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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStephen F. Cohen, Influential Historian of Russia, Dies at 81
Stephen F. Cohen, an eminent historian whose books and commentaries on Russia examined the rise and fall of Communism, Kremlin dictatorships and the emergence of a post-Soviet nation still struggling for identity in the 21st century, died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 81.
His wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, the publisher and part owner of The Nation, said the cause was lung cancer.
From the sprawling conflicts of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution and the tyrannies of Stalin to the collapse of the Soviet Union and Vladimir V. Putins intrigues to retain power, Professor Cohen chronicled a Russia of sweeping social upheavals and the passions and poetry of peoples that endured a century of wars, political repression and economic hardships.
A professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University, he was fluent in Russian, visited Russia frequently and developed contacts among intellectual dissidents and government and Communist Party officials. He wrote or edited 10 books and many articles for The Nation, The New York Times and other publications, was a CBS-TV commentator and counted President George Bush and many American and Soviet officials among his sources.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/books/stephen-cohen-dead.html
lastlib
(23,151 posts)He was as brilliant a writer as he was a historian. RIP, Professor!
eppur_se_muova
(36,247 posts)Kind of a disappointing revelation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_F._Cohen#Criticism
muriel_volestrangler
(101,265 posts)He said the West had been too aggressive in Ukraine, and Putin's grab was just a reaction to it; he suggested that Litvinenko's polonium poisoning might have been "accidental". He wanted Russia back in the G8.
eppur_se_muova
(36,247 posts)he used to appear a lot on PBS Newshour. Seemed competent and knowledgeable then, if not particularly brilliant. Sad to see he took up defense for the indefensible.
Bradshaw3
(7,485 posts)Cohen had become an apologist for Putin, questioning his involvement in assassinations, and also questioning Russian interference in the 2016 election.
FreepFryer
(7,077 posts)This obit is bullshit.