Dr. Elena Smolarz

Postdoctoral Researcher

Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies
Room 0.200
Heussallee 18–24
D-53113 Bonn
Phone: +49 228 73 62447
esmolarz@uni-bonn.de

Member of
Elena Smolarz.jpg
© Barbara Frommann

Academic Profile

Elena Smolarz is a postdoctoral researcher at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies. She is trained in Asian Studies, Eastern European History and Comparative Studies of Religions. As a researcher in the competence network "Crossroads Asia," funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), she conducted studies on forced mobility and slave trade networks in Central Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries. She works at the intersection of social and cultural history as well as historical anthropology and literary studies. Her current research focuses on representations of freedom and dependency in archival documents and narrative sources as well as on the transformation of indigenous societies in the southern borderlands under Russian imperial influence with a special focus on spatial and social mobility.

2019–2021
Certificate "Professional Teaching Skills for the Higher Education Sector with a Focus on Digitization," University of Bonn

2017–2018
EU-Fundraiser, EMCRA (Berlin)

2008–2014
Doctoral Studies at the Bonn International Graduate Schools – Oriental and Asian Studies (BIGS-OAS) in Islamic Studies, University of Bonn, Germany

1997–2004
M.A. Studies in Islamic Studies, Eastern European History and Comparative Studies of Religion, University of Bonn, Germany

since 2018
Research Associate and University Lecturer, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn, Germany

2012–2016
Principal Investigator, Center for Development Studies, University of Bonn, Germany

2005–2010
Research Associate, Institute for Oriental and Asian Studies, University of Bonn, Germany

since 2021
COST Action "Worlds of Related Coercions in Work" (WORCK)

since 2021
The Steppe Sisters Network

since 2020
The Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs 

since 2019
Affiliated Member of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies

since 2013
Member of the European Society for Central Asian Studies

2018–2020
Affiliated Member of the DFG Priority Program "Transottomanica: Eastern European-Ottoman-Persian Mobility Dynamics"

2012–2016
Member of the competence network "Crossroads Asia" founded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research

  • External Evaluator for Erasmus+ and H2020 Projects
  • External Reviewer for Brill Publishing House
  • External Reviewer for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation

2020–2022
Grant of the Maria von Linden Program, University of Bonn (€ 17,800)

2008–2011
Doctoral Scholarship of Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation

1997–2002
Scholarship of German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)

2012–2016
Individual research project connected to the competence network "Crossroads Asia" founded by the German Federal Ministry of Education – approximately € 240,000. 

  • In Print. "Context Matters – The Importance of the Narrative Situation and Actors who Transmit Information for Representations of Experienced Captivity: The Case of the Enslaved Russian Captive Iakov Zinov’ev (1838)." In Narratives of Dependency, edited by Elke Brüggen and Marion Gymnich. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.
  • 2023. "Slavery and Serfdom in Moscovy and the Russian Empire." In The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery, edited by Damian Pargas and Juliane Schiel, 279–295.  London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • 2021. "Captifs des nomads de la steppe. Asie centrale, XVIII–XIX siècles."In Les Mondes de l’esclavage. Une histoire comparée, edited by Pauline Ismard, Cécile Vidal, and Benedetta Rossi, 281–287. Paris: Seuil.
  • 2020. "Saving Lost Souls or Doing Good Business? Interactions at the Russian-Kazakh Frontier and Strategies for Freeing Russian Slaves in Central Asia in the Early 19th Century." In Diyar. Zeitschrift für Osmanistik, Türkei- und Nahostforschung 1(1): 34–57.
  • 2020. "'Unglückselige russische Sklaven'? Opfernarrative im Kontext der Versklavung russischer Untertanen in Buchara und Chiwa in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts." ['Hapless Russian Slaves'? Victim Narratives in the Context of Enslavement of Russian Subjects in Bukhara and Khiwa in the First Half of the 19th Century]. In Opfer. Dynamiken der Viktimisierung vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zum 21. Jahrhundert, edited by Isabella von Treskow and Harriet Rudolph, 225–243. Heidelberg: Winter. 
  • 2017. "Speaking about Freedom and Dependency: Representations and Experiences of Russian Enslaved Captives in Central Asia in the First Half of the 19th Century." In Journal of Global Slavery 2(1–2): 44–71.
  • 2016. "Imperski vzgliad na mobil'nost' i formi social'nogo vzaimodeistviia v pogranichnom regione Orenburshia v nachale XIX veka." [Imperial Perspective on Mobility and Forms of Social Interactions in Orenburg Borderland at the Beginning of the 19th Century]. In Vosmie Bolshakovskie chteniia: Orenburgski krai kak istoriko-kul'turni fenomen. 94–97. Orenburg. 
  • 2016. Institutionsbildung im Islam unter russisch-imperialem Einfluss am Beispiel der Orenburger Geistlichen Versammlung des Mohammedanischen Gesetzes 1788–1860. [Institutionalization in Islam under Russian Imperial Influence: The Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly in 1788–1860]. Bonner Islamstudien 34. Berlin.
  • 2015. As editor. With S. Conermann. Mobilizing Religion: Networks and Mobility. Bonner Asienstudien 12. Berlin.
  • 2015. "Introduction." In Mobilizing Religion: Networks and Mobility, edited by S. Conermann and E. Smolarz,  7–19. Bonner Asienstudien 12. Berlin.
  • 2014. "Unterwegs wider Willen: Mobilität in den Schilderungen russischer Sklaven im Buchara des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts." [On the Move against Their Will: Mobility in the Representations of Russian Slaves in the 18th and 19th Century-Bukhara]. In Internationales Asienforum 45(1–2): 85–111.
  • 2009. "Ahmad Donis: Navodir ul-vaqoje." In Kindlers Literatur Lexikon, 3rd revised edition. Munich.
  • 2009. "Ahmad Donis: Risola." In Kindlers Literatur Lexikon, 3rd revised edition. Munich.