LSE IDEAS is pleased to host the Mladena and Dianko Sotirov Visiting Fellowship thanks to the generous endowment by Mrs Mladena Sotirov. Sotirov fellows study Bulgaria and the Balkan region, working to to understand its recent history, international affairs, the challenges it faces today and the prospects of tomorrow.
Click here for more information about the Fellowship and applications.
The deadline for applications is 22 April 2021.
2019 Sotirov Fellow
Bogdan Zawadewicz is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (LMU), Germany. In his doctoral work he investigates the role of symbolic political cleavages in shaping separatists' strategies in Bosnia & Hercegovina and Ukraine. He has worked as a research associate at Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) in Regensburg, Germany where he was a member of the research group "Frozen and Unfrozen Conflicts". He holds a Master's Degree in Political Science (University of Warsaw, Institute of Political Science). His research interests include the Balkans, Post-Soviet Space, separatism, conflict studies, field theory (Pierre Bourdieu), world-systems analysis.
2018 Sotirov Fellow
Asya Metodieva is a PhD Candidate at Central European University (CEU), Budapest. Her research is on foreign fighter mobilization in post-violent societies with a focus on the Western Balkans. Her dissertation investigates the construction of martial social identity within different fighter mobilization streams from the region contributing to two ongoing conflicts: Syria and Eastern Ukraine. Asya has been a teaching assistant for the Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism and Public Management classes at School of Public Policy, CEU. She holds MA in International Public Policy from CEU and MA in International Relations and Security Studies from Sofia University 'St. Kliment Ohridski'. Previously, Asya worked as a journalist for the Bulgarian National Television (BNT).
2017 Sotirov Fellow
Roumiana Preshlenova is Associate Professor at the Institute of Balkan Studies and Centre of Thracology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. She is also lecturer in Southeast European Studies, Faculty of History of Sofia University 'St. Kliment Ohridski'.