Dr. Elena Smolarz

Elena Smolarz is a postdoctoral researcher at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies. She is trained in Asian Studies, Eastern European History and Comparative Studies of Religions. As a researcher in the competence network "Crossroads Asia," funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), she conducted studies on forced mobility and slave trade networks in Central Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries. She works at the intersection of social and cultural history as well as historical anthropology and literary studies. Her current research focuses on representations of freedom and dependency in archival documents and narrative sources as well as on the transformation of indigenous societies in the southern borderlands under Russian imperial influence with a special focus on spatial and social mobility.

• External Evaluator for Erasmus+ and H2020 Projects
• External Reviewer for Brill Publishing House
• External Reviewer for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation

2012–2016
Individual research project connected to the competence network "Crossroads Asia" founded by the German Federal Ministry of Education – approximately € 240,000. 

• 2024. “Between Liberation and Recoercion. Release and Repatriation of Russian Enslaved Subjects in the Eurasian Border Regions in the Early Nineteenth Century.” In Journal of global slavery 9(1–2): 74–103. DOI: 10.1163/2405836X-00901009.
• 2024. "Context Matters – The Importance of the Narrative Situation and Actors who Transmit Information for Representations of Experienced Captivity: The Case of the Enslaved Russian Captive Iakov Zinov’ev (1838)." In Narratives of Dependency. Textual Representations of Slavery, Captivity, and Other Forms of Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies, eds. by Elke Brüggen and Marion Gymnich, 199-211. Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111381824-011.
• 2023. "Gefangenen der Steppennomaden. Zentralasien, 18./19. Jahrhundert." In Welten der Sklaverei. Eine vergleichende Geschichte, ed. by Pauline Ismard et.al., 311-318. Berlin:Jacoby & Stuart.
• 2023. "Slavery and Serfdom in Moscovy and the Russian Empire." In The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery, edited by Damian Pargas and Juliane Schiel, 279–295.  London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• 2021. "Captifs des nomads de la steppe. Asie centrale, XVIII–XIX siècles."In Les Mondes de l’esclavage. Une histoire comparée, edited by Pauline Ismard, Cécile Vidal, and Benedetta Rossi, 281–287. Paris: Seuil.
• 2020. "Saving Lost Souls or Doing Good Business? Interactions at the Russian-Kazakh Frontier and Strategies for Freeing Russian Slaves in Central Asia in the Early 19th Century." In Diyar. Zeitschrift für Osmanistik, Türkei- und Nahostforschung 1(1): 34–57.
• 2020. "'Unglückselige russische Sklaven'? Opfernarrative im Kontext der Versklavung russischer Untertanen in Buchara und Chiwa in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts." ['Hapless Russian Slaves'? Victim Narratives in the Context of Enslavement of Russian Subjects in Bukhara and Khiwa in the First Half of the 19th Century]. In Opfer. Dynamiken der Viktimisierung vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zum 21. Jahrhundert, edited by Isabella von Treskow and Harriet Rudolph, 225–243. Heidelberg: Winter. 
• 2017. "Speaking about Freedom and Dependency: Representations and Experiences of Russian Enslaved Captives in Central Asia in the First Half of the 19th Century." In Journal of Global Slavery 2(1–2): 44–71.
• 2016. "Imperski vzgliad na mobil'nost' i formi social'nogo vzaimodeistviia v pogranichnom regione Orenburshia v nachale XIX veka." [Imperial Perspective on Mobility and Forms of Social Interactions in Orenburg Borderland at the Beginning of the 19th Century]. In Vosmie Bolshakovskie chteniia: Orenburgski krai kak istoriko-kul'turni fenomen. 94–97. Orenburg. 
• 2016. Institutionsbildung im Islam unter russisch-imperialem Einfluss am Beispiel der Orenburger Geistlichen Versammlung des Mohammedanischen Gesetzes 1788–1860. [Institutionalization in Islam under Russian Imperial Influence: The Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly in 1788–1860]. Bonner Islamstudien 34. Berlin.
• 2015. As editor. With S. Conermann. Mobilizing Religion: Networks and Mobility. Bonner Asienstudien 12. Berlin.
• 2015. "Introduction." In Mobilizing Religion: Networks and Mobility, edited by S. Conermann and E. Smolarz,  7–19. Bonner Asienstudien 12. Berlin.
• 2014. "Unterwegs wider Willen: Mobilität in den Schilderungen russischer Sklaven im Buchara des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts." [On the Move against Their Will: Mobility in the Representations of Russian Slaves in the 18th and 19th Century-Bukhara]. In Internationales Asienforum 45(1–2): 85–111.
• 2009. "Ahmad Donis: Navodir ul-vaqoje." In Kindlers Literatur Lexikon, 3rd revised edition. Munich.
• 2009. "Ahmad Donis: Risola." In Kindlers Literatur Lexikon, 3rd revised edition. Munich.