Andrew Robarts

Andrew Robarts joined the RISD faculty in 2014. He is an historian of the Ottoman and Russian empires, with specializations in the history of the Ottoman Balkans and the Black Sea region. At RISD he teaches courses on Middle Eastern and Russian history. Prior to his appointment at RISD, Robarts taught at the University of California, Riverside and Central Connecticut State University. He was born and raised in the Middle East (Beirut, Lebanon and Cairo, Egypt) and worked for seven years in the refugee relief and humanitarian fields with the International Rescue Committee (in New York, east Africa, Baku, Azerbaijan and Baltimore) and the United National High Commissioner for Refugees (in Washington, DC).

Robarts’ first book, Migration and Disease in the Black Sea Region: Ottoman-Russian Relations in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2017), analyzed the nexus between the environment, epidemic diseases, human mobility and the centralizing initiatives of the Ottoman and Russian states in the Black Sea region in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Through a reconceptualization of Ottoman-Russian diplomacy and relations in the modern period, this book provides the historical context for analyzing and understanding the nature of Russian-Turkish relations in the greater Middle East today.Robarts is also the author of Black Sea Regionalism: A Case Study (Oxford University Press, 2016) and has published extensively in journals and edited volumes on Ottoman and Russian history.

Robarts’ current research interests include: a manuscript-length project on the world historical connections and interactions between the Middle East and Russia across the longue durée; networks of exchange and mobility between the Balkans and the Middle East in the Ottoman period; and the comparative history of the Ottoman and Russian Empires. His research languages include Ottoman Turkish, modern Turkish, Russian, Bulgarian, French and German.