Maria Fedorova

Maria Fedorova arrived at Macalester in the fall of 2019 as a Wallin Postdoctoral Fellow in Russian and Modern European History. A Moscow native, she came to the United States as a Fulbright Fellow, receiving an MA degree in History at Washington State University and a Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Fedorova teaches courses on Russian history and the transnational history of food and agriculture. Her courses are cross-listed with the Russian Studies Department and the Food, Agriculture, and Society concentration.

Fedorova’s research focuses on the transnational circulation of knowledge and technologies between Russia and the world during the twentieth century. She is currently working on a book manuscript Bigger than Grain: U.S.-Soviet Agricultural Exchange, 1917-1935 that demonstrates that through visits, the organization of reconstruction projects, and seed exchange, Soviet and American agricultural specialists and policymakers relied upon each other in seeking solutions to the global farm crisis of the 1920s.

Fedorova is also currently finishing an article that examines the U.S. export of chicken drumsticks to post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s. Labeled “Bush Legs” by the Russians in reference to the then sitting U.S. president, disagreements over the import of said drumsticks became the catalyst for a trade war between the two nations.

In addition to her interests in history, Fedorova eagerly shares her passion for food, cooking, and, in particular, baking.