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In this talk, Dmitry Dubrovskiy examines how academic boycotts and sanctions, imposed in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, affect Russian scholars forced into exile. He explores the tension between the defense of academic freedom and the political logic of exclusion, showing how restrictions on research collaboration, funding, and institutional access reshape exiled academics’ opportunities for scholarly work and integration. The presentation situates these dynamics within broader questions of epistemic justice, highlighting the risks of silencing critical voices and the ethical challenges for host institutions seeking to support scholars at risk while responding to wartime realities. It also reflects on the emergence of Russian academic institutions in exile, which strive to preserve independent scholarship, sustain professional networks, and provide platforms for critical debate beyond the reach of state control. These new institutions serve both as lifelines for displaced scholars and as laboratories for rethinking the future of Russian academia.
Dmitry Dubrovskiy holds a PhD in history and is currently a faculty member at the Faculty of
Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague and Professor, Svobodny University (Riga). He graduated from the Faculty of History at Saint Petersburg State University and from the European University at St. Petersburg (Russia). He has taught human rights courses at the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of Saint Petersburg State University, at Columbia University, and at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. His main areas of research are academic rights and freedoms as well as limitations on freedom of speech. After the Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he left Russia and was designated by the Russian government as a “foreign agent.”
