30 Years After the Soviet Collapse: Firsthand Recollections & Reflections

This discussion reflecting on the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades later was hosted by Northwestern University's Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies (REEES) Research Program (part of the Weinberg College Center for International & Area Studies) on December 10, 2021.
Participants:
Ann Cooper is professor emerita at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She has more than 25 years of radio and print reporting experience, including eight years as executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. As National Public Radio's first Moscow bureau chief, Cooper covered the tumultuous events of the final five years of Soviet communism.
John Katzka is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer. His 38-year career in the Foreign Service included two tours to the Soviet Union. At the time of the Soviet collapse, he was serving as the Minister-Counselor for Public Affairs at the US Embassy in Moscow.
Andrey Kortunov is the Director General of the Russian International Affairs Council and a member of expert committees and boards of trustees for multiple Russian and international organizations. At the time of the Soviet collapse, he was the Head of the US Foreign Policy Department at the Institute of US & Canada Studies, the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
Maria Lipman is a Senior Associate for the PONARS program of the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University and an accomplished journalist. Most recently, she served as the editor of Count & Counterpoint. From 2001 to 2011, she wrote an op-ed column on Russian politics, media and society for the Washington Post and from 2012 to 2018 she wrote a blog for The New Yorker.
More about Northwestern's Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies (REEES) Research Program:
reees.northwes...