About Samantha Lomb

Dr. Lomb works at Vyatka State University in Kirov, Russia. She received her PhD in history from the University of Pittsburgh in 2014. Her first book, Stalin’s Constitution: Soviet Participatory Politics and the Discussion of the 1936 Draft Constitution, was published in 2017. Currently she is working on a book manuscript about collective farm life in the 1930s. This year she published an article "Moscow is Far Away: Peasant Communal Traditions in the Expulsion of Collective Farm Members in the Vyatka–Kirov Region 1932–1939" in Europe Asia Studies which builds on this research.

Samantha Lomb is a lecturer at Vyatka State University in Kirov, Russia.

Samantha's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Samantha:

Immo Rebitschek and Aaron B. Retish, "Social Control under Stalin and Khrushchev: The Phantom of a Well-Ordered State" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

October 21, 2023

Social Control under Stalin and Khrushchev

Immo Rebitschek and Aaron B. Retish
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

How did the Soviet Union control the behaviour of its people? How did the people themselves engage with the official rules and the threat of violence …

Yiannis Kokosalakis, "Building Socialism: The Communist Party and the Making of the Soviet System, 1921–1941" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

August 6, 2023

Building Socialism

Yiannis Kokosalakis
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

By placing the party grassroots at the centre of its focus, Yiannis Kokosalakis' book Building Socialism: The Communist Party and the Making of the So…

Charters Wynn, "The Moderate Bolshevik: Mikhail Tomsky from the Factory to the Kremlin, 1880-1936" (Brill, 2022)

May 18, 2022

The Moderate Bolshevik

Charters Wynn
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Charters Wynn's book The Moderate Bolshevik: Mikhail Tomsky from the Factory to the Kremlin, 1880-1936 (Brill, 2022) is an English-language biography …

Timothy K. Blauvelt, "Clientalism and Nationality in an Early Soviet Fiefdom: The Trials of Nestor Lakoba" (Routledge, 2021)

February 18, 2022

Clientalism and Nationality in an Early Soviet Fiefdom

Timothy K. Blauvelt
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Timothy Blauvelt’s book Clientelism and Nationality in an Early Soviet Fiefdom: The Trials of Nestor Lakoba (Routledge, 2021), explores the complexity…

David Moon et al., "Place and Nature: Essays in Russian Environmental History" (White Horse Press, 2021)

December 8, 2021

Place and Nature

David Moon, Nicholas Breyfogle, and Alexandra Bekasova
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Place and Nature: Essays in Russian Environmental History (White Horse Press, 2021) is a collection of essays on environmental history spanning primar…

Anna Saunders et al., "Revolutions in International Law: The Legacies of 1917" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

November 9, 2021

Revolutions in International Law

Anna Saunders, Kathryn Greenman, and Anne Orford
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

In 1917, the adoption of the revolutionary Mexican Constitution and the October Revolution shook the foundations of international order in profound, …

Larry E. Holmes, "Revising the Revolution: The Unmaking of Russia's Official History of 1917" (Indiana UP, 2021)

June 3, 2021

Revising the Revolution

Larry E. Holmes
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

The clash between scholarship and politics—between truth and propaganda— had always been a conflict of great importance. In the 1920s the Commission f…

Y. Gorlizki and O. Khlevniuk, "Substate Dictatorship: Networks, Loyalty, and Institutional Change in the Soviet Union" (Yale UP, 2020)

November 2, 2020

Substate Dictatorship: Networks, Loyalty, and Institutional Change in the Soviet Union

Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Starting after the Second World War and taking the story through to the Brezhnev era, Yoram Gorlizki and Oleg Khlevniuk's Substate Dictatorship: Netwo…

Joanna Stingray, "Red Wave: An American in the Soviet Music Underground" (Doppelhouse Press, 2020)

September 4, 2020

Red Wave

Joanna Stingray and Madison Stingray
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Red Wave: An American in the Soviet Music Underground (Doppelhouse Press, 2020) is Joanna Stingray’s autobiographical account of her time on the under…

Mark Vincent, "Criminal Subculture in the Gulag" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020)

June 30, 2020

Criminal Subculture in the Gulag

Mark Vincent
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Most Gulag scholarship focuses on political prisoners and, as a result, our knowledge of the camps as a lived experience remains relatively incomplete…

Eric Lee, "The Night of the Bayonets: The Texel Uprising and Hitler's Revenge, April-May 1945" (Greenhill, 2020)

June 2, 2020

The Night of the Bayonets

Eric Lee
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Eric Lee's new book The Night of the Bayonets: The Texel Uprising and Hitler's Revenge, April–May 1945 (Greenhill Books, 2020) tells the story of the …

