Rebecca Mitchell

Rebecca Mitchell is an Associate Professor of History at Middlebury College, specializing in Russian and Soviet history with a focus on music, cultural identity, and power dynamics. She holds a B.Mus. from the University of Saskatchewan, M.Mus. from Southern Methodist University, M.A. from Carleton University, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2011). Her research explores intersections of music, metaphysics, and imperial/Soviet identity, with particular emphasis on the South Caucasus. Recent work includes Sergei Rachmaninoff (2022) and Nietzsche’s Orphans (2016), which won the ASEEES W. Bruce Lincoln Prize.

Her courses span Russian Empire history, Soviet experiments, Marxism, and music’s role in resistance/power. Current research uses sacred chant to analyze identity formations in the late Russian Empire and early USSR. She has received grants from CAORC-NEH, ARISC, SSHRC, and the Havighurst Center. Recent invited talks include discussions on Old Believer chant and religious identity in imperial Russia (2017–2019).

Awards include the 2016 W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize. Her interdisciplinary work bridges historical analysis with musicology, addressing topics like Stalinist cultural policies, Kyiv’s contested histories, and nuclear Cold War legacies. She advises undergraduate theses and coordinates research initiatives in Russian/Soviet cultural history.