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Yevgenia Markovna Albats (Template:Lang-ru; born 5 September 1958 ) is a Russian investigative journalist, political scientist, writer and radio host.

Family

Albats' father, Mark Yevgenyevich Albats was a member of GRU military reconnaissance team and parachuted into German-occupied Ukraine during World War II. In 1943 he was wounded and discharged from the Army. Afterwards he worked as an engineer at a scientific institutions, designing radiolocation systems for the Soviet Army. Her mother was a actress and a radio news host Yelena Izmaylovskaya . Her older sister Tatyana Komarova became a notable TV anchor . Albats was married to a journalist, writer and science popularizer Yaroslav Golovanov

Journalism

Yevgenia Albats graduated from the Department of Journalism of Moscow State University in 1980. One of her classmates and friends were future famous investigative journalist Anna PolitkovskayaShe started her professional work as a science observer writing about astrophysics and particle physics for the Sunday supplement Nedelya to Izvestia newspaper. From 1986 - 1992 she worked for the Moscow News. In 1996-2006 she worked for Izvestia (led the weekly column We and Our Children) and Novaya Gazeta . She received the Golden Pen Award from the Russian Union of Jornalists for exposing poor conditions in maternity wards in 1989.

In 1997 Albats was fired from Izvestia for publishing an article, but was restored by a court decision on 15 March 1997 .

Political activities

During 1993-2000 she was a member of the Clemency Commission at the Executive Office of the President of the Russian Federation.

Research

Albats became a fellow of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in 1993 (). In 2004 Albats was awarded a Ph.D in political science from Harvard University. She is currently a Professor at the Moscow Higher School of Economics. She works at the radio station Echo of Moscow and writes for the Moscow Times.

One of her favorite topics is also the Jewish question, and in 1995 she had written her book "Jewish Question".

Russian Parliament asked Albats to examine KGB archives after the Soviet coup attempt of 1991. As a member of the official commission she interviewed KGB officers. Albats described her findings in the book The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future in 1994. KGB chairman Vadim Bakatin gave Albats the number of KGB officers as 180,000 in a post-1991 interview. Using the "rule of thumb", "four non-ranking KGB employees for every officer", Albats estimated that the number of KGB employees in Russia in 1992 approached 700,000, "one for every 297 citizens of Russia", as opposed to "one Chekist for every 428 Soviet citizens."

Albats perceives KGB as a leading political force rather than a security organization, whose directors Lavrenty Beria, Yuri Andropov and Vladimir Kryuchkov manipulated Communist Party leaders. She asserts that FSB, the successor of KGB, has become a totalitarian party. Journalist John Barron, retired KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin and the highest-ranking known Soviet bloc defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa shared these points of view.

In 1992 Albats published an article in Izvestia quoting documents from KGB archives that David Karr was "a competent KGB source" who "submitted information to the KGB on the technical capabilities of the United States and other capitalist countries". She cited KGB correspondence about payments to Rajiv Gandhi and his family, which had been arranged by Viktor Chebrikov She discovered that KGB employed the future Russian Patriarch Alexius II as an agent under a nick Drozdov. KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin and dissident priest Gleb Yakunin who had access to KGB archives reported the same.

Albats published a book "The Jewish question" in 1995

"Russian March" controversy

Yevgenia Albats advocated freedom of assembly in her article on the government's reaction to the yearly ultra-nationalist Russian March scheduled for the National Reconciliation Day in November 2006. In her earlier talk show in 2005, Yevgenia Albats had another position and was denouncing "Russian March" as a fascist and nationalist action.

Russian Orthodox TV (Russian Resistance), Young Guard of United Russia, Russian Institute, Media Mir and magazine Vzglyad criticized Albats. The former mentioned that Albats did not invite the organizers of Russian March to her radio talk. The rest showed mixed reaction in the assumption that Albats supported the nationalist Russian March. Other activists and columnists found the criticism misleading.

