Professor Robert Hornsby

Profile

I completed by MA and PhD at the Centre for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), at the University of Birmingham. I first came to Leeds as a Teaching Fellow in Russian History, before moving to the University of Kent to take up a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. I then returned to Leeds on a  permanent basis in 2015. 

Research interests

My doctoral research focused upon dissenting behaviour and regime responses in the USSR under Nikita Khrushchev (1953-64). This became my first book, entitled Protest, Reform and Repression in the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013.

After that, I began work on a Leverhulme Trust-funded research project on the social and political history of the Communist Youth League (Komsomol) under Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev (1950s-1980s). I have published work on this topic in a number of edited volumes and scholarly journals including Past and Present, the Journal of Contemporary History, Cold War History, and Europe-Asia Studies and Contemporary European History.

Most recently, my research interests have turned towards Soviet involvement in global health. From October 2025 I will be leading a major Wellcome Trust-funded project entitled ‘The Soviet Union, the WHO and Global Health, 1957-91’. My own strand of this research project will centre on excavating the roles played by the Soviet Union in the (successful) global effort to eradicate smallpox during the 1950s-70s.

Current postgraduate research students

Bushra Alhuzili

Research groups and interests

Leeds Russian Centre

Qualifications

• PhD in History
• MA Russian and East European Studies
• BA History

Professional memberships

• British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies
• Royal Historical Society

Student education

My teaching at Leeds reflects a wide interest in Modern European History, with a specialism in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, and the USSR in particular. Across all of my teaching, I seek to work incorporate both social and political history. 

Undergraduate teaching

At undergraduate level I teach on the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, and on Eastern Europe more widely. 

Postgraduate teaching

At MA level I am involved in teaching post-war European History.  

Postgraduate supervision

I am especially interested to hear from anyone wishing to undertake postgraduate research which focuses upon either the political and/or social history of the post-Stalin USSR, communist youth movements across the (former) Eastern Bloc, and Global Health History. 

Research groups and institutes

• Health Histories
• Politics, Diplomacy, and International History
• Centre for Global Health Histories