Laurent Coumel

Laurent Coumel is a Lecturer (Maître de Conférences) with Habilitation to Direct Research (HDR) in contemporary history at the Department of Russian Studies at Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris. He serves as Deputy Director of the Commission for Thematic and Disciplinary Teaching and maintains extensive research affiliations including CREE (INALCO), CERCEC (CNRS, EHESS), and the Franco-German ANR-DFG Enviro-Health project (2021-2025). As Co-editor-in-chief of the Revue d'études comparatives Est-Ouest, he contributes significantly to scholarly discourse on Eastern Europe.

Coumel specializes in Russian and Soviet history with particular expertise in environmental history, social history, and the Chernobyl disaster. His research spans the geohistory of contemporary Russia, social and environmental history of Russia-USSR and Latvia, and Soviet educational reforms. Fluent in Russian, he focuses on Eurasia and Europe with special attention to how environmental concerns intersected with political structures throughout Soviet and post-Soviet history.

His scholarly output reveals a consistent trajectory examining Soviet environmental governance, from water management policies across different leadership eras to ecological mobilizations preceding the USSR's collapse. The 2024 monograph '24 Hours of Life in Chernobyl' represents a significant contribution to disaster studies, while his collaborative work demonstrates how environmental concerns permeated Soviet society despite political constraints. Recent publications increasingly address contemporary Russian environmental policy and the ecological dimensions of the Ukraine war.

• Member of CREE research center (INALCO)
• Associate member of CERCEC (CNRS, EHESS)
• Member of Enviro-Health project team (2021-2025)
• Co-editor-in-chief of Revue d'études comparatives Est-Ouest
• Active in RUCHE, GDREst, Historiennes et historiens du contemporain, and RUTA Association
• Board member of Memorial France

Coumel actively engages with contemporary issues through media commentary, including analysis of Putin's environmental policies in Le Monde (April 2025) and radio discussions on Eastern European environmental movements. His current research examines the Russian war in Ukraine through environmental lenses while continuing his longstanding investigation of Soviet and post-Soviet ecological history, demonstrating remarkable continuity between historical scholarship and contemporary relevance.