This event is online only.
Join us for a meeting of the New York-Russia Public Policy Series, co-hosted by the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and the New York University Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia.
This event is supported by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Speakers
Joshua Kucera, Journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia
Natalie Sabanadze, Senior Research Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House
Giorgi Kandelaki, Project Manager of Soviet Past Research Laboratory; Member of the Georgian Parliament (2008-2020)
Julie George, Adjunct Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Moderated by:
Joshua Tucker, Director of the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at New York University
Elise Giuliano, Senior Lecturer in Political Science; Director of the MARS-REERS Program; Director of the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations
Joshua Kucera is a journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia. He currently covers the Caucasus region — Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan — for RFE/RL and The Economist. From 2016-2022 he was the Turkey/Caucasus editor at Eurasianet. His writings on the former Soviet Union also have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and many other publications.
Ambassador Natalie Sabanadze is Senior Research Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House. Prior to this, she served as head of the Georgian mission to the EU and ambassador plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Belgium and Grand Duchy of Luxembourg since 2013. From 2005–13, she worked as a senior official at the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities in The Hague, where she held several positions including head of Central and South East Europe section and later, head of the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia section.
Giorgi Kandelaki served as a member of the Georgian Parliament from 2008 to 2020. He is now a project manager at the Soviet Past Research Laboratory (Sovlab), a leading Georgian think tank dedicated to investigating Georgia’s Soviet totalitarian history and countering its weaponization by Russian disinformation efforts. Most recently, Kandelaki edited Georgia vs Joseph Stalin, a collaborative popular history book published by Sovlab and Lasha Bugadze, one of Georgia’s most acclaimed writers.
Julie George specializes in comparative and international politics, with a focus on ethnicity and identity, conflict, state building, She is the author of a book, The Politics of Ethnic Separatism in Russia and Georgia, as well as several articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as Electoral Studies, Post-Soviet Affairs, Europe-Asia Studies, and Central Asian Studies.
