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Sergei Baburkin Named First Recipient of the Galina Starovoitova Fellowship on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution

The Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the (WWICS) has nominated Sergei Baburkin as the first recipient of the newly created Galina Starovoitova Fellowship. During the 1999-2000 program year, Baburkin will conduct a research project on U.S.-Russian military security and conflict resolution after the Cold War. He will speak on national security and human rights in Russia at a Woodrow Wilson Center noon discussion on Monday June 12 (call 691-4100 for more details).

Baburkin is a professor of history and political science at the Yaroslavl' State Pedagogical University in Russia. He holds a Candidate of Science degree (which is equivalent to a Ph.D.) in history from the Institute of Latin America at the Russian Academy of Sciences, which is in Moscow. In 1994, he completed his Post-Doctoral degree at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Federation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Baburkin was a research fellow at the Kennan Institute and at the Brookings Institution from 1995-96. He has published a number of works on U.S.-Russian and Latin American security issues.

The Galina Starovoitova Fellowship was established in Moscow following a speech given by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in January of 1999. During that speech, Albright announced funding for a memorial fellowship in honor of Starovoitova's memory, who had once been a scholar at the Kennan Institute. "Galya personified the connection between the world of public affairs and the world of ideas that lies at the heart of the Wilson Center mission," said Blair Ruble, Director of the Kennan Institute.

Starovoitova was one of the Soviet Union's leading specialists on ethnicity. She served in the Congress of the Peoples'Deputies from 1989-1991 and was a presidential advisor on ethnic relations until 1992. She was co-founder of the Democratic Russia movement and was a candidate in Russia's 1996 presidential elections. Starovoitova was assassinated in St. Petersburg on November 20, 1998 by two unknown assassins.

The Starovoitova Fellowship is awarded through a competitive selection held by the Kennan Institute each program year. It is available to prominent scholars and policy-makers from the Russian Federation who have successfully bridged the world of ideas and the world of public affairs in order to advance human rights and conflict resolution. The Fellowship is funded and administered in cooperation with the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State.

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Kennan Institute

The Kennan Institute is the premier US center for advanced research on Russia and Eurasia and the oldest and largest regional program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Kennan Institute is committed to improving American understanding of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the surrounding region though research and exchange.  Read more