Gennady Burbulis: Honoring the Yeltsin Legacy
[Gennady Burbulis was secretary of state under Boris Yeltsin from 1991-92.]
Feb. 1 marked what would have been the 80th birthday of Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation and the first popularly elected leader in the country's long history. In Yekaterinburg, President Dmitry Medvedev laid a wreath at a new monument dedicated to Yeltsin and called on the nation to be grateful for his service to his country. In Moscow at a concert to honor Yeltsin, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cited Yeltsin's enormous role in giving the country a "second birth." For several days, Russia's mass media was filled with reports, discussions and programs dedicated to Yeltsin and his presidency.
This did not, however, signal a substantive re-evaluation of Yeltsin, his presidency and the early period of Russia's statehood. Yeltsin remains a misunderstood and maligned figure in the country. More often than not, he is portrayed as a cartoon figure, and his long and multifaceted life in politics is usually reduced to a few acts, which are often misrepresented. But Yeltsin was a complex and contradictory man and leader, and his term as president was marked by several distinct phases.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I worked closely with him, he was energetic, forthright and clear-sighted, courageous in making hard decisions and taking full responsibility for them...
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Feb. 1 marked what would have been the 80th birthday of Boris Yeltsin, the first president of the Russian Federation and the first popularly elected leader in the country's long history. In Yekaterinburg, President Dmitry Medvedev laid a wreath at a new monument dedicated to Yeltsin and called on the nation to be grateful for his service to his country. In Moscow at a concert to honor Yeltsin, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cited Yeltsin's enormous role in giving the country a "second birth." For several days, Russia's mass media was filled with reports, discussions and programs dedicated to Yeltsin and his presidency.
This did not, however, signal a substantive re-evaluation of Yeltsin, his presidency and the early period of Russia's statehood. Yeltsin remains a misunderstood and maligned figure in the country. More often than not, he is portrayed as a cartoon figure, and his long and multifaceted life in politics is usually reduced to a few acts, which are often misrepresented. But Yeltsin was a complex and contradictory man and leader, and his term as president was marked by several distinct phases.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I worked closely with him, he was energetic, forthright and clear-sighted, courageous in making hard decisions and taking full responsibility for them...