Mikhail Dolbilov

Mikhail Dolbilov is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland's College of Arts and Humanities. His research examines imperial Russia, focusing on tsarist bureaucracy's mentality and statecraft, interconnections between state reforms and symbolic representations of autocracy, political loyalty dynamics, and ethno-confessional politics in borderlands during the rise of nationalism.

His research expertise includes:

• Russian imperial administration systems
• Religion and state relations in borderlands
• Russo-Polish historical relations
• Nationalism in Western borderlands
• 19th-century reform movements

Dolbilov has authored and co-authored significant scholarly works including Russian Country, Foreign Faith: Empire’s Ethno-confessional Policy in Lithuania and Belarus under Alexander II (2010), The Western Borderlands of the Russian Empire (2006), and A Reverse Union: An Episode from the History of Relationship between Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the Russian Empire, 1840–1873 (2010). He has held editorial positions and international visiting scholar appointments at Columbia University and Hokkaido University.

He teaches courses on Russian Civilization, Empire and Nationalism in Russia, and the Origins of Ethnic Cleansing in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union.