Mark Bassin

Mark Bassin is a Professor at Södertörn University, affiliated with the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) and the Department of the History of Ideas. He joined the institution in 2010. His academic career includes permanent positions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University College London, and the University of Birmingham, alongside visiting roles at institutions like UCLA, the University of Chicago, and the Collegium Civitas in Warsaw.

Bassin holds a doctoral degree in historical geography and Russian intellectual history from the University of California-Berkeley. His research focuses on intellectual history in East and Central Europe, particularly Russia and Germany, with an emphasis on identity, politics, ideologies, and spatial dimensions. He explores themes such as Russia’s geopolitical position between Europe and Asia, German Mittellage debates, and the role of landscapes in Socialist-Realist art during Stalin’s era.

He has secured significant research funding, including a 3-year Baltic Sea Foundation grant for his project on neo-Eurasianism in contemporary Russia and leadership of a research team. Bassin has held prestigious fellowships at institutions like the Woodrow Wilson Center and the American Academy in Berlin. His current work includes a monograph on Soviet historian Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev.

Bassin’s interdisciplinary approach bridges historical geography, political theory, and cultural analysis, contributing to debates on geopolitics and identity formation in Eurasia.