Columbia Center for Oral History Portal > Oral history interview with Robert Legvold, 2016Biographical NoteRobert Legvold is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, where he specialized in the international relations of the post-Soviet states. He was Director of the Harriman Institute from 1986 to 1992. Prior to coming to Columbia in 1984, he served for six years as Senior Fellow and Director of the Soviet Studies Project at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. For most of the preceding decade, he was on the faculty of the Department of Political Science at Tufts University. Legvold's areas of particular interest are the foreign policies of Russia, Ukraine, the other states of the former Soviet Union, U.S. relations with the post-Soviet states, and the impact of the post-Soviet region on the international politics of Asia and Europe
Scope and ContentsRobert Legvold narrates his personal history and how an admiration for the work of Marshall Shulman drew him first to Tufts and then to Columbia University and the Harriman Institute. Legvold briefly describes his time at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and its impact on his experience as Harriman's Director. Legvold discusses the confusion and uncertainty surrounding and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which occurred during his directorship of Harriman. He tells a number of stories about his personal experience of the collapse of the USSR, including his interactions with influential Soviet and American figures. He then describes his own influence on the internal structure of Harriman, especially the freestanding area studies master's program. The session closes with a comparison of the current state of US-Russian relations to the state of relations during the Cold War
SubjectsAccess ConditionsCopyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2016
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