This collection is located on-site.
Interviews are only available onsite at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, via links in the container list below.
Temporary permission to provide online access for the Columbia Community to digitized material granted in April 2020.
The digitized content of more than 70 hours of audio cassette tape interviews conducted by Mr. Thomas de Waal with some sixty participants and policymakers during the struggle between former Soviet Republics Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, and conflict of Russia with the breakaway republic of Chechnya. The digitized interviewees include Dzhokhar Musaevich Dudaev, the first president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, in the North Caucasus, who was assassinated by Russian warplanes in April 1996; Mikhail Gorbachev; Eduard Shevardnadze, then-President of Georgia; as well as numerous military figures, human rights advocates, and others directly involved in the conflicts. The interviews are primarily in Russian, but a small number is in English or includes segments in English. 67 Russian-language interviews were fully or partially transcribed in 2017.
The collection is arranged in one series, by interviewee.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
This collection is located on-site.
Interviews are only available onsite at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, via links in the container list below.
Temporary permission to provide online access for the Columbia Community to digitized material granted in April 2020.
Copying by permission from the Harriman Institute Director or Associate Director.
The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Thomas de Waal Interviews; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Gift of Thomas De Waal.
Thomas de Waal, Gift, 5/19/2016, 2016.2017.M004.DIGITAL and 2016.2017.M145.DIGITAL
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Processed in 2016-2017
2017-06-14 File created.
2019-05-20 EAD was imported spring 2019 as part of the ArchivesSpace Phase II migration.
2019-09-18 Links to DLC added. kws
Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal (b. 1966) is a senior associate with Carnegie Europe, specializing in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. He is based in London. A graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, he conducted these interviews while based in Moscow and reporting for the Moscow Times, the Times of London, and the Economist, specializing in Russian politics and the volatile situation in the Caucasus. He is the co-author (with Carlotta Gall) of the book Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus (NYU Press, 1997), for which the authors were awarded the James Cameron Prize for Distinguished Reporting. Mr. de Waal also authored an authoritative book on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War (NYU Press, second edition 2013), which has been translated into Armenian, Azeri, Russian, and Turkish, as well as The Caucasus: An Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2010). The interviews conducted on these tapes directly informed each of these publications.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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These files can only be viewed in the reading room at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library on a specially configured laptop.
Alexander Yakovlev, Gorbachev adviser
Anatoly Shabad, Russian liberal parliamentarian (with questions from two different parties). Also includes part 1 of the interview with Laaneots.
Andrei Girenko, Soviet Communist Party official dealing with Nagorno-Karabakh
Andrei Kozyrev, Russian Foreign Minister. Interviewed in English by Sonia Mikich, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (ARD TV)
Ants Laaneots, Soviet Estonian military officer in Tartu
Aram Sarkisian, Armenian Communist Party leader in 1991
Araz Azimov, Azerbaijani deputy foreign minister
Arkady Volsky, Moscow envoy to Nagorno-Karabakh and later Chechnya
Arkady Volsky, Russian envoy to Chechnya and Nagorno-Karabakh
Aslan Maskhadov, Chechen commander, later president
Aslanbek Khasbulatov, brother of former Russian parliament leader Ruslan Khasbulatov
Ayaz Mutalibov, Former president of Azerbaijan
David Shakhnazarian, Presidential aide, Armenia
Doku Zavgayev, Last Soviet era leader of Chechnya
Eduard Shevardnadze, President of Georgia
Elbrus Orujev, Azerbaijani general, defender of Shusha
Eldar Namazov side a, Azerbaijani politician
Gurgen Boyajian, Armenian military commander
Heidar Aliev, and Co-Chairs, President of Azerbaijan, Carey Cavanaugh, others
Hikmet Hadjizade, Azerbaijani ambassador to Moscow 1992-3
Hrant Voskanian, Armenian Communist Party official in 1988
Ikhvan Gerikhanov, Head of Chechnya Constitutional Court
Original tape mislabled. Contains interviews in the Russian State Duma, 1994-1995, Moscow. It contains press conferences for two Duma fractons: Partiia Rossiiskogo Edinstva I Soglasiya (The Party of the Russian Unity and Accord) and Partiia Yabloko. Side B is another press conference, unknown location. Multiple journalists from different countries and media present.
Isa Gambar, Speaker of Azerbaijani parliament 1992
Isa Sadiqov, Azerbaijani general
Jalal Aliev, Brother of Azerbaijani president Heidar Aliev
Lechi Umkhayev, Chechen nationalist politician
Leila Yunusova, Azerbaijani democracy activist, then dep. defence minister
Leila Yunusova, Tajedin Mekhtiev, Mekhtiev = Azerbaijani defence minister in 1992
Leonid Smirnyagin, Kremlin political analyst, 1994. First 28 minutes is Smirnyagin interviewed by a woman in Russian (Carlotta Gall?). After 29 min. it stops, and the remainder of the tape is filled by an interview in English, in which the interviewer is Tom de Waal and the interviewee is an unidentified woman (native speaker of American English), also talking about Chechnya.
Levon Ter-Petrosian, President of Armenia
Lyudmila Harutyunyan, Armenian sociologist, political activist
Muzayev & Ziyauddin Malsagov, Head of Archive/Witness to 1944 massacre
Naira Melkumian, Arkady Gukasian, Foreign minister/ president of Nagorno-Karabakh
Pyotr Deinekin , Head of Russian airforce
Robert Kocharian 00, President of Armenia
Ruslan Aushev , President of Ingushetia
Salambek Khajiev, Pro-Moscow Chechen politician
Samashki, Residents of village where massacre occurred. the transcript has the interviewee names: Vakhid Derbyshev, Murshid Khasbulatov, Rustam Derbyshev. Interview conducted by a woman especially between 30th and 45 min., ( possibly Carlotta Gall?)
Scott Horton, US lawyer, human rights activist
Sumgaitsy side a. Armenians who fled pogrom in Sumgait -- Side b. Maria Mosia (and family but only her name is given)
Interviewees: Samvel Babayan, Karen Ohanjanyan, Arkady Gukasian, Shamil Basayev, Valeriy Draganov, 1998-2000. Both Nagorno-Karabakh and Chechnya. (both NK and Chechnya)
Interviewees: Seiran Ohanian, Yevgeniy Primakov, Konstantin Zatulin, Konstantin Titov, 1998-2000
Usman Imayev, Chechen justice minister, negotiator
Vadim Byrkin, Russian journalist worked in Nagorno-Karabakh
Vartan Oskanian, Foreign Minister of Armenia
Vazgen Manukian, Armenian politician, defence and prime minister
Vyacheslav Mikhailov, Russian nationalities minister
Willi Weissert, Ethnic German elder in Chechen village
Yusif Agayev, Azerbaijani prosecutor
Zahid Abasov, Former Az Communist official in Nagorno-Karabakh
Zahid Neftaliev, Az military officer
Zardusht Alizade, Az democracy activist
Original tape mislabeled. Contains interview with Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, 21 October 1996.
Zenon Kuchciak, Polish OSCE diplomat in Chechnya
Zhanna Galstian, Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian activist and politician