CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Scholars and other experts on Russia will meet at the University of Illinois next month to do some collective prognosticating on what results of that nation’s March 26 presidential elections may hold in store for the Russian people and the world.
“Russia After Yeltsin,” a free, public symposium, will be held March 4 from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the the Levis Faculty Center, 919 W. Illinois St., Urbana. The event is being organized by the UI’s Russian and East European Center.
“With the upcoming election, post-Soviet Russia will be led for the first time by someone other than Boris Yeltsin,” said Mark Steinberg, a professor of history and the director of the center. “At this historic juncture, this timely symposium will explore various aspects of contemporary Russian politics, economy, society and culture with a prospective glance into the future.”
Steinberg added that the event may be of particular interest to journalists, teachers and business leaders seeking insights on what to expect in the post-Yeltsin era.
The symposium’s keynote speaker will be Michael McFaul, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. McFaul co-directs the endowment’s Russian Domestic Politics project. He also is a professor of political science and a Hoover Institution fellow at Stanford University, where he specializes in economic and political reform in post-Communist countries.
Other presenters include Vladimir Boxer, a fellow in Harvard University’s Strengthening Democratic Institutions project, and Thomas Richardson, a senior economist at the International Monetary Fund.
Boxer co-chaired the winning national election campaign for the Democratic Russia party and managed political advertising for Yeltsin’s 1991 presidential campaign. Richardson was the IMF representative in Russia from 1995 to 1998.
More information about the symposium is available by contacting Lynda Park, (217) 333-1244, lypark@illinois.edu.
This article was imported from a previous version of the News Bureau website. Please email news@illinois.edu to report missing photos and/or photo credits.
