Russian university fires long-time American studies scholar amid online attacks on his family

Arkhangelsk college students lost a beloved American studies scholar earlier this month. Alexey Feldt didn’t die — he was fired after teaching at Lomonosov Northern Arctic Federal University (SAFU) for more than 30 years. A new investigation by T-invariant shows how an online harassment campaign targeting the liberal politics of Feldt’s son and daughter-in-law likely played a role in his dismissal. At the same time, it’s unclear whether the Feldt family’s affiliations drove SAFU’s decision or whether the university merely used them as an excuse to force out a professor who challenged the administration.

Alexey Feldt had taught American studies at Lomonosov Northern Arctic Federal University since 1995, serving for 10 of those years as the history department’s dean. Earlier this year, Russia’s Education and Science Ministry awarded him a distinction as an “honored worker.” Associate Professor Elena Shurupova — a colleague in the history department — described Feldt as one of the university’s most popular teachers. Former students who spoke to T-invariant called Feldt “a living legend” and “a special gift” to the school.

In social media posts, many of which he later hid from public view, Feldt said SAFU’s acting president approached him in late September and asked him to resign voluntarily. When Feldt refused, administrators began demanding explanations for his absence from the history department on Saturdays, when he had no classes and no assigned workstation with a computer in the department’s office. On November 17, the school fired him, claiming that he’d failed to show up for work. Feldt has vowed to challenge his dismissal in court.

Commenting on Feldt’s dismissal, historian Ivan Kurilla noted that university administrators often make similar threats against faculty, but he’s unaware of anyone following through. The phenomenon is especially absurd, Kurilla explained, because “Russian professors simply don’t have their own desks and chairs, let alone offices.” “There are many times fewer desks and chairs than there are faculty members,” he wrote on Facebook.

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“None of my arguments — including citations from ministry documents that allow instructors to perform out-of-class work away from their assigned workplace — were taken into account,” Feldt complained on VKontakte, warning that “this scheme could be used to fire any SAFU instructor.” 

Alexander Novikov, the deputy chairman of the Rassvet party and the author of a petition in Feldt’s defense that has attracted more than 900 signatures, partly attributes the professor’s ouster to a denunciation published in a pro-Kremlin Telegram channel. Bloggers have drawn attention to an “American club” Feldt allegedly curates for students and accused his son of living in Europe (a claim his daughter-in-law denies). When Feldt spoke openly online about his dismissal, an anonymous, private Telegram channel with 37,000 subscribers ran several attack stories about him and his family’s alleged ties to Alexey Navalny’s movement. A local television network later joined in mudslinging, celebrating his firing as a “purge of old liberals.”

Alexey Feldt has asked journalists not to “politicize” his case and has declined to comment further, but his daughter-in-law, Marina, told Agentstvo that she believes he is paying the price for publicly challenging his dismissal. The subsequent show of support for Feldt only aggravated the situation, she explained, “and then they sicced this trashy [Telegram] channel on us.” “I was never a coordinator of Navalny’s office. Neither my husband nor I has ever funded the Anti-Corruption Foundation; we don’t have any ‘toxic’ statuses, and we don’t even live in Europe. It’s all lies,” Marina said, warning that SAFU is now pressuring students who have expressed support for her father-in-law.