Friday, December 15, 2017

A Facebook entry on an American "Russia expert" who actually speaks Russian and lives there (in Moscow)


Facebook entry, with Mark Teeter's kind ok (more than slightly edited, citing Mr. Teeter's many achievements & yours truly's observations on Russia/USA)

Teeter & family via Facebook
Have been urging Mr. Teeter, a brilliant Russianist (hate the expression "Russia expert" [who, after all, is an "expert" on anything, except one's mortality?]), given Mark's subtle (often very funny) Facebook observations about a complicated, tormented, at times brutally aggressive/defensive part of the world (no wonder Russians and Americans have much in common?), to write a book about his experiences in Putin's Russia.
I can think of no better "Western" witness to Russia's role/struggle in history today than Mark Teeter. Full disclosure: Am a little-published semi-academic historian, and former diplomat, who studied Russia's past for years (believe it or not, given my intellectual limitations, I actually got a Princeton PhD in that "aca-field.") My dissertation was on an obscure -- to "Western" readers -- 18th century Russian memoirist and agronomist, Andrei T. Bolotov.)
BTW, unlike all too many "Russia think-tank/'strategic thinkers'" in the USA imperial capital, Mr. Teeter actually speaks fluent Russian and has lived for years in/experienced (with compassion/humor/irony) the largest country (for now?) in the world, where he has shared ideas with bright young people there while teaching in that unique -- at times odd/brutal to foreigners, if not to Russians themselves -- ever-evolving (but, of course, in what direction?) Eurasian space on our small planet.

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