Yevgenia Albats

Yevgenia Markovna Albats ( _ru. Евгения Марковна Альбац, born 5 September 1958 [http://www.agentura.ru/dossier/russia/people/albaz/ Editorial dossier] , Agentura.ru, referring to another web site [http://www.panorama.ru/ Labyrinth] .] [http://magazines.russ.ru/authors/a/ealbats/ The New Russia's Dictionary: a world of literature] "Znamya"] ) is a Russian investigative journalist, political scientist, writer and radio host.

Family

Albats'es father, Mark Yevgenyevich Albats was a member of GRU military reconnaissance team during World War II, residing in German-occupied Ukraine. [http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/warday/6835/ Memories about family members of Echo of Moscow's guests] , Yevgenia Albats, 7 July 2004. [http://www.online-translator.com/url/tran_url.asp?direction=re&autotranslate=on&transliterate=on&url=http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/warday/6835/ Machine translation] .] 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. [http://www.newswe.com/calendar/calendar.htm "We are here"] ru icon] Albats'es mother was an actress and a radio news host Yelena Izmaylovskaya. [http://www.owl.ru/win/women/wmr/magazine/n7-8_98/n7-8sudby.htm Interview with Tatyana Komarova] ] Her older sister Tatyana Komarova became a notable TV anchor. Albats was married to a journalist, writer and science popularizer Yaroslav Golovanov. [http://www.peoples.ru/state/correspondent/golovanov/ Biography of Yaroslav Golovanov] ] [ [http://poetry.fun.md/creation.php?id=347 Tanya Albats] , poem by Semyon Ventzimerov]

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. [ [http://pressa.kuban.info/article/ngk/53511/ Evgeny Bystrov "At the Journalism Faculty, Anya was the Modesty Incarnated"] "Novaya Gazeta Kubany" 1217 (95) of 14 December 2006 ru icon] 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". [http://echo.msk.ru/contributors/7/] Albats' site at "Echo of Moscow" ru icon] She received the Golden Pen Award from the Russian Union of Jornalists for exposing poor conditions in maternity wards in 1989. [http://www.ajr.org/article.asp?id=1528] by Sherry Ricchiardi, "Standing Up to Death Threats", "American Journalism Review", November 1995]

Albats was fired from "Izvestia" in 1997 after she had completed a major article exposing alleged illegal activities by the FSB. [http://www.vii.org/monroe/issue36/fsu.html Post-Soviet Media Law & Policy Newsletter] , Issue 36, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, 20 April 1997] She was restored by a court decision on 15 March 1997.

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.

Research

Albats became a fellow of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in 1993 ( [http://www.publicintegrity.org/icij/bios.aspx?act=bios] ).In 2004 Albats was awarded a Ph.D in political science from Harvard University [Bureaucrats and the Russian transition: The politics of accommodation, 1991-2003. PhD Dissertation, Harvard University, 2004. - 343 p.] . 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.] , "The New York Times", by Glenn Garelik, November 27 1994] 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"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.] 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."

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"KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents." New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1974. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974. [pb] New York: Bantam Books, 1974] , retired KGB Major General Oleg Kalugin [http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Kalugin_Nov_00_Speech.htm] "The Triumph of the KGB" by Oleg Kalugin] and the highest-ranking known Soviet bloc defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa [http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=23038 "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.] 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"."Senator Edward Kennedy requested KGB assistance with a profitable contract for his businessman-friend", "Izvestia", 24 June 1992, p. 5.] She cited KGB correspondence about payments to Rajiv Gandhi and his family, which had been arranged by Viktor Chebrikov [http://www.boloji.com/myword/mw042.htm 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).] 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.Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, "The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West", Gardners Books (2000), ISBN 0-14-028487-7] 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.]

Albats published a book "The Jewish question" in 1995. ["The Jewish question" (Russian), Moscow, 1995, ISBN 5-735-80180-5] [ [http://www.regiony.ru/famous2/e47.shtml Biography] ]

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. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121101434.html "In Russia, A Secretive Force Widens"] , P. Finn, Washington Post, 2006] 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. [http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/albac/49320 "Interview with Olga Kryshtanovskaya"] (Russian) "Siloviks in power: fears or reality?" by Evgenia Albats, "Echo of Moscow", 4 February 2006]

In an October 2006 radio talk Albats criticized journalist Anna Arutunyan. [http://echo.msk.ru/programs/albac/46950/ Does Russian society need a fourth estate?] , Full Albats, a talk show by Yevgenia Albats, Echo of Moscow, 22 October 2006 (in Russian)] 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". [ [http://english.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2006-39-4 Journalist Murder a Conundrum] , by Anna Arutunyan, Moscow News, №39, 2006.]

Online columnists Yelena Kalashnikova and Oleg Kashin expressed their concern with the "boorishness" they found in Albats' hosting the talk. [http://polithexogen.ru/info/38854.html Boorishness as a World View] by Yelena Kalashnikova (in Russian)] [http://www.vz.ru/columns/2006/10/26/54497.html Full Albats] by Oleg Kashin, business newspaper Vzgliad, October 26, 2006 (in Russian)]

References

Works

* [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1424&fuseaction=topics.publications&doc_id=97125&group_id=7718 "Bureaucrats and Russian Transition: Politics of Accommodation"] , Harvard University Press, 2004.
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374527385/ "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.

Articles by Albats

* [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/yeltsin/interviews/albats.html Interview with Albats] by PBS.
* [http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/99-4_00-1NR/Albats_Reporting.html "Reporting Stories in Russia That No One Will Publish"] , 23 April 2000, Nieman Reports.
* [http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=304 "The Day Democracy Died in Russia"] , The Center for Public Integrity, 17 April 2001.
* [http://www.aei.org/research/nai/publications/pubID.16935,projectID.11/pub_detail.asp "The Chechen War Comes Home"] , The New York Times, 26 October 2002.
* [http://www.aei.org/research/nai/publications/pubID.20627,projectID.11/pub_detail.asp "Wielding the KGB's Tools] , The Moscow Times, 31 May 2004.
* [http://www.aei.org/research/nai/publications/pubID.21006,projectID.11/pub_detail.asp "The Kremlin Shows Its True Face"] , The Moscow Times, 2 August 2004.
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56847-2004Dec11.html "In Putin's Kremlin, It's All About Control"] , The Washington Post, 12 December 2004.
* [http://new.hse.ru/sites/kz/1/1/WP4_2005_01.pdf "The Shakedown State"] , Higher School of Economics, Moscow, 2005.
* [http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3644 "Seven Questions: Russia’s Cloaks and Daggers"] , Foreign Policy, November 2006.
* [http://www.kontakt.erstebankgroup.net/report/stories/Issue02_07_Was+soll+ich+fuerchten_dt+en/en "Interview with Y. Albats in English and German"] , "Kontakt - Report", April 2007.

Articles, talks by Albats in Russian

* [http://new.hse.ru/C14/C15/albaz-e-m/ Higher School of Economics] .
* [http://echo.msk.ru/contributors/7/ Personal column] at Echo of Moscow.
* [http://www.ej.ru/person/6/ Personal column] in the online magazine YeZh.
* [http://ymalbats.livejournal.com Personal blog] .

Articles about Albats

* [http://www.publiuspundit.com/?p=3050 "Who is next?"] , "Publius Pundit".
* [http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=401&issue_id=3118&article_id=2368739 "Moscow Liberals Hold Demonstration"] , Charles Gurin, "Jamestown Foundation".