Talk shows

Albats hosts a radio talk at Echo of Moscow. In December 2006 she held a talk with Olga Kryshtanovskaya, director of the Moscow-based Centre for the Study of Elites. Kryshtanovskaya believed that FSB members and other "silovik's" took key positions in the Russian government, Parliament and business. These members share their military background and nationalistic views. She noted that most FSB members remain in the "acting reserve" even when they formally leave the organization. All "acting reserve" members receive an FSB salary, follow FSB instructions, and remain above the law because their organization protects them, according to Kryshtanovskaya.

In October 2006 Yevgenia Albats publicly attacked a journalist Anna Arutunyan who was invited to Albats's Echo of Moscow talk show, along with two other journalists. Earlier, Arutunyan wrote an article in the Moscow News criticizing Anna Politkovskaya, who had already been murdered by the time. Arutunyan wrote that Politkovskaya had been more a politcian than a journalist and that Politkovskaya articles had been full of "inaccuracies". At the talk show, Albats accused Arutunyan of being unobjective and untrue in crticism of Politkovskaya, claimed it was based on secondary sources and was harrassed Arutunyan by reading aloud her biography and by questions like whether the article had been written by Arutunian himself, hinting that this was a publication ordered by someone else.

Albats had abruptly switched the original topic of the talk show, which was the role of mass media in society, to the article written by Anna Arutunyan. Later, Albats had approached Arutunyan after the show and had demanded her "to leave the profession", threatening that she had reported Arutunyan's article to Arutunyan's boss in the US, The Nation's chief editor, promised to "look after all publications from now on". and shouted "And now get out!!!" in the end.

Critics Yelena Kalashnikova and Oleg Kashin viewed Albats' behaviour as extremely uncivil, undemocratic and rude. The underlying reason of scandal, according to Yelena Kalashnikova is intolerability of those journalists who pretend to be liberal to the outside criticism and their confusion of freedom of speech with all-permissiveness and of pluralism with borishness. According to Oleg Kashin the problem of conflict lies in the fact that while Russian journalists claim those privileges that their Western collegues have, they reject taking obligations and responsibilities associated with them. Kashin asserts that in Russian journalist community a narrow (small) group was formed (including Yevgenia Albats and Anna Politkovskaya) which appropriated the right to speak out in public on behalf of all journalist community by sticking a label to anyone and pretending to be a 'professional conscience' who's conclusions are obligatory for execution and couldn't be appealed.

Magazine Expert and newspaper Vzglyad journalist Oleg Kashin reported on a flash mob campaign by Russian Internet users against Yevgenia Albats under a slogan "Albats, get out of the air!" (Альбац, вон из эфира!).

