Sarah Nicole Lantsman ’26
Q: Where did you study as an undergraduate? What was your major(s)?
I graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville with a double major in Art History and Political Science.
Q: What do you like about UNC’s graduate program in Russian and East European Studies?
The UNC-REEES emphasis on intradepartmental study through a build-your-own program offers a unique opportunity to hone several perspectives and lenses related to the Eastern European region. The REEES graduate degree allows its students to build a program of coursework that fits their personal research interests!
Q: Why did you choose to specialize in this region of the globe?
Over the years, as my studies have come to fruition, I have become more aware of how recent increased geopolitical tensions and armed conflict worldwide have stressed the importance of recording regional material culture and collective memory. As a first-generation American with Ukrainian-Jewish roots, I have decided to undertake this regional focus as a journey in achieving a personally significant goal: recognize, respect, and recount the experiences of my family who fled the former USSR as refugees in 1979.
Q: Do you have work and/or study experience in the region?
No.
Q: What are your research interests?
In my graduate coursework at UNC, I hope to focus on interpreting actions within Eastern Europe’s civil society through which I can gain valuable insights into the region’s rich visual and material culture. I am excited to gain a foundation and deep understanding of Eastern European politics and history, which will eventually underscore my future PhD research highlighting Ukrainian Art History.
Q: What would you like to do after you graduate?
In my eventual pursuit of this Ph.D. project, I hope to bring together inclusive research on the traces of art and politics in Eastern European history.
Q: What are your hobbies? What do you like doing in your free time?
I enjoy watching horror movies, visiting art museums, attending music events, and hanging out with my friends outdoors in my free time! I also love to spend time with my sweet, trick-trained orange kitty, Ezra.
Q: What is your favorite visual reminder of the region and why? 
As an art historian, I have embedded visual and material reminders of Eastern Europe and Russia into my academic practice. In my undergraduate research, I worked on analyzing the montage (aka assemblage) work of the artist Margit Sielska-Reich, through which I discovered a coalition of subjects related to her art, such as social constructs of femininity, definitions of domestic spaces, presentations of power, and impositions of privatized versus nationalized production. I worked most closely with Sielska-Reich’s works titled Montage(By the Window) and Viola (Composition with Hand), 1934 both completed in 1934. This medium allowed Reich-Sielska to articulate the diametric nature of the powerlessness that Eastern European women might have felt in the face of violence that was imposed on them amid domestic war.
