aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- Re: [aaus-list] Slavic vs. Eurasian: another view

[kizenko@albany.edu]

You are all quite right:  the term 'Slavic' has a history and actually
means something concrete, so we should keep it.  How about just SSA
(Slavic Studies Association)?

But anyone who has applied for federal (or non-federal) funding in the
last ten years has seen the steady shift in such grant-giving bodies as
ACTR, ACLS, SSRC, IREX, and NCEEER to 'Eurasian' as a favored label, and
to policy implications of proposals as the other desired factor.  In other
words, this is coming out of a (perhaps misguided) wish on the part of
American agencies to be 'aktual'nye'--and not from any recent pressure by
the Russians.

The wittiest suggestion for renaming the AAASS would be a suggestion I
heard at Salt Lake City:  Society for the Study of Ex-Enemies.  The
acronym, of course, would be pronounced--'sexy.'




> Dear colleagues:
>       Thanks to Myroslava Znayenko and Larissa Onyshkevych for alerting
> us to the issue of renaming the AAASS and the possible non-scholarly
> motivations behind this movement. In this morning's Washington Post Anne
> Applebaum "What Are The Russians Buying?"raises the spectre of Russian oil
> money entering American think tanks and scholarly centers. Among those
> mentioned in her essay: my own institution --the Library of Congress,
> Woodrow Wilson Center, Richard Nixon Center...
>     Is the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies
> next in this list? Or is it already "under the influence" of the Eurasian
> (read Russian) oil tycoon/government conglomerate?
>
> What Are the Russians Buying?
>
> By Anne Applebaum
> THE WASHINGTON POST, Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A29
>
> Even here in Washington -- a city populated by lobbyists who once held
> political office and government officials who once worked as lobbyists --
> it's hard to top the story of Gerhard Schroeder. Last week the former
> German chancellor announced that he'd accepted a job offer from Gazprom,
> the state-controlled Russian energy mega-company. As one of his last acts
> in office, Schroeder signed an agreement to build a diplomatically and
> environmentally controversial Baltic Sea gas pipeline from Russia to
> Germany. Now he's working for the company that will build it. It's as if
> Jimmy Carter had negotiated the return of the Panama Canal to Panama --
> and then signed a lucrative contract to manage the shipping lanes.
>
> But there's more here than just the former German chancellor's quest for
> personal enrichment -- or funds to pay alimony to his three ex-wives. The
> story also reflects the growing international power of Russian money. Much
> like the Saudis, who spent the 1970s buying up London real estate, the
> Russian tycoons spent their first decade of billionaire-hood sunning
> themselves in southern France and crowding the slopes at Gstaad. And just
> as the Saudis eventually learned to make more fruitful use of their money
> -- putting prominent Americans on lucrative boards, donating money to
> their favorite causes, even befriending their wives -- the Russians, too,
> have now realized that petrodollars go a long way.
>
> What they've been seeking so far is respectability of the sort that will
> help Americans overlook their murky origins and will win Russian companies
> coveted listings on Western stock exchanges. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil
> tycoon in prison in part because he got too good at this sort of thing,
> gave big chunks of money to the Library of Congress. In return, the
> librarian of Congress hosted a party for his foundation. A similar desire
> for respectability compelled Vladimir Potanin, another Russian magnate, to
> become a patron of the arts. In return, the Guggenheim Museum in New York
> put him on its board.
>
> This year the Woodrow Wilson Center -- a federal institution that raises
> some funds privately and that encompasses the Kennan Institute for
> advanced Russian studies -- even gave a "Corporate Citizenship" award to
> Vagit Alekperov, chairman of Lukoil, another energy mega-company. At the
> award dinner, James Langdon of the D.C. law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &
> Feld lauded Alekperov as "an innovator and leader," which suited all
> concerned. Alekperov, a man who with amazing speed acquired 10 percent
> ownership of a company whose reserves may match those of Exxon Mobil, got
> his credibility. The Wilson Center raised some $400,000, mostly from
> U.S. oil companies, at that dinner. Fred Bush, chief fundraiser for the
> center, says of the new Russian billionaires that he's "happy to have
> their money" and wishes they'd give more.
>
> Others point out that it's better for Russian moguls to support Russian
> scholars than to fritter their money away buying lift tickets. The
> suggestion of influence does cause some discomfort, particularly since
> many Russian companies aren't exactly independent of the Russian
> state. Last week Paul Saunders, executive director of the Nixon Center,
> furiously denied a Russian newspaper report of Kremlin plans to set up a
> think tank, funded by the Russian government and Russian oligarchs, in
> conjunction with the center, which is affiliated with the Richard Nixon
> Library and Birthplace. Saunders admits that the Nixon Center accepts
> "small" amounts of money from Russia, but he issued a statement calling
> the Russian journalist who wrote the story a "specialist in black
> PR." Blair Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute, also worries that some
> might think his scholars are influenced by Russian money, and he admits to
> having questions about donations from Lukoil and other Russian
> companies. He says he doesn't allow donors to have any influence over
> research. Besides, when someone such as Schroeder goes to work for
> Gazprom, Ruble says, the argument against accepting Russian money "becomes
> harder and harder to make" to fundraisers and boards of directors.
>
> Generalized paranoia -- and in particular the assumption that anyone
> expressing an opinion about anything is being paid to do so -- is probably
> the least attractive attribute of Russian political culture, and I'm not
> going to indulge in it here. But Schroeder's new job should raise
> awareness that there may be some mixed motives out there: If nothing else,
> Russian companies, like their Saudi and indeed American counterparts, have
> now made it known that they'll reward their friends.
>
> applebaumanne@yahoo.com
>
>  2005 The Washington Post Company
>
>
> ===============================================================
> Jurij Dobczansky, M.L.S.
> Senior Cataloging Specialist & Recommending Officer for Ukraine
> Social Sciences Cataloging Division
> Library of Congress
> 101 Independence Avenue, SE
> Washington, DC  20540-4362
> TEL (202) 707-3080
> FAX (202) 707-6421
> E-mail: jdob@loc.gov
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