Oral history interview with Edward Kasinec, 2016

Biographical Note

Edward Kasinec is a Research Scholar and Staff Associate at the Harriman Institute. He has been associated with the then-Russian Institute since the late 1960s as a PhD student in History. In the early 1970s, he took a degree in Librarianship from Simmons College, Boston and went on to hold positions in various Slavic units in libraries at Columbia, Harvard, University of California, Berkeley, and at the New York Public Library

Scope and Contents

In the interview's first session, Edward Kasinec analyzes how changes in the U.S./Russian relations affected intellectual work and played a role in Harriman's attempt to be both academic and policy-oriented. He looks at how a divide has long existed between Harriman and other academic departments, with Harriman focusing on international relations. He offers his perspective, as a librarian and antiquarian of Slavic texts and imagery, on the changing academic realities of Russian and Slavic studies scholars throughout and following the fall of the Soviet Union. In the second session, he examines directions the Harriman Institute could take in the near future, missed opportunities in the past, his own work, and his remembrances of key individuals at the Institute

Subjects

• Harriman Institute.
• Interviews.
• Kasinec, Edward--Interviews.
• Librarians--Interviews.
• McAllister, William, interviewer.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Russia (Federation)--Study and teaching.
• Soviet Union--Politics and government--1985-1991.
• Soviet Union--Study and teaching.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2016