Presentation and discussion of the book "Les Suisses de la mer Noire" by Elena Simonato

Elena Simonato will give a book talk on Les Suisses de la mer Noire: histoire d’une diaspora oubliée. The talk offers a concise yet rigorously documented narrative of the Swiss settler communities on the Black Sea coast of the Russian Empire and the agricultural colonies that emerged there in the nineteenth century. Simonato reconstructs the colonies’ trajectories - from initial hesitation and difficult choices to years of struggle and the first successes - and shows how viticulture, quality agriculture and cheesemaking developed as local industries. Drawing on sources collected in her research projects, the book restores a disappearing world.

Dr. Elena Simonato teaches linguistics and Russian civilisation at the University of Lausanne. Her research addresses the history of Swiss–Russian relations with particular attention to Swiss viticultural colonies on the Black Sea, the reception and work of Ticino architects in Saint Petersburg, and the history of ideas in Russia and Western Europe.