The Taub Center for Israel Studies will host the University of Oxford’s Gabriel Gorodetsky for a public lecture, “Soviet Involvement in the Creation of the State of Israel: The Secret Diaries of Ivan Maisky, Stalin’s Wartime Ambassador in London,” on Thurs., Feb. 25

Several streetlights

New York University’s Taub Center for Israel Studies will host the University of Oxford’s Gabriel Gorodetsky for a public lecture, “Soviet Involvement in the Creation of the State of Israel: The Secret Diaries of Ivan Maisky, Stalin’s Wartime Ambassador in London,” on Thurs., Feb. 25, 6 p.m. (5 Washington Place, Room 101 [betw. Mercer St. and Broadway]).

The terror and purges of Stalin’s Russia in the 1930s discouraged Soviet officials from leaving documentary records, let alone keeping personal diaries. A remarkable exception is the one kept by Ivan Maisky, the Soviet ambassador to London between 1932 and 1943. Gorodetsky will discuss the rare diary of Maisky, showing how he succeeded in walking a tightrope between maintaining his integrity as a professional diplomat and surviving the Stalin regime.

Gorodetsky is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and emeritus professor of history at Tel Aviv University. He founded and became the director of the Cummings Center for Russian Studies at Tel Aviv University. He has published widely on Soviet foreign policy in the interwar period and the Second World War. Among his publications are: The Precarious Truce: Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1924-1927; Stafford Cripps’ Mission to Moscow, 1940-1942; and Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia.

The event is free and open to the public. RSVP by calling 212.992.9797 or emailing rsvp.taub@nyu.edu. Subways: 6 (Astor Pl.); N, R (8th St.)

The event is co-sponsored with the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia.

Editor’s Note:
The Taub Center was established with a gift from the Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation. The gift supports an endowed professorship and two graduate fellowships in Israel Studies, and funds lectures, seminars, scholarly colloquia at the Center, and other special programs for students, faculty, and the community. In addition to offering its own programming, the Taub Center works closely with NYU’s departments to create cross-disciplinary programming, serving to broaden NYU’s offerings in Judaic and Middle Eastern studies. 

The NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia undertakes to make Russia intrinsic to all aspects of scholarly investigation: from politics to literature, economics to anthropology, history to visual culture. Joining the ranks of US and western universities with traditions of inquiry and expertise on matters Russian and Soviet, the Center is distinguished by its particular mission of situating Russia in a global context. We aim both to help educate Russia specialists on the interconnectedness of Russia with the world and to remind other fields of Russia’s ubiquity. While recognizing that any country is best understood as part of a global economy, culture, and politics, the Center works to ensure that Russia’s dramatic and enduring influence is an integral part of every conversation. 

 

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