the first major armed conflict of the cold war took place in the

For those working on-and in-the field, this profound loss of knowledge has strained decades-long friendships and relationships with colleagues to a breaking point. academics’ ability to understand the culture that gives birth to these kinds of events has taken a pounding from which it will struggle to bounce back.

The United States’ foreknowledge that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the mercenary Wagner Group, would launch an abortive mutiny against Russian President Vladimir Putin shows that, when push comes to shove, Washington still has a read on Russia. “Everything has been broken.”Īs academics adapt to a new reality, specialists in topics from economics to cultural history are concerned that the taps are closing on one of the United States’ most important fountains of understanding Russia, past and present. Today’s environment is reminiscent of the Soviet era, Grek said. universities have canceled study abroad programs and ended research partnerships with their Russian counterparts even as they offered protection to Russian students and scholars-threading the needle between moral and logistical challenges against a backdrop of tension. institutions, and academia is no exception. The first year and a half of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sundered bonds between Russian and U.S. Despite mounting challenges to studying Russia, including the war, university boycotts, and broken-down academic exchanges, it is still the same riddle wrapped inside a mystery. Those borderlands are now a minefield, thousands of miles away from the muggy parks of Foggy Bottom, where Grek currently works as a director of George Washington University’s Russia program. Petersburg, Russia, and completed his Ph.D. The climate of cultural and academic exchange was a “fun time,” recalled Grek, who was educated in St.

Before the war, Ivan Grek would take the train to the provinces bordering Russia and Ukraine. Researching Russia’s remembrance of its past wars, he would stop in small towns to visit friends of colleagues from the United States.

The first major armed conflict of the cold war took place in the