References

  1. ^ http://www.agentura.ru/dossier/russia/people/albaz/
  2. The New Russia" dictionary: a world of literature Znamya
  3. ^ We are here Template:Ru icon
  4. Interview with Tatyana Komarova
  5. Biography of Yaroslav Golovanov
  6. Tanya Albats poem by Semyon Ventzimerov about Albats family
  7. Evgeny Bystrov On Zhurfak Anya was the Modesty incarnated Novaya Gazeta Kubany 1217 (95) of 14 December 2006 Template:Ru icon
  8. Albats' site at Echo of Moscow Template:Ru icon
  9. by Sherry Ricchiardi, Standing Up to Death Threats, American Jounalism Review, November 1995
  10. Bureaucrats and the Russian transition: The politics of accommodation, 1991-2003. PhD Dissertation, Harvard University, 2004. - 343 p.
  11. http://www.regiony.ru/famous2/e47.shtml Central Jewish Resource Biography of Alabts
  12. The Spies Who Stayed Out in the Cold, The New York Times, by Glenn Garelik, November 27 1994
  13. ^ Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future. 1994. ISBN 0-374-52738-5.
  14. KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents. New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1974. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974. New York: Bantam Books, 1974
  15. The Triumph of the KGB by Oleg Kalugin
  16. Symposium: When an Evil Empire Returns, interview with Ion Mihai Pacepa, R. James Woolsey, Jr., Yuri Yarim-Agaev and Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, FrontPageMagazine.com June 23, 2006.
  17. Senator Edward Kennedy requested KGB assistance with a profitable contract for his businessman-friend, Izvestia, 24 June 1992, p. 5.
  18. ^ Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future, 1994. ISBN 0-374-52738-5.
  19. Can Corrupt Politicians Preserve Freedom?, by Rajinder Puri (it claims that KGB chief Viktor Chebrikov sought in writing "authorization to make payments in US dollars to the family members of Rajiv Gandhi, namely Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Paola Maino, mother of Sonia Gandhi" from the CPSU in December 1985).
  20. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, Gardners Books (2000), ISBN 0-14-028487-7
  21. The Jewish question (Russian), Moscow, 1995, ISBN 5-735-80180-5
  22. Biography
  23. The "Stupidity of the year" contest. Who is going to win: the government, democrats, nationalists? by Yevgenia Albats, 23 October 2006, YeZh. Machine translation.
  24. http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/albac/39792/ Transcipt of "Full Albats" talk show. November 6, 2005
  25. http://www.vz.ru/columns/2006/11/29/58857.html Maksim Grigorev. "Return of evil dead 2". November 29, 2006, Business Newspaper Vzglyad (in Russian).
  26. http://polithexogen.ru/info/38797.html Ivan Melnik. "Demschizo on march". October 23, 2006 Politgexogen, the most blowing news (in Russian).
  27. http://polithexogen.ru/info/38969.html TopGapon - List of instigators. Analytics board. November 3, 2006 Politgexogen (in Russian).
  28. http://www.utro.ru/articles/2006/11/01/597721.shtml Lexander Krajchek. "Moscow facing the holiday provocation". November 1, 2006. Utro.ru (in Russian)
  29. http://www.russ.ru/politics/reakcii/russkij_marsh_ili_krovavoe_voskresen_e Vladimir Mozhegov. "Russian March or Bloody Sunday?" Russian Journal, March 10, 2007 (in Russian).
  30. http://www.molgvardia.ru/news-item.php?id=905 Andrey Tatarinov "The real Russian March would be organized by... us!!!" Molodaya Gvardia October 31, 2006 (in Russian).
  31. http://www.russtv.ru/content2/patriot/russ_otpor/otpor11.shtml Natalia Cholmogorova. "Waking up:Russian March of November 4th, 2006". Russian Orthodox TV.(in Russian)
  32. http://www.apn.ru/publications/article11087.htm Vadim Veshezerov. "Children of defeat". December 6th, 2006. APN - Agency of Political News, in Russian.
  33. http://www.rusk.ru/st.php?idar=162715 Avrom Shmulevich. "State authorities prepare Jewish pogroms in Russia". November 3rd, 2006. Orthodox information agency. (in Russian)
  34. http://jig.ru/index4.php/2006/11/08/marsh-kotorogo-ne-bylo.html "The March which did not exist". International Jewish Newspaper.
  35. In Russia, A Secretive Force Widens, P. Finn, Washington Post, 2006
  36. Interview with Olga Kryshtanovskaya (Russian) Siloviks in power: fears or reality? by Evgenia Albats, Echo of Moscow, 4 February 2006
  37. Does Russian society need a fourth estate?, Full Albats, a talk show by Yevgenia Albats, Echo of Moscow, 22 October 2006 (in Russian)
  38. Journalist Murder a Conundrum By Anna Arutunyan, Moscow News, №39, 2006.
  39. ^ Boorishness as a World View by Yelena Kalashnikova (in Russian)
  40. ^ Full Albats by Oleg Kashin, business newspaper Vzgliad, October 26, 2006 (in Russian)

Works

  • Bureaucrats and Russian Transition: Politics of Accommodation, Harvard University Press, 2004 ()
  • Yevgenia Albats and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia - Past, Present, and Future, 1994. ISBN 0-374-18104-7 ().

External links

English

  • Albats' interview with PBS
  • Reporting Stories in Russia That No One Will Publish
  • Albats ( The Shakedown State, Moscow: Higher School of Economics, 2005.
  • In Putin's Kremlin, It's All About Control
  • The Day Democracy Died in Russia
  • The Chechen War Comes Home
  • The Kremlin Shows Its True Face
  • Wielding the KGB's Tools
  • Seven Questions: Russia’s Cloaks and Daggers

Russian

Articles about Albats

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