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While the war in Ukraine raged on, Anastasija Mladenovska ’25 traveled alone to Belgrade, Serbia, where she conducted field research that managed to accomplish what the Serbian government, or its U.S. Embassy, could not.

By integrating herself into a diasporic community of Russians who had become displaced by the war, Mladenovska was able to get them to open up and start talking. They told her about their experiences fleeing Russia and about immigrating to Belgrade. They talked about their perspectives on the war, about the hope of returning home, and even about the possibility of needing to stay in Serbia permanently.     

“Both the Serbian government and the U.S. Embassy have had absolutely no luck at this,” said Philllip Arceneaux, ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú assistant professor of Strategic Communication and director of ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú University’s Diplomacy Lab. “So the embassy has been completely impressed because they’ve made no headway in making contact with this population. But Anastasija goes there, and all of a sudden she has extensive interviews and field notes from walking around and talking to people.”

It’s an impressive accomplishment, especially considering the reluctance most diasporic communities harbor toward talking to people whom they consider to be cultural outsiders. 

But Mladenovska is no ordinary college student. 

Because she’s not only a triple major Honors College student studying Political Science and Finance, as well as Russian and East European Affairs, Mladenovska is also fluent in Russian, Serbian, and French. An international student, she’s originally from Macedonia, born and raised in the Balkans, where she first became interested in international affairs and global politics.

“It’s something I'm so passionate about,” Mladenovska said, “because we live in a world of protracted conflict right now. And it's not just one area that has war, or just the major wars like between Russia and Ukraine. You also have all these wars on the periphery. And that's problematic because it provides justification for an international system that we can't control and that is completely dissolving itself.”

‘It was total immersion’

Her trip to conduct field research in Serbia began after Mladenovska started an independent study project on exilic narratives in Russian literature. Soon it became clear that her academic interests also aligned with another project that the U.S. Department of State was seeking assistance with through the Diplomacy Lab. 

So she applied and was accepted. And with support from a Geoffrion Family Fellow grant through the Havighurst Center, Mladenovska soon found herself on the streets of Belgrade over winter term.

“I had read a newspaper from back home, and the headline said, ‘Russian immigrants are swarming Serbia,’ and since we were already involved in the exile topic, I decided to study that,” she said. “And as soon as I got there, I knew that moment was going to transform the way I see myself, and the way I think about ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú. It's definitely been the highlight of my time here.”

While in Belgrade, Mladenovska dove into a variety of local scenes. She sat for hours observing social settings in cafes, chatted with people walking down the street, and started conversations in bookstores. She also designed surveys, and consumed as much of the local media as possible. 

“It was total immersion,” she said. “I never regarded them as Russian immigrants. I never saw them that way. For me, they were just people.”

And they didn’t see her as the “other,” either. And so they opened up to her as well.

Diplomatic discoveries 

The U.S. Department of State became interested in her research findings because of the significant social, political, and economic impacts that diasporic populations can have on the places they settle within.

With regard to the Russians who fled their homeland in this instance, many of them arrived in Serbia with money. They were also mostly affluent, highly educated, and politically active. And they possessed the resources and the willingness to make significant impacts on their environment. That is, they vote and they spend money. So both the embassy and the Serbian government wanted to understand how this might affect and alter the local political, social, and economic landscapes.

After returning to the U.S, Mladenovska was invited to share her experiences at the 2024 Diplomacy Lab Fair in Washington, D.C, where she networked with students from other universities, Foreign Service officers, civil service in the D.C. area, and even with the Department of State itself. 

“She connected up and down,” Arceneaux said. “The State Department ended up interviewing her because they had heard so much about her throughout the day. Before everything wrapped, they did an interview talking about her experiences and about how the Diplomacy Lab has been a positive experience for her.”

Back at ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, she also presented at the Undergraduate Research Forum. And after graduation, Mladenovska is considering working in international law, international diplomacy, or maybe for the Department of State itself. She’s not sure yet. But either way, she’ll bring the same energy and enthusiasm to whatever end she decides to pursue. 

“If there's any legacy that I want to leave, it’s that people should be courageous and to do the things they sometimes don’t necessarily want to do, but that will benefit them in the long run,” Mladenovska said. “So do what you're passionate about, start conversations, go out and get stories, and share them with others. There's nothing more valuable than that.”