LECTURE: The Mountains Move: Russia, Caucasia, and the West (events.berkeley.edu)

Lecture | February 19 | 2-3 p.m. | 223 Moses Hall

Speaker: Ronald Suny, Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History; Political Science, University of Michigan

Sponsors: Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Institute of (ISEEES), International Studies, Institute of

Last August Russia and Georgia went to war in a part of the world that few in the Unied States were aware of. Yet the obscure conflict in South Ossetia had global consequences. Ron Suny, a long timer historian of the Caucasus, argues that the struggle in the region was part of a larger rivalry for global influence by Russia and the United States. For historians context is all; for undestanding the future of East-West relations, the past has to be understood.

Ronald Suny is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Chicago. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Columbia University, he taught at Oberlin College (1968-1981), as visiting professor of history at the University of California, Irvine (1987), and Stanford University (1995-1996). He was the first holder of the Alex Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of Michigan (1981-1995), where he founded and directed the Armenian Studies Program. He is the author of numerous books on the Caucasus.

LECTURE: Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus (events.berkeley.edu)

Lecture | February 23 | 12-1 p.m. | Stephens Hall, Geballe Room (220 Stephens)

Speaker: Thomas Goltz

Sponsors: Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Institute of (ISEEES), Townsend Center for the Humanities

Thomas Goltz will be making a multi-media presentation on his latest book: "Georgia Diary: A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus." First released in late 2006 as the third part of his unplanned 'Caucasus Trilogy,' Georgia Diary is a fast-paced, boots-(barely)-on-the-ground exploration of the lynch-pin Caucasus country during its time of chaos 1991-2000, with a primary focus on the war over Abkhazia, the return (and ruin) of Eduard Shevardnadze and the eventual rise of Mikheil Saakashvili and his Rose Revolution of 2003 and its 'glorious' aftermath, when Georgia appeared to have lifted itself out of the post-Soviet morass and firmly situated itself within the matrix of western interests in the region, including the aspiration to become a full member of NATO. Then came the so-called ‘Olympics War’ with Russia of August 2008, when Goltz returned to Georgia at the height of the crisis, culling notes from players high and low to serve as the basis of a brand new, no-holds barred 20,000 word action and analysis Epilogue of the original book, to be released in paperback in February 2009.

Before returning to academia in 2006, Thomas Goltz spent some twenty-five years in the field as a journalist and has written for most leading US publications, including the New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal (as well as The Nation and Soldier of Fortune) His "Azerbaijan Diary"(M.E. Sharpe, 998/99) has been hailed as ‘essential reading for all post-Sovietologists.’ His second book on the Caucasus, "Chechnya Diary" (St Martins, 2003), is regarded as a classic exploration of the reality of war-correspondence, and how ‘the observer affects the observed.’ A memoir about his days as an itinerant actor in Africa in the late 1970s was issued as "Assassinating Shakespeare" (Saqi, 2006), and is now being considered as a possible film. Fluent or functional in German, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Russian, and Arabic, Goltz has lectured at most leading US universities and foreign policy-related institutes. Goltz is currently an adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Montana State University, Bozeman.

His web site is: www.thomasgoltz.com