Professor earns scholar position

Professor Alexander Rabinowitch was recently elected as an affiliate research scholar of the Russian Academy of Sciences St. Petersburg Institute of History, one of the highest honors Rabinowitch could receive within his field of Russian Revolution history.

Having served as an emeritus professor at IU for more than ten years now, he said he is thankful for his time spent at IU and for his experiences with students throughout the years.

Rabinowitch said he believes he was chosen due to many of the works he has helped edit and co-write, as well as the three novels he has published himself. All of these written works are related to his primary research on the Russian Revolution through the Russian Civil War.

“It is the whole body of my work,” Rabinowitch said.

Rabinowitch said he was at a loss for words when he heard about his
nomination.

“It may not sound like much, but I was very gratified,” he said.

Previously in his career, Rabinowitch was awarded other prestigious honors such as the Guggenheim Fellowship and has served as the Dean for International Studies at IU.

Nevertheless, he said he considered this honor the most prestigious of them all.
The main reason this nomination was so gratifying, he said, was the location of the award ceremony in St. Petersburg, Russia.

He said his father, Eugene Rabinowitch, was born and raised within the city and was truly in love with its atmosphere. He was a founding member of the Manhattan Project and helped develop nuclear warfare.

“Eugene Rabinowitch was well aware of the horrors of thermonuclear weapons and became an early proponent of nuclear nonproliferation and advocated cooperation with Soviet scientists before it became fashionable to do so,” Choi Chatterje, one of Rabinowitch’s former students, said.

Distinguished individuals attended the ceremony, including Alexander Kerensky, the former Prime Minister of Russia, and Rabinowitch’s wife, Janet, who has previously served as the director of IU Press.

Rabinowitch was asked to prepare a speech. He spoke about his father and his family’s relationship to the city.

After his speech, he was granted his position as an affiliate research scholar.
Rabinowitch said he defines himself as a political and social historian.
“Realizing that you can’t make a photograph of time, history is needed,” he said.