Natalia Telepneva

I joined the University of Strathclyde in August 2019 as Lecturer in International History.* My main research lies in the history of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, especially in Africa. I am particularly interested in the history of socialism in Africa. I have also written on the history of Soviet and Czechoslovak secret intelligence during the Cold War. I have published in the Journal of Cold War Studies, the Journal of Southern African Studies, and a number of edited volumes. I am currently finishing a monograph, entitled ‘Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961-1975’. 

*I will hold the position of British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in 2019-2020.

My new research project seeks to investigate the political economy of the Soviet Cold War in Africa between 1974 and 1991. In particular, it focuses on Soviet development assistance in Africa and on how Moscow’s experience of engagement with modernisation and state-building of key allies in the region affected debates about reform in the Soviet Union. My main case study looks at the post-war history of Guinea-Bissau to explore how different groups of people understood and related to Soviet socialism.