Jan C. Behrends

Jan Claas Behrends (born 5 December 1969) is a German historian, who is known for his research on Stalinism, propaganda, public discourse, violence and wars in the Soviet and post-Soviet space. He is regarded as a leading expert on the history of Soviet and Russian security services. He is a senior researcher at the Centre for Contemporary History, and formerly worked at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center.

Career
Behrends studied history, philosophy and literature at the Free University of Berlin, the Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Wisconsin and Moscow State University. He earned his PhD in history in 2004 at the University of Potsdam with the dissertation Die erfundene Freundschaft: Propaganda für die Sowjetunion in Polen und in der DDR on pro-Soviet propaganda in the Polish People's Republic and East Germany.

He worked at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center from 2005 to 2011, when he joined the Centre for Contemporary History where he headed the project "Violence and State Legitimacy in Late Socialism" until 2015. Since 2019 he heads the research project "Legacies of Communism", that studies authoritarian developments in Central and Eastern European states and post-Soviet societies after the Fall of Communism. He was a Feodor Lynen Fellow at the University of Chicago in 2007, sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He teaches Eastern European history at the Free University of Berlin and the Humboldt University of Berlin. He has written extensively on the Russo-Ukrainian War and the political developments in Russia under Vladimir Putin. Die Welt described him as one of the most renowned experts on the Soviet secret police, the Cheka, and its successors until the present day, including today's FSB.

In March 2022 Behrends was appointed professor of history at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder).

Behrends is a member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteuropakunde and the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). He was also involved in the establishment of Historians without Borders where he is a member of the coordinating committee. He has participated in the Körber Foundation History Forum.