PIR Center Conducted an Expert Seminar “Rebellious days. (September 21 – October 4, 1993). Vladimir Orlov recalls”

MOSCOW. SEPTEMBER 28, 2023. PIR PRESS. “On the 30^th Anniversary of the “Decree nr 1400”, followed by the two rebellious weeks of September-October 1993, I’m sharing my memories of these events. Today, we welcomed those who recalled the events like yesterday and those who hadn’t been born yet. Yeltsin, Zorkin, Gaidar, and Grachev are the “main characters” of the seminar. But there were also preface and epilogue: a dualism of the situation… dictatorship vs. democracy… innocence vs. manipulativeness… the risk of the division of the society… I assume we had an intense and timely discussion”*, — Dr. Vladimir Orlov, Founding Director of PIR Center.

On September 21, 2023, PIR Center conducted an informal expert seminar Rebellious days. (September 21 – October 4, 1993). Vladimir Orlov recalls in frames of the Midweek Brainstorming Sessions. The seminar was dedicated to the 1993 October Coup when the attack on the Russian White House happened. It was the culmination of modern Russia’s most severe constitutional crisis. The tensions between the supporters of Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian parliament led to mass shootings and hostilities along the streets of Moscow.

Dr. Vladimir Orlov, Founding Director of PIR Center, MGIMO University Professor, shared his memories of these events. At that time, he, at the age of 25, was a correspondent for one of the most influential and leading socio-political newspapers, called Moscow News. Reflecting on the roots and the development of the domestic political crisis, Dr. Vladimir Orlov also presented to the seminar participants unique photo materials from his archive and the excerpts from his articles dedicated to the 1993 October Coup and its main characters, conquerors and conquered.

In frames of the seminar, the participants took part in an intense Q&A Session, sharing their views and opinions on the events. Among those who shared their comments and memories of the 1993 October Coup there were: Dr. Tatyana Parkhalina, Advisor to Director of the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences (INION RAS), PIR Center Advisory Board Member; Dr. Ekaterina Mikhaylenko, Associate Professor, UrFU; and Dr. Anna Tarasova, Expert of The Child and the Right to Have a Family working group of the Coordination Council under the Russian Government.

As the seminar participants noted, PIR Center has again brought up a complicated, controversial, and thought-provoking topic, initiating a deep review of our experience. The seminar continued the discussions held in August 2021, dedicated to the 1991 August Coup and the 30^th Anniversary of the transition of the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons to Russia. This webinar was one of the events that ushered in the launching of the PIR Center project Oral History of Nuclear Nonproliferation.

The video recording of the seminar is available on the PIR Center educational platform NONPROLIFERATION.WORLD (In Russian). PIR Center highly recommends it to everyone concerned about Russian history, its past, present, and future.

*The source of the quote by Dr. Vladimir Orlov is his authorial Telegram channel “Sobesednik-na-PIRu” (In Russian).

If you have any questions about PIR Center “Midweek Brainstorming Sessions,” please contact Ms. Elena Karnaukhova, PIR Center Deputy Director-Education & Training Program Director, via email edu@pircenter.org.

Key words: Oral History

EDU/NS