Contact

Email: anna.dolganov(at)oeaw.ac.at

Telephone:

Location: Dominikanerbastei 16 | 1010 Vienna

Biographical sketch

BA in Classics, Harvard University (magna cum laude, 2005). Gates Cambridge Scholar, MPhil in Ancient History, King's College Cambridge (1st class honors, 2006). MA in Ancient History, Princeton University (2009). Maternity leave, 3 children (2010-2014). DAAD Fellowship, University of Konstanz (2014). Visiting scholar at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Kolleg Konstanz (2014). PhD in ancient history, Princeton University (11.2018). Research Associate (postdoc) in FWF-funded projects at the University of Vienna (2018-2021) and at the ÖAI (2021-2022). APART-GSK Excellence Fellowship of the ÖAW (from 8.2022). Scientific Prize of the City of Vienna 2023.

I am an internationally trained historian of the Roman empire with technical expertise in the disciplines of papyrology, epigraphy and Roman legal history. Having received my education in Greek and Latin philology and ancient history in the US and UK (Harvard, Cambridge, Princeton), I came to Vienna as a doctoral student to acquire training in documentary papyrology from experts at the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Mastering this discipline was necessary to conduct original research for my Princeton doctoral project on Roman judicial administration, exploiting the wealth of papyrological material surviving from Roman Egypt to shed light on the broader imperial context.

My research focuses on the edition and interpretation of documentary sources (papyri and inscriptions) as evidence for the social, legal and institutional history of the Roman empire. My first book (The Administration of Justice in the Roman Empire: Sociology and Institutions, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in 2024) investigates the development of the Roman imperial court system and its impact on provincial societies during the late Republic and first three centuries of the Principate (ca.133 BCE-284 CE). This is the first systematic attempt to integrate the rich papyrological documentation from Egypt into a general discussion of Roman imperial jurisdiction. My second book analyzes the genre of Roman judicial records and presents new or revised critical editions with translation and commentary of ca. 100 records of trials from the Roman empire (Documents of Roman Trials from the Late Republic to the Reign of Diocletian, Cambridge University Press 2025). 

My current research project (Public Archives in Roman Egypt) explores the structure and dynamics of Roman archives and their impact on Roman governance on the basis of masses of underexploited papyrological material. This project has been awarded the APART-GSK fellowship of excellence, one of six such grants in all of the humanities and social sciences in Austria, by the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 2022. Its published results are expected to alter our understanding of premodern archival technologies and reframe the study of Roman imperial administration.

Research Projects

• »Roman Court Proceedings in Papyri: New Evidence, New Perspectives« 
• »Public Archives in Roman Egypt« 

Research interests

• Social, legal and institutional history of the Roman Empire
• Papyrology, edition of documentary papyri
• Greek and Latin epigraphy
• Archives in the Roman Empire
• Graeco-Roman Egypt; Roman North Africa

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