Rusina is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Ukrainian History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. She received her Ph.D. in History from the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv in 1991. She has authored numerous publications, including three books dedicated to various aspects of Ukrainian medieval and early modern history. Rusina's project at HURI entitled "Kyivan Princely Tradition in the Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries" is intended as a conceptually innovative and comprehensive study of the Kyivan princes during the age of the Tatar and, then, Lithuanian supremacy. This period remains the most obscure in the city's history, so obscure in fact that some authors question the very existence of Kyiv as a city in the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. Because local chronicle-writing was interrupted soon after Kyiv had been conquered by the Batu Khan, information about the Kyivan princes of the period remains very fragmentary. The project seeks to fill in this gap.

Rusina will be carrying out her research at HURI for seven months beginning in November. Her fellowship is funded by the Dr. Jaroslaw and Nadia Mihaychuk endowed gift.