Valery Garbuzov

Valery Garbuzov
Date of the inci­dent: September 1, 2023
Type of vio­la­tion: Dismissal
Institution: Georgy Arbatov Institute for U.S. and Canada Studies Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN)

Summary: Russian his­to­ri­an and polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Valery Garbuzov con­firmed to TASS on September 2 that he was dis­missed from his post as direc­tor of the Institute for U.S. and Canada of RAN, at the ini­tia­tive of the founder:” Yes, yes­ter­day an order was signed to ter­mi­nate my con­tract. The rea­son as such is not stat­ed there, there is such an arti­cle of the employ­ment con­tract — at the ini­tia­tive of the founder, that’s how it is formulated.”

Details: Experts and com­men­ta­tors had no doubt that Valery Garbuzov would be fired after the his­to­ri­an and polit­i­cal sci­en­tist pub­lished an arti­cle in “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” on August 28 crit­i­ciz­ing the Russian gov­ern­ment. In the arti­cle, Garbuzov actu­al­ly accus­es the Russian author­i­ties and the pro-gov­ern­ment media of form­ing a new mytho­log­i­cal think­ing, writ­ing, “The cur­rent domes­tic kleurets of author­i­tar­i­an­ism…, com­plete­ly devoid of his­tor­i­cal con­scious­ness, unashamed­ly, with a touch­ing appease­ment, sin­cere­ly iden­ti­fy the head of state with the state itself, the tem­po­rary ruler of the coun­try — with a great nation­al and his­tor­i­cal constant.”

On September 5, 2023, Radio Liberty report­ed that a state­ment by the staff of the Institute for U.S. and Canada express­ing out­rage over the dis­missal of Valery Garbuzov was on the “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” web­site for about an hour before it was removed. But it remained in Google’s cache. Valery Garbuzov respond­ed to the crit­i­cism of his arti­cle. His response is post­ed on the “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” web­site. Russian Americanist Ivan Kurilla expressed his opin­ion about the Collective’s state­ment and Garbuzov’s response in his FB.

As of 4:00 p.m. on September 5, 2023, Valery Garbuzov’s arti­cle is still avail­able on site of “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”.

On September 6, 2023, the Telegram chan­nel Agency.Novosti quotes staff of the Institute for U.S. and Canada deny­ing that they signed the state­ment: “We did not accept any col­lec­tion let­ters, I can say that with cer­tain­ty,” said Viktor Supyan, deputy direc­tor the Institute for U.S. and Canada. — “There was no vote, no sig­na­tures, noth­ing of the sort.” Vladimir Batiuk, a senior sci­en­tist at the insti­tute, added that a meet­ing of the insti­tute’s senior staff had been held the day before the pub­li­ca­tion, at which no such state­ment had been accept­ed. “I read­i­ly admit that Mr. Garbuzov has sym­pa­thiz­ers at Institute for U.S. and Canada who share his point of view. But this is not the point of view of the Institute’s staff, it is the point of view of indi­vid­u­als, noth­ing more.”

Source: TASS, “Nezavisimaya Gazeta”

  1.09.2023