The Alexander Dallin Lecture in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Affairs

The Annual Alexander Dallin Lecture was founded in 1998 to honor Professor of History and Political Science Alexander Dallin, a founder of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at Stanford and the CREEES director from 1985-89 and 1992-94.

For several decades he was a member of virtually every important committee in the field and in 1984-85 he served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Through his efforts, prominent scholars were brought to Stanford, new appointments enriched the field of Soviet and East European studies, and a generation of graduate students emerged to populate the field. From 1985 to 1990, Dallin served as the first chairman of the National Council for East European and Soviet Research. He was also committed to expanding ties with specialists on the USSR in Europe as well as Asia, and served as president of the International Council for Soviet and East European Studies from 1985 to 1990 as well. Along with Condoleezza Rice, he developed Stanford’s Democracy Fellows program, which identified promising students from former Communist-ruled countries and funded their PhD training at Stanford.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Dallin devoted his energy to the revival of the social sciences in the former communist world. He helped to establish the new European University in St. Petersburg and ran the New Democracy Fellows Program, which brought students from the post-communist states to Stanford to do graduate work in the social sciences.

The son of the famous Menshevik activist and scholar David Dallin, Alex Dallin was born in Berlin on May 21, 1924. The family fled from the Nazis to France, and then made their way to the United States. He earned a bachelor's degree in social science from City College of New York in 1947 and master's and doctoral degrees in history from Columbia University in 1948 and 1953. He wrote and edited over 25 books as well as dozens of journal articles.

The Dallin Lecture is co-sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

This Year's Lecture

"Escalations, Red Lines, Risks, and the Russo-Ukrainian War"

Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War Studies, Emeritus, King’s College-London

April 18, 2024

Past Lectures

2022-23

"Russia at War: The Inside Politics of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine"

Adrei Soldatov, Investigative Reporter

2017-18

"Reformed to Death: The Strange End of the USSR"
Vladislav Zubok, Professor of International History, London School of Economics

2016-17

"Russia's Economy of Favors in Context: Evidence from the Global Informality Project"
Alena Ledeneva, Professor of Politics and Society at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

2015-16

"Russia as a Global Challenge"
Lilia Shevtsova, Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution and an Associate Fellow at the Russia-Eurasia Program, Chatham House - The Royal Institute of International Affairs

2014-15

"Ukraine: What is the Fight All About?"
Volodymyr Dubovyk, Associate Professor; Director of the Center for International Studies, Odessa National University

2013-14

"Anthropology of Cultural Models: Two Ways of Apprpriating History in the 1920s"
Mikhail Iampolski, Professor of Comparative Literature, New York University

2012-13

"Why There are No Post-Communist Autocracies with God Institutions"
Andrei Melville, Dean of the Faculty of Politics, Higher School of Economics

2011-12

"Russia on the Verge: What After the Post-Soviet Paradigm?"
Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief, Russia in Global Affairs

2010-11

"The Putin System: Hollowing Out Public Institutions"
Marie Mendras, Professor of Political Science, Sciences Po University and Research Fellow, National Center for Scientific Research

2009-10

"Russia, its Neighbors, and the U.S. Since 1991"
Thomas W. Simons, Jr., Visiting Scholar, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Lecturer in Government, Harvard University, and Consulting Professor in 20th-Century International History, Stanford University

2008-09

"The Unstable Politics of Russian Diarchy: Some Preliminary Thoughts"
Peter Reddaway, Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University

2007-08

"Russia Before the Parliamentary and Presidential Election: Towards a New Authoritarian Regime"
Lev Gudkov, Levada Center Moscow

2006-07

"Perspectives on Boris Yeltsin in History"
Tim Colton, Morris and Anna Feldberg Professor of Government and Russian Studies and Director of Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

2005-06

"Gorbachev Revisited"
Archie Brown, Emeritus Professor of Politics, Oxford University

2004-05

"Russia's Foreign Policy After the Ukrainian Revolution"
Dmitri Trenin, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Moscow Center

2003-04

"Russia After the Presidential Election"
Yuri Levada, Director Levada Center (Formerly VTsIOM-A)

2002-03

"New War, New Allies: If the US Can't Go it Alone, Whom Should it Go With?"
The Honorable Stephen Sestanovich, George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Council on Foreign Relations Former US Ambassador at Large for the New Independent States: Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Moscow Center

2001-02

"Russia and the World After America's Autumn of Tears"
Robert Legvold, Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

2000-01

"Vladimir Putin: Opportunities and Constraints"
Lilia Shevtsova, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Moscow Center

1999-00

"Transitions in Imperial Russian and Soviet Public Culture"
Jeffrey Brooks, Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University

1998-99

"What is Central Asia and Can it be Integrated?"
S. Frederick Starr, Chair, Central Asia Institute, John Hopkins University