David Brandenberger, "Stalin's Master Narrative" (Yale UP, 2019)

November 22, 2019

Stalin’s Master Narrative

David Brandenberger
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

In this interview, David Brandenberger discusses his new edited volume (created in concert with RGASPI archivist and Russian historian Mikhail Zelenov…

Aaron Hale-Dorrell, "Corn Crusade: Khrushchev’s Farming Revolution in the Post-Stalin Soviet Union" (Oxford UP, 2018)

September 11, 2019

Corn Crusade

Aaron Hale-Dorrell
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

In Corn Crusade: Khrushchev’s Farming Revolution in the Post-Stalin Soviet Union (Oxford University Press, 2018), Aaron Hale-Dorrell re-evaluates Khru…

Larry Holmes, "War, Evacuation, and the Exercise of Power: The Center, Periphery, and Kirov’s Pedagogical Institute, 1941–1952" (Lexington Books, 2012)

August 5, 2019

War, Evacuation, and the Exercise of Power

Larry Holmes
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Larry Holmes’ book, which first appeared in English in 2012, was released in Russian this year. In War, Evacuation, and the Exercise of Power: The Cen…

Jeff Sahadeo, "Voices from the Soviet Edge: Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow" (Cornell UP, 2019)

July 31, 2019

Voices from the Soviet Edge

Jeff Sahadeo
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

In his new book, Voices from the Soviet Edge: Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow (Cornell University Press, 2019), Jeff Sahadeo looks at the mi…

Houri Berberian, "Roving Revolutionaries:  Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian and Ottoman Worlds" (U California Press, 2019)

May 7, 2019

Roving Revolutionaries

Houri Berberian
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

In her newest book, Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian and Ottoman Worlds (University of Californ…

Nicholas Breyfogle, "Eurasian Environments: Nature and Ecology in Imperial Russian and Soviet History" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2018)

February 15, 2019

Eurasian Environments

Nicholas Breyfogle
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Nicholas Breyfogle, Associate Professor at the Ohio State University, had produced a new edited volume, Eurasian Environments: Nature and Ecology in I…

Alun Thomas, "Nomads and Soviet Rule: Central Asia under Lenin and Stalin" (I.B. Tauris, 2018)

November 12, 2018

Nomads and Soviet Rule

Alun Thomas
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

In his new book, Nomads and Soviet Rule: Central Asia under Lenin and Stalin (I.B. Tauris, 2018), Alun Thomas examines the understudied experiences of…

Jonathan Waterlow, "It’s Only a Joke, Comrade! Humour, Trust and Everyday Life Under Stalin (1928-1941)" (CreateSpace, 2018)

October 4, 2018

It’s Only a Joke, Comrade!

Jonathan Waterlow
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Jonathan Waterlow’s new book It’s Only a Joke, Comrade! Humour, Trust and Everyday Life Under Stalin (1928-1941) (CreateSpace, 2018) delves into the p…

Olga Velikanova, "Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism: Popular Discussion of the Soviet Constitution of 1936" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)

August 16, 2018

Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism

Olga Velikanova
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

In her new book, Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism: Popular Discussion of the Soviet Constitution of 1936 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Olga Velika…

Cynthia A. Ruder, "Building Stalinism: The Moscow Canal and the Creation of Soviet Space" (I. B. Tauris, 2018)

July 5, 2018

Building Stalinism

Cynthia A. Ruder
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

In Building Stalinism: The Moscow Canal and the Creation of Soviet Space (I. B. Tauris, 2018), Cynthia Ruder explores how the building of the Moscow c…

Artemy M. Kalinovsky, "Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan" (Cornell UP, 2018)

June 8, 2018

Laboratory of Socialist Development

Artemy M. Kalinovsky
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Artemy Kalinovsky’s new book Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan (Cornell University Press,…

Jonathan Daly, "Crime and Punishment in Russia: A Comparative History from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin" (Bloomsbury, 2018)

April 10, 2018

Crime and Punishment in Russia

Jonathan Daly
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

Jonathan Daly is a professor of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His newest book Crime and Punishment in Russia: A Comparative Histor…

Susan Smith-Peter, "Imagining Russian Regions: Subnational Identity and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Russia" (Brill, 2017)

January 15, 2018

Imagining Russian Regions

Susan Smith-Peter
Hosted by Samantha Lomb

In Imagining Russian Regions: Subnational Identity and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Brill, 2017), Susan Smith Peter discusses the origi…