ERC Starting Grant for Heidelberg Historian
13 April 2018
Photo: Veikko Somerpuro
Heidelberg historian Dr Ivan Sablin has been awarded a highly endowed ERC Starting Grant for excellent young researchers from the European Research Council (ERC). Dr Sablin and his team will have approximately 1.2 million euros at their disposal to study the development of political systems in selected Eastern European and Asian states, focussing particularly on constitutional practices. The project launched in April 2018 and will be funded for a period of five years. Ivan Sablin is a researcher in the Department of History at Ruperto Carola and a member of the “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” Cluster of Excellence.
The ERC project, entitled “Entangled Parliamentarisms: Constitutional Practices in Russia, Ukraine, China and Mongolia, 1905-2005” (ENTPAR) focuses on constitutional development in Russia and China, as well as in Ukraine and Mongolia which were part of the broader Soviet sphere. “We are especially interested in the role of parliaments and quasi-parliamentary institutions between 1905 and 2005, which differ distinctly from representative bodies in liberal democracies with respect to function and self-concept,” states Dr Sablin. Combining research approaches employed in history and political science, the group will also examine intellectual discourse against the backdrop of communist and socialist ideas and analyse the influence of parliaments during societal upheavals.
Ivan Sablin studied international relations at Saint Petersburg State University (Russia) and global history at Heidelberg University. He received his PhD from Ruperto Carola in 2014 for his dissertation on postimperial Asia of the 1920s. Subsequent research positions included a senior fellowship at the Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg. His research interests include modern history of Siberia and the Russian Far East, political and religious history of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and relations between Russia and the East Asian states.
The European Research Council awards the Starting Grant to excellent young researchers. Funding is awarded based on their scientific excellence and the innovative potential of their research ideas.
