Russian state university advertises research position to write collective biography of Putin’s ancestors

Source: Meduza

The Russian State University for the Humanities (RSHU) is seeking a researcher to trace the lineage of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The listing appeared on a national academic jobs portal on April 23. The university also posted the listing on its own website (.pdf).

The researcher would study the topic “A collective biography of members of the Putin family in Russia’s emancipation era (1861–1917): The transition from farming to small-scale urban entrepreneurship.”

The salary, according to the listing, will be nearly 82,000 rubles, with no bonuses or benefits. The deadline for applications is June 10.

Putin’s ancestors were peasants, and archives usually have no record of how they lived, historian Mikhail Gershzon said in May 2026. Gershzon recently discovered that the Russian president’s paternal grandfather — Spiridon Ivanovich Putin — was baptized in 1879 in the village of Dudino, near Tver, northwest of Moscow.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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Russian state university advertises research position to write collective biography of Putin’s ancestors

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