Promoting better understanding

THE Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. The name Kennan refers to George Kennan the elder, a relative of George Frost Kennan, a 19th Century explorer of Russia and Siberia.

It was founded in December 1974 as a division of the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, America's official memorial for President Wilson which was established by legislation in 1968. The institute's origins go back by nearly 30 years when Kennan convened a conference in Princeton to debate and decide on the future of Soviet studies in the U.S..

Participants at that conference were scholars in Soviet studies. One of them was Zzbigniew Brzezinski, who later became National Security Advisor in the Carter Administration. Kennan's idea, which was endorsed, saw the establishment of an institution of advanced Russian studies in Washington D.C..

The idea became a reality when S. Frederick Starr, historian at Princeton, and James Billington, Director of the Woodrow Wilson Centre, who became the Librarian of the Library of Congress, joined hands with George Kennan in setting up the institute.

At the function held this time, kennan F. Kennan was introduced to nearly 500 guests by Ambassador robert strauss who said: "George Frost Kennan brings together the world of academia and the world of public policy like no other individual this century." this was said because Kennan entered the U.S. Foreign service in 1926. he became ambassador to the U.S.S.R. in 1952 and from 1961 to 1963, was the envoy to Yugoslavia. It was from moscow that kennan sent the "long telegram" urging the U.S. Government to stand firm against soviet expansion in Eastern Europe. Sometimes it is referred to as the policy of containment. Ambassador strauss said that its importance could not be overstated. it shaped American foreign policy for the next 40 years.

Kennan justified the motives for establishing the institute. Contacts between the Russians and the Americans in 1974 seemed to exist solely on a political level in the framework of the Cold War. Expertise on Russia and Russian culture outside this parameter was very limited and he felt that a national institution, independent of any University and free from the demands of teaching and departmental politics, was necessary to encourage scholarship on Russia.

The aims of the institute have been three-fold: To promote quality research on Russia and its adjacent lands; to cultivate a creative and purposeful debate, facilitate an exchange of views between U.S. academics and Government specialists, and to bring together American and international Russian study communities.

Fund-raising efforts at several academic centres were rewarding. Scholars found positions in business, industry and several federal agencies. This success had a catalytic effect in inspiring fresh college students to pursue Russian studies at universities and research institutions across the country.

The institute offers six types of grants. The Woodrow Wilson Centre scholarship, which lasts four to 10 months, is awarded to those with proof of distinction with publications of repute.

Guest scholarships and public policy scholarships are given to practitioners in the field of policy-oriented research. Regional exchange scholar grants, ranging from three to six months, are available to Kandidat level competitors from any of the newly independent states in the Russian federation with preference to mid-career professors. Dual purposes are attached to research scholarships that last upto nine months: these are to help those involved in research to complete their first major monographic study and to support neglected areas of enquiry in Eurasian fields. Short-term grants of a month's duration are available to those needing the resources available only in Washington D.C. to complete a doctoral dissertation.

Added to these facilities is the Soviet and European Research Act of 1983 that is known as Title VIII. The programme has so far pumped in nearly $80 million for the study of the Soviet Union, post-Soviet States and Eastern Europe. To date, nearly 500 scholars who have been awarded grants at the institute have been supported by the Title VIII programme.

Although history and political science have figured prominently in the institute's grant programmes, all aspects of the humanities and social sciences have been substantially covered in the residential benefits. Literary critics, anthropologists, poets, economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, psychologists and architectural historians have worked side by side on topics that are united by a common thread: the history, culture and the society of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Some 250 scholars from Russia and its neighbouring States have been in residence at the institute in the last decade. Mention should be made of two distinguished personalities who were sponsored as young scholars and who became leaders in Russia's academic and public life. One was Galina Starovoitova, a guest scholar in 1989, who became a leading member of the Russian Duma and a Russian Presidential candidate in 1996. Yuri Baturin, who studied the Soviet Union's role in international computer regulation at the institute became President Yeltsin's national security adviser and, later, a cosmonaut.

The institute has hosted over 1,100 scholars through a variety of residential grants programmes since 1975 and has helped organise conferences and seminars for the Washington Soviet/NIS community. Its publishing programme has been made available to the international community of Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet affairs specialists with 271 occasional papers, 23 book-length studies, 226 meeting reports and a variety of other publications.

Over 270 occasional papers have covered topics as diverse as the productivity of Soviet agriculture, the political history of Leningrad, political society in Georgia, national consciousness in Azerbaijan, Tolstoy's aesthetics, the political culture in Russia, defence conversions, Russian-Ukrainian relations, and the Russian provincial city. (Source: Kennan Institute - The First Twenty-Five Years, 1974-1999). The active alumni associations in Russia and Ukraine, organise monthly lectures and seminars.

In Washington and Moscow this time, there was a remarkable gathering of over 500 personalities - politicians, scholars, diplomats, present and past members of the Administration that included James Baker III, U.S. Secretary of State in the Bush Administration. It is worth recalling at this point what James Baker said at the institute: Years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the late Charles Blitzer, former director of the Woodrow Wilson Centre, asked Ambassador George Kennan why the institute and the then-named Russian Research Centre of Harvard University featured Russia in their titles rather than the Soviet Union. Ambassador Kennan smiled and replied, "Because there will not always be a Soviet Union, but a Russia will always be there."

It is now the task of Blair A. Ruble, who has been the director of the Institute for the past decade, to further advance its cause especially when Russia and the U.S. are trying to facilitate a convergence of interests.

S. RANGARAJAN

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