Dr. Konstantin Fuks

Professional Background

Konstantin Fuks is currently an independent scholar. He holds a PhD in history and Jewish studies (2024) from the University of Toronto (Canada). His dissertation monograph, “The Soviet Latvian War Effort: Experiencing, Remembering and Narrating the History of the Second World War” explores the social history of the war, occupation, revolution and the Holocaust in Latvia, with an emphasis on reclaiming the untold stories of Latvians who fought on the Soviet side during the Second World War.

Dr. Fuks has also authored articles exploring the Jewish dimension of the history of the Soviet Union and Latvia during the Second World War. His article, “Ruvin Abramovich Amdur – Political Worker and Chronicler of the 43rd Guards Division of the 130th Latvian Rifle Corps. Memoirs and Letters from the Front, 1942–1945,” was published in the annual Archive of Jewish History (2020); his article, “Red Army Zionist Fighters,” was published in Tablet Magazine (2020). He has presented a variety of papers, including: “Latvian Commission on the History of the Great Patriotic War: Forging a Soviet Latvian Experience of War,” presented at the annual conference of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies in San Francisco in November 2019; and “Facing the Bitter Truth: Latvian Jewish Soldiers of the Red Army Confront the Holocaust,” presented at the Jewish Soldiers & Fighters in World War II: Blavatnik Archive International Virtual Conference in November 2021.

Fellowship Research

As a Broadening Academia Initiative Hybrid Fellow, Dr. Fuks will be conducting research for his project, titled “Evacuees ‘from Abroad’: Latvian Jews on the Soviet Home Front, 1941–1945.” He will be researching the story of displacement and survival of Latvian Jews who found shelter from the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, and how their experiences on the Soviet home front shaped their perceptions of citizenship, ethnicity and belonging. Dr. Fuks will draw on the Museum’s various collections at the Shapell Center to further this work, including records of the evacuation and resettlement of Soviet citizens during the Second World War. Particular attention will be given to the card catalog of evacuees from Latvia, which contains the card index of citizens evacuated from Latvia in 1941. He later plans to include the results of this research in his upcoming book project on Latvian Jews at war.

Fellowship Period: November 1, 2024-April 30, 2025