Okategoriserade In memory of Martin Kragh

Martin Kragh died on 23 July 2026, at the age of 45. His death is a profound loss to Swedish scholarship on Russia and Eastern Europe, and to all those who valued his ability to make history and international affairs understandable, relevant and deeply human.

Published on balticworlds.com on September 11, 2026

Martin Kragh died on 23 July 2026, at the age of 45. His death is a profound loss to Swedish scholarship on Russia and Eastern Europe, and to all those who valued his ability to make history and international affairs understandable, relevant and deeply human.

Martin was an economist and historian by training. He received his PhD in Economic History from the Stockholm School of Economics in 2009 and became Associate Professor at Uppsala University’s Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES). From 2015, he was a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, and in 2021 he became Deputy Director of the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS).

His scholarly work focused particularly on Russia’s economic and political development, its history and its relationship with the wider world. But Martin’s contribution reached far beyond academia. Through his books, essays and countless interviews, he became one of Sweden’s most trusted voices on Russia and Eastern Europe. During the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, his calm, rigorous and historically grounded analysis offered clarity at a time of enormous uncertainty.

In particular, through his books Det fallna imperiet (2022) and Historiens återkomst (2025), Martin became one of the foremost voices explaining Putin’s regime and the war against Ukraine to a broad Swedish audience. When, towards the end of his life, he appeared on Sveriges Radio’s popular programme Sommar i P1 (broadcast in June 2026), he became almost a household name — something that can be said to be quite unusual for a Swedish historian.

Martin was also committed to strengthening the next generation of expertise. He contributed to the development of SCEEUS and to efforts to broaden knowledge of Eastern Europe in Sweden. He also had some collaboration with researchers at Södertörn University and the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES). At the time of his death, he was developing plans for conferences and research networks, some of which had already received funding from the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (Östersjöstiftelsen). These activities reflected his commitment to fostering research and research training on Eastern Europe in Sweden.

He leaves behind an important body of scholarship, as well as many grateful readers, colleagues and friends. He also leaves a generation of researchers and students whom he encouraged and inspired. His intellectual contribution, his generosity as a colleague and his ability to engage a wider public with difficult questions will be remembered with great respect and affection. He will be deeply missed.

Joakim Ekman