Ala C. Creciun

Professional Website

Ph.D. Candidate, Russian History, University of Maryland, College Park

M.A., Comparative History, Central European University, Budapest                           

B.A., Political Science and International Relations; Minors: History and Economics

Ala Creciun Graff is a PhD Candidate (ABD) in Russian History at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ala's research focuses on the rise of the press as a political actor in late nineteenth-century Russia. Her dissertation, Political Wild Card: The Press Between High Politics and Public Opinion in Late Imperial Russia, examines the political entanglements of the Russian press and the monarchic state as they collaborated and competed to shape public opinion and political decision-making during the 1860s-1880s.  She holds an MA in Comparative History from Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary, awarded in 2013. Ala received her BA in Political Science and International Relations from the American University in Bulgaria in 2011. At the University of Maryland, she designed and taught during Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 her research methods course "Russian History in Art, Music, Literature, and Film."  During Spring 2017, Ala also underwent a curatorial internship at the Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens in Washington DC, which holds the largest collection of Russian art in the West.  Her research has been supported by the AHA, ASEEES, The German Historical Institute in Moscow, and The Cosmos Club Foundation.  She has written for The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, and The Moscow TImes.

The Washington Post, “100 years later, Russia is still revising the story of the imperial family’s execution by Red Army guards,” The Monkey Cage Blog, 8 August, 2018.

The Moscow Times, “Russia Struggles to Mourn the Romanovs 100 Years On,” Op-ed, 17 July 2018.

The Baltimore Sun, “To understand Putin, you must understand Russian history,” Op-ed, 13 May 2018. Duplicate publication in The Los Angeles Times, Op-ed, 12 May 2018.