Brandon Schechter will be presenting a chapter from his dissertation, "Government Issue: The Material Culture of the Red Army 1941-1945." He received his Ph.D. in History at the University of California-Berkeley in May of 2015. He received a B.A. in Russian Studies at Vassar College in 2005. He has also studied at Smolny College, Middlebury College, European University at St. Petersburg, Kazan Federal University and the Higher School of Economics, where he was a research fellow at The International Center for the History and Sociology of World War II and Its Consequences with the support from Fulbright IIE. His research interests are currently focused on material culture and everyday life in the Soviet Union during the Second World War.