David Marples Several Belarusian newspapers have noted that August 9, 2017, is the 115th anniversary of the birth of Panteleimon Ponomarenko (1902-84, a native of Krasnodar, Russia), the party leader of Belarus during the Stalinist repressions and war years. Ponomarenko has a mixed reputation but there seems to be a consensus that he was always […]
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WHAT ELSE COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? (UK, SWEDEN, JAPAN, USA, CANADA, MAY 9-JULY 2, 2017)
David Marples Hope readers will allow me some self-indulgence with this piece, which is much more light-hearted than usual. It was, we thought, a well planned holiday: seven nights in England, the first to attend the funeral of my Uncle Jim Stringfellow, followed by a week in a Peak District cottage, before a few days […]
Lukashenka is not Belarus
David Marples I would like to clarify some comments I made during my recent interview with Radio Svaboda (http://www.svaboda.org/a/david-marples/28437579.html), taken during a walk around central Minsk. The interview was casual and none of my comments were prepared in advance. As a result, the headline appeared somewhat out of context. It also may have appeared that […]
Christmas Letter 2016
Kobe, Japan, December 23, 2016 Dear Friends, I am adding our Christmas letter to my blog site this year so that it is available to all my Facebook friends. We have just returned to Japan for the holiday period and it is pleasant to be able to relax by the Seto Inland Sea and watch […]
The Donald on Crimea
David Marples Donald J. Trump’s co-chairman, Sam Clovis, maintains that the presidential candidate “was thinking about something else” when he made his comments on Crimea to ABC network’s “This Week” program (July 31, 2016) (http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-crimea-ukraine-sam-clovis-226501 ). Yet they are consistent with his astounding lack of knowledge about all parts of the world beyond the borders […]
Historians on Ukraine Need Open Debate and Dialogue
David R. Marples
Chernobyl after 30 Years: A Personal Memoir
David Marples PART 1 April 26, 2016 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the world’s worst civilian nuclear disaster. What follows is a personal story of my association with the event, and its Belarusian context in particular. Over time one’s views change and I don’t equate the person I was then with the […]
THE ‘IMMINENT COLLAPSE’ OF RUSSIA: A RESPONSE TO ALEXANDER MOTYL
David Marples Alex Motyl’s most recent commentary on the imminent demise of Vladimir Putin’s Russia (Foreign Affairs, Jan 27, 2016: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/2016-01-27/lights-out-putin-regime) provides a now familiar synopsis, based on broad simplifications, innuendos, and precious little hard analysis. Almost exactly one year ago, he provided a similar offering: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2015-02-05/goodbye-putin and in mid-December another editorial in which he […]
Decentralization: Pros, Cons, and Prospects
David Marples Introduction The reform process in Ukraine introduced after the Euromaidan protests has a number of facets. One of the most critical falls under the headline “decentralization.” This paper explores what is meant by this term in the context of contemporary Ukraine. It also examines the prospects for the success of the reform, its […]
David R. Marples 