Rūta Bruževica Awarded 2026-2027 Aina Birnitis Dissertation-Completion Fellowship in the Humanities for Latvia

May 4, 2026

The Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies is pleased to announce that Rūta Bruževica has been awarded the 2026-2027 Aina Birnitis Dissertation-Completion Fellowship in the Humanities for Latvia.

The Aina Birnitis Scholarship supports a year of research and writing to help advanced graduate students in the humanities in the last year of Ph.D. dissertation writing. The fellowship provides a $21,000 stipend for one year plus $1,000 for university fees.

The fellowship is supported by a bequest of Aina Birnitis, a librarian by profession living in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

The 2026 applications were evaluated by the AABS 2025-2026 Grants and Awards Committee consisting of AABS VP for Professional Development Dr. Kaarel Piirimäe, AABS President Dr. Jörg Hackmann, and AABS Director-at-Large Dr. Dovilė Budrytė. Learn about the other 2026-2027 recipients here.

A smiling woman wearing a pink shirt and maroon blazer

Rūta Bruževica is a PhD student in history at Tallinn University, specialising in medieval social and urban history of the Baltic region. Her research focuses on the history of craft guilds in medieval Livonia, exploring their religious and everyday practices as forms of sociability. Bruževica’s work combines archival research with digital history methods, including the development of a digital edition of medieval craft ordinances from Riga and Tallinn.

Project Overview: Craft Guild as a Place of Sociability in Medieval Livonian Towns

The funded project will support the completion of the doctoral dissertation “Craft Guild as a Place of Sociability in Medieval Livonian Towns: Religious and Everyday Practices,” which combines traditional and digital approaches to medieval social history. During the grant period, Bruževica will focus on finalising the remaining chapters and preparing the thesis for defence, while also laying the groundwork for postdoctoral research and publication as a monograph. Through this project, Bruževica aims to strengthen cross-border perspectives in the study of medieval Livonia and advance the future of medieval history research in Latvia.