Oleg Vitalyevich Khlevniuk (Олег Витальевич Хлевнюк; born 7 July 1959 in Vinnytsia, Ukrainian SSR) is a Russian historian of the Soviet Union.

Career

He completed his Candidate of Sciences thesis on cultural change among Soviet urban workers between 1926–1939 at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union in 1986. He taught at the history department of Moscow State University and is currently a professor at the Higher School of Economics.

Research and views

He has authored a number of books on the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and the Gulag system. A review by The Times Literary Supplement described him as "one of a now endangered species: a Russian historian who collaborates with Western scholars and funding bodies to produce objective studies based on newly published documents", but criticized Khlevniuk for omitting certain Stalinist crimes in his books and his approach of dismissing everything that has not been directly proven by archival documents. His outlook on Soviet history is placed by Lewis Siegelbaum within the "neo-totalitarian" school.

Works

Books authored/edited

Sources published

Reception

He is a recipient, together with Yoram Gorlizki, of the 2004 Alec Nove Prize, awarded by the British Association for Slavonic & East European Studies, for their book Cold Peace: Stalin and the Soviet Ruling Circle, 1945–1953. He received the Enlightener Prize in 2023.