Yevgenia Albats

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yevgenia Markovna Albats (Russian: Евгения Марковна Альбац, born 5 September 1958^[1][2]) is a Russian investigative journalist, political scientist, writer and radio host.

Contents 1 Family 2 Journalism 3 Political activities 4 Research 5 Advocating freedom of assembly 6 Talk shows 7 References 8 Works 9 Articles by Albats 10 Articles, talks by Albats in Russian 11 Articles about Albats

[edit] Family

Albats'es father, Mark Yevgenyevich Albats was a member of GRU military reconnaissance team during World War II, residing in German-occupied Ukraine.^[3] 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.^[1][4] Albats'es mother was an actress and a radio news host Yelena Izmaylovskaya.^[4][5] Her older sister Tatyana Komarova became a notable TV anchor.^[4] Albats was married to a journalist, writer and science popularizer Yaroslav Golovanov.^[6][7]

[edit] Journalism

Yevgenia Albats graduated from the Department of Journalism of Moscow State University in 1980. One of her classmates and friends was future famous investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.^[8] She 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.^[9] She received the Golden Pen Award from the Russian Union of Jornalists for exposing poor conditions in maternity wards in 1989.^[10]

Albats was fired from Izvestia in 1997 after she had completed a major article exposing alleged illegal activities by the FSB.^[11] She was restored by a court decision on 15 March 1997.^[1]

[edit] Political activities

From 1993 to 2000, she was a member of the Clemency Commission at the Executive Office of the President of the Russian Federation.

[edit] Research

Albats became a fellow of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in 1993 ([4]). In 2004 Albats was awarded a Ph.D in political science from Harvard University^[12]. 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.

Russian Parliament asked Albats to examine KGB archives after the Soviet coup attempt of 1991.^[13] 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^[14] 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 [political police agent] for every 297 citizens of Russia", as opposed to "one Chekist for every 428 Soviet citizens."^[14]

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.^[14] Journalist John Barron^[15], retired KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin^[16] and the highest-ranking known Soviet bloc defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa^[17] 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".^[18] She cited KGB correspondence about payments to Rajiv Gandhi and his family, which had been arranged by Viktor Chebrikov^[19][20] She discovered that KGB employed the future Russian Patriarch Alexius II as an agent under a nick Drozdov.^[19] KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin and dissident priest Gleb Yakunin who had access to KGB archives reported the same.^[21][19]

Albats published a book "The Jewish question" in 1995.^[22][23]

[edit] Advocating freedom of assembly

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.^[24] A year before that she held a dispute with Moscow Duma members about the march.^[25]

Russian Orthodox TV (Russian Resistance), Young Guard of United Russia, Russian Institute, Media Mir and magazine Vzglyad criticized Albats.^{[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]} 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.^[34][35]

[edit] 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.^[36] Kryshtanovskaya said 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.^[37]

In an October 2006 radio talk Albats criticized journalist Anna Arutunyan. ^[38] Earlier Arutunyan wrote an article in the Moscow News about the murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Arutunyan wrote that Politkovskaya became an activist and that her articles contained "inaccuracies".^[39]

Online columnists Yelena Kalashnikova and Oleg Kashin expressed their concern with the "boorishness" they found in Albats' hosting the talk.^[40][41]

[edit] References

[edit] Works

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

[edit] Articles by Albats

• Interview with Albats by PBS.
• Reporting Stories in Russia That No One Will Publish, 23 April 2000, Nieman Reports.
• The Day Democracy Died in Russia, The Center for Public Integrity, 17 April 2001.
• The Chechen War Comes Home, The New York Times, 26 October 2002.
• Wielding the KGB's Tools, The Moscow Times, 31 May 2004.
• The Kremlin Shows Its True Face, The Moscow Times, 2 August 2004.
• In Putin's Kremlin, It's All About Control, The Washington Post, 12 December 2004.
• The Shakedown State, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, 2005.
• Seven Questions: Russia’s Cloaks and Daggers, Foreign Policy, November 2006.
• Interview with Y. Albats in English and German, "Kontakt - Report", April 2007.

[edit] Articles, talks by Albats in Russian

• Higher School of Economics.
• Personal column at Echo of Moscow.
• Personal column in the online magazine YeZh.
• Personal blog.

[edit] Articles about Albats

• Who is next?, Publius Pundit.
• Moscow Liberals Hold Demonstration, Charles Gurin, Jamestown Foundation.