Olga Trufanova

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Olga Trufanova studied art history and liberal arts at Saint Petersburg State University, Bard College in the USA, and Freie Universität Berlin (2012–2016). For her master's degree, she studied applied and interdisciplinary history at the Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg and Friedrich Schiller University in Jena (2016-2018). After graduation, she became an independent researcher and developed her current research project. She is presently working as a research assistant at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich in a DFG-funded project "Die asiatische Frontier aufnehmen. Nahrung und essensbezogenes Wissen in Sibirien des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts" (English title: "Absorbing the Asian Frontier: Food and food-related knowledge in seventeenth and eighteenth century Siberia"). For the project, she is researching the role that food, food practices, and food-related knowledge played in the process of exploration of Siberia and its appropriation by Muscovy and the Russian Empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her research interests include Russian and Soviet history in postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, gender history, and the history of the body.

Eine Illustration aus dem 1755 veröffentlichten ethnographischen Werk Stepan Krascheninnikows, "Opisaniie Zemli Kamchatki" (Krasheninnikov 1755, S. 42-43)

Background Article

Siberian food and European taste

Siberian eating habits in the 18th century, as seen through the eyes of European travellers

This article invites the reader to join a culinary journey through Siberia in the 18th century in a company of ethnographers from Europe and the Russian Empire. For the Russian Empire, the 18th century was a time of great expeditions to explore the vast imperial territory that extended all the way...