About us

Dr. Paul Robert Magocsi is professor of history and political science at the University of Toronto, where since 1980 he also holds the John Yaremko Chair of Ukrainian Studies. He completed his education at Rutgers University (B.A. 1966; M.A. 1967), Princeton University (M.A. 1969;  Ph.D. 1972), and Harvard University (Society of Fellows 1976). He is a member of the Harvard University Society of Fellows (1976). Professor Magocsi has taught at Harvard University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Prešov University in Slovakia, and on five occasions was historian-in-residence at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. In 1996 he was appointed a permanent fellow of the Royal Society of Canada—Canadian Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Prešov University in Slovakia (doctor honoris causa, 2013) and from Kamianets-Podilskyi National University in Ukraine (pochesnyi profesor, 2015).  Interested in the history of nationalism, in particular among ethnic groups living in border areas, he has published in the fields of history, sociolinguistics, bibliography, cartography, and immigration studies.

Dr. Nicholas Kupensky is an Assistant Professor of Russian at the United States Air Force Academy, where he teaches courses in Russian and Foreign Area Studies. He received a Bachelor of Arts (2007) from Bucknell University in Comparative Humanities, Russian, and English and an M.Phil. (2011) and Ph.D. (2017) from Yale University in Slavic Languages and Literatures. Before coming to USAFA, he previously was a lector at the Russian State University for the Humanities, a visiting assistant professor in Comparative Humanities at Bucknell University, and the Andrew W. Mellow postdoctoral fellow in Russian at Bowdoin College. His work has appeared in The New Rusyn Times (2011), Slovo (2016), Muzeinyi visnyk (2018), Ukraïna Moderna (2019), Nationalities Papers (2019), Harvard Ukrainian Studies (2020), and E-International Relations (2022). He also is a regular reviewer of new books for H-Ukraine (2020-present). His initiative in the digital and public humanities The Emil Kubek Project (2015-present) tells the stories of Slavic migrants to Pennsylvania’s Coal Region through the prism of the poetry and prose of the Carpatho-Rusyn writer Emil Kubek and has been featured on the NPR podcast Grapple (2016).

Dr. Patricia A. Krafcik is Professor Emerita of The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, where she taught Russian language, literature, culture, and Russian and Slavic folklore from 1989-2021. Previously, she taught at Dickinson College and the University of Pittsburgh, and has lectured at the Studium Carpato-Ruthenorum International Summer School of Rusyn Language and Culture at Prešov University, Prešov, Slovakia 2010-2019. She completed her studies at Indiana University (Bloomington; BA, 1971) and Columbia University (New York: MA 1974; Ph.D., 1980). Her scholarly work has appeared in a variety of publications, including the Slavic and East European Journal; Slovakia: A Scholarly Annual; the Journal of the Slavic and East European Folklore Association; in the collection Committing Community: Carpatho-Rusyn Studies as an Emerging Scholarly Discipline (2009); Slovenský národopis: časopis Ústavu Etnológie Slovenskej akadémie vied; and Slovo: A Publication of the National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library. Among her translations are Language and National Identity: Rusyns South of the Carpathians by Anna Plišková (Columbia University Press East European Monographs, 2009) and “In the Seventy-Seventh Kingdom”: Carpatho-Rusyn Folktales (Carpatho-Rusyn Research Center, 2015). She is a Fellow of the World Academy of Rusyn Culture and in 2019 was granted the Saints Cyril and Methodius Award for the Development of the Rusyn Language by the Institute of Rusyn Language and Culture at Prešov University. Her ongoing research and writing is focused on the Carpathian Region social bandit folklore tradition.