Submissions
Kritika accepts contributions in the following genres: (a) research articles (8,000–12,000 words, including notes); (b) review articles (6,000–10,000 words, including notes); (c) review essays (2,000–8,000 words, including notes); (d) source analyses (2,000–6,000 words, including notes); (e) reevaluations of classic works in the field from a contemporary perspective (5,000–10,000 words, including notes); and (f) letters to the editors (no longer than 500 words). For information on styles, see our style sheet. Submissions to Kritika should be original work not published previously in any language. We will not consider text or images created using artificial intelligence (AI) and require disclosure of the extent and nature of AI assistance (error checking, image refinement, etc.), if any, in submitted content.
All submissions, except for review essays, must include an abstract of no more than 250 words.
All submissions, regardless of genre, must be fully anonymized. Remove all author names, affiliations, and institutional identifiers from the title page, as well as from headers, footers, and the main text.
Research Articles
Articles should be submitted as e-mail attachments to one of the editors. All articles considered by the editors to have potential for publication will be subject to anonymous peer review by scholars in the field. Once an article has been evaluated it may be accepted, sent to the author for revision and resubmission, or rejected. Among the editors, Gregory Afinogenov is most involved in early Russian and imperial history, Krista Goff and Alexandra Oberländer with modern topics.
Sourcework
Sourcework submissions may include close readings of individual or small groups of historical sources, explorations of new methodologies or methodological questions, and/or critical descriptions of research and the role of the authorial self in archives, oral interviews, or wherever the life of the historian leads. They should be submitted in electronic form to one of the editors.
Classics in Retrospect
This rubric asks historians to reevaluate, in light of subsequent scholarship, books that were understood as classics at the moment of their publication, or books that came to be seen as classics in the years following their publication. Generally speaking, these books were published at least thirty years ago. If you have an idea for a Classics in Retrospect essay, please contact Special Projects Editor Stephen Bittner. We do not accept unsolicited submissions for this genre. Neither Classics in Retrospect nor Sourcework submissions are subject to peer review, but the editors reserve the right to ask for revisions before publication.
Review Essays and Review Articles
Those wishing to write review essays or review articles for Kritika should first contact one of the associate editors or editors. Among the associate editors, in general, Maria Grazia Bartolini is involved most with topics connected to pre-Petrine history; Ian W. Campbell with the history of the Russian Empire; Matthias Neumann with the 1917–53 period; and Erin Hutchinson with international/ comparative topics and Soviet history after 1953. Among the editors, Gregory Afinogenov is most involved in early Russian and imperial history, Krista Goff and Alexandra Oberländer with modern topics. Review essays and review articles received without prior consultation with one of the editors will not be accepted.
Review essays, which analyze in depth a discrete body of noteworthy secondary works, should begin with a title and list of books under consideration, with full bibliographical information. Review articles are expected to range over a large number of secondary works, contain a substantial scholarly apparatus, and feature a component of original research. Both genres of review should be submitted as e-mail attachments to the editor or associate editor who assigned it.
Letters to the Editors
Kritika actively solicits responses to its publications. Letters to the editors should be brief and civil, address issues raised in or articles published in Kritika, and be submitted in electronic form to one of the editors. The editors reserve the right not to print inappropriate responses and to make minor stylistic changes.