Research & Expertise

Using 3D-modelling, researchers of HSE and the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) have restored and deciphered an ancient literary monument of North-Eastern Ancient Rus — inscriptions about the murder of Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky written in 1175–1176 on a wall of the cathedral in Pereslavl-Zalessky. The study was published in Slověne = Словѣне. International Journal of Slavic Studies.

Psycholinguists from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain found that when reading, people are not only able to predict specific words, but also words’ grammatical properties, which helps them to read faster. Researchers have also discovered that predictability of words and grammatical features can be successfully modelled with the use of neural networks. The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

On February 9, the HSE International Laboratory 'Russia’s Regions in Historical Perspective' hosted Janet Hartley (London School of Economics), who presented her recent monograph The Volga: A History of Russia’s Greatest River. The presentation was part of a joint lecture series between the Laboratory and The Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation. HSE news service spoke with Janet Hartley about her interest in Russia, her experience travelling and doing research in Russia, and the books she has written on Russia.

Researchers trying to compare economic data of the USSR and capitalist countries face questions of the comprehensiveness, accessibility, and reliability of data on Soviet economic production and growth. At an online seminar hosted by the HSE University International Centre for the History and Sociology of World War II and its Consequences, Assistant Professor Ilya Voskoboynikov (Faculty of Economic Sciences, HSE University) presented an overview of available approaches to studying the absolute size of the Soviet economy and its growth rates.

The Linguistic convergence laboratory organized an open course in English about the main area of ​​expertise of the laboratory - the languages ​​of the Nakh-Daghestanian (also known as East Caucasian) language family.

In October, Professor Holger Kusse, Leading Research Fellow of the International Laboratory for the Study of Russian and European Intellectual Dialogue lectured at the seminar ‘West and East: The Universalism of Culture’. We spoke with Holger Kusse about his work in Germany and Europe, his research, and his plans for the 2020-2021 academic year.

Daria Khlevnyuk, a postdoc fellow of the Institute and a co-founder of the PoSoCoMeS, took an active part in the conference's organization. The conference was attended by researchers of the Institute, Alisa Maksimova and Boris Stepanov.

The Poletaev Readings, dedicated to the memory of Andrey Poletaev, one of the founders of the Poletaev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities (Russian acronym — IGITI), is a major annual event of the Institute. The event was set to mark its 10^th anniversary in 2020, but due to the pandemic, the anniversary forum has been postponed to 2021. In its place, the organizers have arranged the Poletaev Readings 9¾, which were held online. HSE News Service spoke with the event organizer and some of the participants.

This fall the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory will organize a free online course on the East Caucasian (alias Nakh-Daghestanian) language family. The course will start on October 14.

IGITI Research Assistant Olga Vinogradova made a presentation within the framework of an international seminar on Progress and Innovative Ecosystems at the Catholic University of Lille (France).