Friedrich Asschenfeldt is a PhD candidate in History at Princeton. His dissertation explores the fraught place of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union in the world economy through the lens of its grain trade, from the world’s biggest exporter of grain before World War I to biggest importer in the 1970s. Before coming to Princeton, Friedrich studied History and Economics at the University of Munich (BA, MA), the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, and Central European University in Budapest. He recently co-edited a Special Issue in Europe-Asia Studies on the theme of “Capitalism and Socialism in Russia” (1/2024