open Democracy News Analysis - Tatyana Zaslavskaya's moment, Zygmunt Dzieciolowski - Comments

ianniscarras on "Tatyana Zaslavskaya’s moment"

ianniscarras — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:59:00 +0100

Indeed. The case of the Sociologists is not unique and the same story is being repeated in universities and institutes around Russia. However, and this is important, those supported by the authorities (generally by United Russia) do not always win out. A high profile case recently was that of the Chair of History in Saratov (if my memory serves me correctly), where the various members of the department stood firm against pressure to remove the Head of Department. Much to the Universitys credit, they seem to have succeeded. Funding of academic research by independent donors remains of vital importance for Russian academics seeking a greater degree of intellectual freedom. In any case, the stand of much of the academic community in todays Russia gives grounds for optimism concerning the countrys future. I.C.

Tatyana Zaslavskaya's moment, Zygmunt Dzieciolowski

Grace Davies — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 16:47:35 +0100

The speeches that change the course of history are not delivered only from the podiums of political leaders. This is certainly true of the lecture made in August 1983 by the professor of sociology and economics Tatyana Zaslavskaya at the headquarters of the Siberian Centre of the Russian Academy of Science in Akademgorodok, where she worked. In proposing a programme of thorough social, political and economic reforms - which she called perestroika (reconstruction) - neither Zaslavskaya nor her audience could have foreseen that the term she coined was soon to become (along with its handmaiden, glasnost [openness]) the key instruments of Mikhail Gorbachev's epic effort to save the Soviet Union by transforming it from within.

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