Ronald G. Suny is the William H. Sewell Jr. He is an alumnus of the Russian Institute. Abstract: Suny is an expert on Russia and the Caucasus. Q: Today is January 10, , Tuesday. This is Caitlin Bertin-Mahieux. I am here with Ron [Ronald G.
So, Professor Suny, welcome. Thank you for joining me here today, and for making the time. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk to you. As I just mentioned, we usually start with some background information on the individual, so I was hoping you could tell meβI know you were born in Philadelphia in , but I was hoping you could tell me a little bit about your childhood and your family background.
Suny: Okay. It is a pleasure to do this. It is always fun to talk about yourself [laughter], I think. Suny: So I was born in Philadelphia of Armenian parents. He was a musician, trained at the St. He became kind of activist. This is Grikor Mirzaian Suni, who is still known in Armenia, his music, his operas, his collections of folk songs. I would say, in my youth, my father, who adored his fatherβunfortunately, my grandfather died the year before I was born; I never knew him personally.
My father really loved his father, admired him, and in a sense, embedded in me a kind of worship, or heroizing of Grikor Suni. Suni was himself a very political character. Earlier in his career, he had been a member of the Armenian Nationalist Party [Armenian Revolutionary Federation], the Dashnaktsutyun, which was a Second International socialist party. But then he broke with the Dashnaks, or they broke with him.
And when he came to the United States, after the Bolsheviks came to Tbilisi, he became a Communist; he actually joined the Communist party. Well, there was a kind of Armenian progressive group called Harajdimakan in Philadelphia, and they were pro-Soviet, pro-Armenian. Suni collected instrumentsβthey had no moneyβrepaired them, and sent them to Armenia.
