There must be something in the bricks.

Today, we learned David Brandenberger, professor of history and international studies, is the second faculty member this year to receive a Fulbright grant. His latest project will focus on Russia’s political landscape during the 1940s and 50s.

"A Fulbright grant at this time signals the priority that the U.S. government places on Russian research and U.S.-Russian research ties even in times of heightened international tension,” said Brandenberger, who received a similar grant in 2007.

Brandenberger will spend most of his time in Moscow and St. Petersburg (the former Leningrad) between December 2017 and July 2018. He also plans to publish about this project in both English and Russian. Brandenberger is no stranger to the source material. He’s conducted research in Russia using the party and state archives of the former Soviet Union for more than 20 years. Recent declassifications will help aid his latest questions.

He’ll be researching the Stalin-era political elite and the Leningrad Affair, a series of fabricated criminal cases in the ’40s and ’50s that accused politicians and members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of treason, he said.

“This purge had an effect on the postwar history of Russia and the USSR, but remarkably little is known, largely due to the inaccessibility of the historical record,” he said. “I’ll be working to analyze the origins of the Leningrad Affair, as well as its destructive course and overall impact.”

We’re excited to see what he uncovers during his research. And, like we said, there must be something in the bricks — Brandenberger’s mentee, Ryan McEvoy, ’17, recently received a Fulbright English Teacher Assistant grant earlier this spring.

To have a faculty mentor and his student mentee receiving Fulbright grants so close together… what are the odds? Well, at Richmond they must be pretty good.