Nina Tumarkin

Nina Turmarkin is Professor of History at Wellesley College. She has also been a Fellow at the Harvard University Russian Research Center for a quarter-century. At Wellesley, where she has taught since 1975, Professor Tumarkin specializes in courses on the entire span of Russian history and on Europe in the 20th century.

Her first book, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia (Harvard University Press, 1983), won that press' Wilson Prize for best first-book manuscript, and was acclaimed by reviewers in New Republic, Newsweek and other publications. In the past 10 years Professor Tumarkin has published a variety of articles, including two in Atlantic (1990, 1991) and two "Talk of the Town" pieces in the New Yorker (1990). She has also appeared on local and national radio and television programs as a commentator on contemporary Russia. In the mid-1980s Professor Tumarkin served as a special advisor to the National Security Council and to President Ronald Reagan. In 1985, she was the only woman of six Sovietologists to brief President Reagan, Vice President Bush, Secretary of State Schultz and other members of the administration before Mr. Reagan's first summit meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.

Her second book, The Living and the Dead: The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia, was published in the fall of 1994. President Bill Clinton read The Living and the Dead in order to prepare for his May 1995 visit to Moscow for the 50th anniversary of V-E Day.

Nina Tumarkin is currently working on an expanded edition of her first book, Lenin Lives!, to include the recent desacralization of Lenin. She is also exploring the subject of Russian attitudes towards death and dying.

The product of a family that emigrated from Russia in 1917, she speaks Russian fluently and makes frequent visits to Moscow and St. Petersburg to pursue her research. In her free time, she enjoys singing Russian folk songs and art songs, accompanying herself on the guitar.

Profile last updated: 8/00