Magdalene Blincoe-Deval

My research looks at how Russian and Ukrainian children’s literature has responded to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the invasion of Crimea and Donbas in 2014. I am interested in the ways in which children’s literature is utilised as a political tool to promote different visions of nationalism, the effects that militarisation has on children’s literature, and how these effects differ in the Ukrainian and Russian contexts. Crucially, I want to explore how post- and second-generation memory are activated in Russian and Ukrainian children’s texts to consider how fragmented, incomplete memory and transgenerational trauma are transmitted to the youngest generation of readers.

I completed a BA in European Languages and Cultures at the University of Groningen, and an MSt in Slavonic Studies at the University of Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall). Prior to my studies, I spent a year in Chelyabinsk, Russia, and two years working with an NGO in Belgrade, Serbia, where I taught German and English to refugees on the Balkan route, as well as developing language curricula and leading recreational workshops in Belgrade and northern Serbia.

My DPhil project is co-supervised by Professor Polly Jones and Professor Jan Fellerer. My research is generously funded by the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP and St John’s College.