The Kennan Institute of the Wilson Center is pleased to announce the appointment of Rozalia Garipova as the first Billington Fellow at the Kennan Institute.

Dr. Garipova is a historian of Muslim communities of Central Eurasia. Her interest lies in exploring issues of religious authority, Islamic law and gender in Islam as well as the interaction between Islamic law and imperial governance in the Russian empire. The book project she aims to complete during the fellowship year investigates the transformation of Islamic family and inheritance law and religious authority in Russia in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Dr. Garipova received her Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. She held a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in 2013-2015 and was a Member at the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, during 2015-2016 academic year.

The Billington Fellowship was established in 2016 in tribute to the co-founder of the Kennan Institute, Director Emeritus of the Wilson Center, and Librarian Emeritus of Congress, James H. Billington. Dr. Billington has made enduring contributions to the field of Russian Studies, and in our nation’s ability to understand and maintain bridges of dialogue with the Russian people. He is not only the author of The Icon and the Axe (1966), Fire in the Minds of Men (1980), and Russia in Search of Itself (2004), among other seminal works; he is the visionary behind the Open World Leadership Center, which has facilitated the travel of over 24,000 individuals from Eurasia to the United States to meet with members of Congress and visit across the United States.

The Billington Fellowship is made possible through generous private support to the Billington Initiative at the Kennan Institute.