Kevin M. F. Platt is a professor of cultural history in the Russian and Eastern European Studies and Comparative Literature and Literary Theory departments at the University of Pennsylvania. He authored the books History in a Grotesque Key. Russian Literature and the Idea of Revolution (Stanford University Press, 1997; in Russian, «История в гротескном ключе: Русская литература и идея революции». М.: Академический проект, 2007) and Terror and Greatness: Ivan and Peter as Russian Myths (Cornell University Press, 2011). He edited the recently published book Global Russian Cultures (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019). Currently, he is finishing a book titled Near abroad: Russians in Latvia and is researching Russian historiography of the 18tKevin M. F. Platt is a professor of cultural history in the Russian and Eastern European Studies and Comparative Literature and Literary Theory departments at the University of Pennsylvania. He authored the books History in a Grotesque Key. Russian Literature and the Idea of Revolution (Stanford University Press, 1997; in Russian, «История в гротескном ключе: Русская литература и идея революции». М.: Академический проект, 2007) and Terror and Greatness: Ivan and Peter as Russian Myths (Cornell University Press, 2011). He edited the recently published book Global Russian Cultures (University of Wisconsin Press, 2019). Currently, he is finishing a book titled Near abroad: Russians in Latvia and is researching Russian historiography of the 18th to 21st centuries. He is the founder of the symposium Your Language My Ear.