Putin Moves to Centralize Authority (washingtonpost.com)
This is what I majored in, and as people who know me will tell you, I have lamented the end of the cold war for years! (I know, I know.) But my main area of interest, historically speaking, was “Russia As Empire” and well, that was over well before I graduated in 1993. People have asked me many, many, MANY times why I did not pursue a career related to my degree, and that is the reason — the political nature of the CIS, and its subsequent devolution into the many independent states which once comprised the USSR, was really just not interesting to me. I was interested in the boot heel of Russia’s leaders, Tsars and Soviets, as they asserted, expanded, and maintained their grip on surrounding territories in the USSR and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Bloc.
Now it looks like we might be headed that way again, and so I am really, really, really sad that i did not pursue a career more directly related to my degree. This is what I know about, and what I love. Putin’s ascendancy was worrisome to me for this exact reason.
Keeping a close eye.
