Personal Background

Professor Tcacenco was born in the Soviet Union in the now independent Republic of Moldova. Andrei's childhood experiences in post-Soviet Russia and Moldova shaped his own academic interests as a historian of Russia, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe.

After finishing his B.A. in European History at University of California, Santa Barbara in 2013, he began his PhD in European and World History at University of California, Santa Cruz in the Fall of the same year.  In September 2020, Andrei finished his PhD with his dissertation entitled "The Culture of Complaint: Morality and Intimacy in the Soviet Union, 1953-Present."

Research

Professor Tcacenco is a visiting assistant professor at St. Olaf College starting in the Fall of 2020. His reserach interests include the history of nationalism, postsocialism and postcolonialism, criminality and deviancy,  as well as identity formation in modern Europe.

Teaching

Classes taught:

HIST 191: History of Modern Europe from the Reformation to the Present

Russian 231: Intermediate Russian

Russian 265: Introduction to Soviet and Russian Cinema