About the Director |  | Dr. Toivo Raun |
Toivo Raun (BA, Swarthmore; MA, Ph.D, Princeton) focuses his research on modern Baltic and Finnish history, including politics, society, and cultural issues. He is the author of a major history of Estonia, titled Estonia and the Estonians, which has been published in three editions (1987, 1991, and 2001) by the Hoover Institution Press at Stanford University as well as in Finnish and Hungarian translation. Professor Raun is co-author of Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855-1914 (Princeton University Press, 1981) and co-editor of Die Universitäten Dorpat/Tartu, Riga und Wilna/Vilnius 1579-1979 (Böhlau, 1987) and Soviet Deportations in Estonia: Impact and Legacy (Tartu University Press, 2007). He has also published over fifty scholarly articles and chapters on Baltic and Finnish history in various leading journals and edited volumes. In terms of teaching Professor Raun has offered a wide range of courses on the Baltic states, Scandinavia and Finland, Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia. Most of his courses have emphasized a comparative approach, e.g. Nordic and Baltic States in the European Union and Ethnic Relations in the Post-Soviet West.
Professor Raun has served as president of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies (1992-94), editor of the Journal of Baltic Studies (1981-85), and director of the Baltic Studies Summer Institute (1998-99, 2005-06). In 2006 the Estonian Learned Society, the oldest scholarly organization in Estonia, elected him as an honorary member, and in 2012 the Republic of Estonia recognized his historical research with the Order of the White Star IV Class. Professor Raun came to IU in 1990 and is Professor of Central Eurasian Studies and Adjunct Professor of History. He has also taught at California State University, Long Beach and served as a visiting professor at the University of Toronto and Tartu University in Estonia.
