Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick delivered the 2022 Allan Martin lecture on 19 April 2022.

Hosted by the School of History and supported by the endowment, provided by Beryl Rawson, Professor Fitzpatrick's lecture presented a concise history of the Soviet Union, drawn from her most recent monograph, The Shortest History of the Soviet Union (2022), published by Black Inc.

Professor Fitzpatrick is a social and cultural historian of Russia, principally in the Soviet era, and she is affiliated with the Research Centre for Refugees, Migration, and Humanitarian Studies, Australian Catholic University. The author, co-author, and editor of twenty-five books, her many awards include the 2016 Prime Minister’s Prize for Non-Fiction for On Stalin’s Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics (2015). Since returning to Australia in 2012, her research has turned to issues of war, displacement, and emigration.