Oral history interview with Blair A. Ruble, 2012.

Biographical Note

Director, Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies.

Scope and Contents

Background and Early Life: birth in Beacon, New York, upbringing in Dobbs Ferry, New York, uncle Harry W. McGalliard was a politician in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, marriage to wife, Sally Ruble; Education: educated in public primary and secondary schools, college at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, learning Russian at Chapel Hill, Columbia University and Middlebury College, first visit to the Soviet Union in 1971, the International the International Research and exchanges Board's American Graduate Student Exchange program, doctoral studies at University of Toronto, study of labor law, relations and strikes in the Soviet Union; theme of abstraction in political science; Scholarly work: theme of post-Soviet cities: Saint Petersburg, Russia, World War II destruction, architecture, Vladimir I. Lenin, Iosif V. Stalin, Leningrad Party Affair, Moscow, Russia: wrote book on Leningrad, Leningrad: Shaping a Soviet City; work at think tanks: first job at Kennan Institute, deputy director of the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, work at Social Science Research Council on Russia, Japan and Korea programs, Carnegie Corporation of New York, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation president Victor Rabinowitch, Higher Education in the Former Soviet Union, Information, Science, Education Center, navigating the Soviet system of program administration, director of Kennan Institute, Timothy J. Colton, Deana Arsenian, Andrey V. Kortunov, Susan Bronson Nancy E. Popson, Vartan Gregorian, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Vladimir V. Putin; Work with Carnegie Corporation of New York: fieldwork in Russia and the Ukraine, setting up Councils for Advancement and Support of Education or CASEs in the Caucasus region and for Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, the Ministry of Education, theme of Soviet corruption and difficulties with legalization, the Foreign Agents Law and its impact on NGOs, diplomatic relations between Russia and the U.S. and security concerns for staff, gridlock in Washington, D.C. politics.

Subjects

• Carnegie Corporation of New York.
• Charitable uses, trusts, and foundations--Political activity.
• Endowments.
• Gavrilis, George, interviewer.
• Gregorian, Vartan.
• Interviews.
• Kennan Institute.
• Oral histories.
• Political scientists--Interviews.
• Ruble, Blair A.--Interviews.
• Russia--Politics and government.
• Soviet Union--Politics and government.
• Ukraine.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2013. The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York hold a non-exclusive license to enable library activities.