doctoral Virtual Fellowships include Djurdja Jovanovic Padejski (Arizona State University) and Nikolai Vokuev (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières). These fellowships provide $3,500 stipends for graduate students who incorporate RIMA into their theses. Fellows will have access to RIMA’s extensive resources and expert guidance from Bard College and PEN America to support their research on independent Russian journalism and its historical significance.

In partnership with the Gagarin Center at Bard College and PEN America, RIMA aims to preserve the last three decades of independent Russian journalism, an irreplaceable historical record at risk of erasure as Russian media outlets not aligned with the regime of President Vladimir Putin are shuttered and their reporters and editors are cast into exile. The project was inspired by Masha Gessen, Bard faculty member and former trustee of PEN America, a nonprofit organization that stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide, and was made possible with the support of Edwin Barbey Charitable Trust, advised by PEN America trustee Peter Barbey.

Launched in 2023 with the content from more than a dozen outlets and a half-million entries, the digital archive currently includes over 7,427,800 documents from more than 130 independent national, regional, investigative and cultural news outlets published since President Putin took office in 2000. The archive makes the journalism of this pivotal period accessible to the reporters, historians, political scientists and other researchers whose work counters propaganda-driven manipulation of Russia's historical narrative. The archive is created in collaboration with the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine and the Mass Media Defence Centre.
View the Russian Independent Media Archives (RIMA). About the Russian Independent Media Archive (RIMA)
RIMA works to preserve the work that independent Russian journalists have been doing for more than 20 years as historical evidence. RIMA’s mission is to help resist dictatorship. It is a living archive. RIMA uses it to support free expression and independent media, better understand how authoritarianism and dictatorships work, and stand against propaganda and manipulation of the historical narrative. RIMA also believes that this archive will be indispensable for future justice. The archive is also a model of what can be done in countries undergoing crackdowns or other drastic political change that affects the media. RIMA will offer its toolkit to journalists and media activists whose archives are at risk anywhere. The archive currently holds 131 media outlets, with more titles to be added soon. rima.media

About the Gagarin Center for the Study of Civil Society and Human Rights at Bard
The Gagarin Center at Bard College allows Russian scholars to continue to pursue research and educational activities focused on contemporary social, economic, and human rights issues. The Center was formerly part of Smolny College, a liberal arts program created in 1994 at Saint Petersburg State University in close collaboration with Bard College. Russia’s first liberal arts college, Smolny offered a dynamic dual-degree program from which graduates earned both SPSU and Bard degrees. The collaboration was considered to be the most extraordinary partnership of its kind, providing more than 120 student exchanges and tens of faculty exchanges each year and serving as a beacon for liberal arts education. The Center now partners with Smolny Beyond Borders, an educational initiative for faculty and students who left Russia and the surrounding region due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine and risk of political persecution. Supported by the Andrew Gagarin Trust, the Center continues to offer research on vital issues, public programming, and serves as a venue for the critical exchange of ideas.

About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year, residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,200 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in more than 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 13 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 164-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.

This event was last updated on 12-17-2024

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