Doctor Adriano Roccucci Joins the SFI Board of Trustees

Adriano Roccucci was born in Rome, in 1962, and graduated from the Philosophy Faculty of Rome’s La Sapienza University in 1994. He received his doctorate from Roma Tre University, in the field of Modern Italian History and completed post-doctoral work at the department of historical, geographical and anthropological studies from 1995-1997. He then worked in research at the Faculty of Modern History at the Catholic University of Milan from 1999 through 2001 and at the department of historical, geographical and anthropological studies of the University of Rome, Tre, in 2001-02. In 2005, he was made Associate Professor of Modern History at Roma Tre, and then full Professor in 2006.  From 2003 to 2013, he was a member of the Doctoral Committee for History, and since 2013 has been a member of the Doctoral Committee for Political Science.

Roccucci’s research activities were initially focused on the crisis of the liberal state in Italy over the period from Giolitti until the onset of fascism. Later he turned to 20th century Russian History. These studies were based on Soviet archival research. In particular, Roccucci focused on the relationship between the Soviet State and the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th c. In 2017, he presented his monograph, entitled “Stalin and the Patriarch”, in Moscow. The work looks at the relationship between the upper echelons of Soviet authority and the ROC – and especially at the change in Stalin’s policy toward the church in the aftermath of WWII in the post-war environment. Roccucci also looks at the relations between “Soviet Moscow” and the Patriarchate, Soviet foreign policy in relation to Western Europe in the post-war period, the “Empire Dimension” in modern Russia, the interrelationship between nation and religion in Russia, Central and Eastern Europe, the history of Russian culture in the 19th and 20th centuries, and questions of culture and religion in relationship to Russia and Europe.

In addition to Italian institutes of higher learning, Roccucci also cooperates with research institutes in Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia, including: the Russian Academy of Science’s Institutes for General History, Russian History, European Studies, Eastern Studies, Slavic Studies, Balkan Studies; the Kiev-Mogiljansky Academy; and the State University of Belorussia in Minsk.

Roccucci is a member of the Italian Society for the Study of Modern History (SISSCo), for which he was a member of the governing body from 2011-12. He is also a member of the Italian Association of Slavicists and the Institute of Luigi Sturzo. Since 2015 Roccucci has been the Director of the Italian journal for Modern History, entitled “Il mestiere di storico” (The Profession of History), and has worked as an editor for the same journal since 2011. He is a member of the academic committee of the journal “Limes”, with which he has worked since the 1990s, and in which he has published numerous articles about the political, geopolitical and cultural realities of the formerly Soviet territories.

Roccucci has been named an expert for the Papal Commission for New Martyrs, created by Pope John Paul II, for the collection of historical documentation related to 20th century witnesses for the faith.

Roccucci was honored for his work in the field of historical research in international relations at the Faculty of Philology and Philosophy at Rome, Tre (2002). His monograph entitled “Rome – the Capital of Nationalism (1908-1923)”, which is volume 46 in the series entitled “Memorie” of the Institute of the History of the Risorgimento Italiano, won the 24-25th National Minturno Prize for historical surveys in 2001.