Jovana Lazic in Slovenia and Croatia

Jovana Lazic, a native of Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia), joined Stanford in 2006 as acting assistant professor in the history department and later joined CREEES in 2013 to lead the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Dr. Lazic teaches multi-disciplinary courses focused on the Balkans, the First World War, urban history of Europe’s continental empires (Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian), and global studies. Her main research focuses on the everyday lived experience of military occupation in the Balkans during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 and the First World War, for which she has worked in archives throughout the region—Vienna, Belgrade, Sofia, Skopje, and Bitola. She is currently writing a book, War and Occupation in the Balkans, 1912–18. 

Although Dr. Lazic emigrated at the young age of 5, through research, work, and family connections, she has visited the countries of the former Yugoslavia and the wider Balkans regularly over the past 25 years. She is a founding member of the Stanford-Berkeley New Yugoslav Studies group. In 2015, she co-led an overseas seminar for Stanford undergraduate students in Dubrovnik and Sarajevo and will be leading a similar seminar in autumn 2027. 

During this program, Dr. Lazic will delve into different historical periods of present-day Slovenia and Croatia, which have been shaped by their position on the Adriatic and at the crossroads of East and West. We will explore the Adriatic Sea as a center of cultural and commercial exchange as well as geopolitical contestation since the 17th century and will consider the rich political and cultural legacy of the Habsburg Empire in the region. We’ll also delve into the two Yugoslav states of the 20th century by focusing on the Adriatic islands, sites of World War II Jewish refugee camps , a socialist labor camp, and the renowned Korčula Summer School, which gathered leading socialist thinkers from around the world in the 1960s. We will complement our historical journeys with an exploration of the rich contemporary culture in the region, including film, sports, and the famous Dubrovnik Summer Festival.

At Stanford:

• Associate Director, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES), since 2013

• Lecturer, COLLEGE program, Stanford Global Studies, History Department, CREEES, since 2013

• Assistant Director, Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies, 2009–2013

• Acting Assistant Professor, Department of History, 2006–08

• Recipient, Dean’s Award of Merit, 2025

• Resident Fellow, Yost House, since 2021

 Education:

• BS, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

• MS, Sciences Po-Paris

• PhD, Yale University