Erik R. Scott is the John P. Black Professor of History at the University of Kansas, the Director of KU’s Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and the Editor of The Russian Review. His research and teaching explore migration and diaspora within and beyond the borders of Russia and the Soviet Union. He is the author of Defectors: How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World (2023) and Familiar Strangers: The Georgian Diaspora and the Evolution of Soviet Empire (Oxford UP, 2016).