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Mihail KozhokinFormer editor-in-chief of Izvestia.
Date of Birth: 09.04.1954
Country:  Russia |
Content:
Early Life and Education
Born in 1955, Sergey Kozhkin graduated from the Historical Faculty of Moscow State University (MSU) in 1977. From 1977 to 1980, he was a postgraduate student at MSU, specializing in modern French history.
Career in Academia
In the early 1980s, Kozhkin worked as a junior researcher at the Institute of International Labour Movement and as a senior researcher at the Institute of General History of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He earned a Candidate of Historical Sciences degree in 1981 with a dissertation on the formation of class consciousness among the French proletariat.
Kozhkin is the author of several books on French history, including "French Workers from the Great Bourgeois Revolution to the Revolution of 1848" (1985) and "The State and the People from the Fronde to the Great French Revolution" (1989). He has also published numerous articles in academic journals and periodicals.
Political Involvement
Kozhkin joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1976. In 1988, he helped establish the Society of Young Historians, which aimed to promote a more democratic and liberal approach to history.
During the attempted Soviet coup in 1991, Kozhkin traveled to Moscow and remained in the besieged White House. He later led a Russian observer group to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.
Post-Soviet Career
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kozhkin became a member of various political organizations, including the "Elections-90" bloc, "Democratic Russia," and the Russian Party of Free Labour. He also participated in the creation of the "Consent for the Fatherland" committee, a centrist organization that sought to bridge political divides.
In 1993, Kozhkin resigned from the Communist Party and joined the working group established by President Yeltsin to draft a new Russian constitution. He voted against a parliamentary resolution calling for Yeltsin's impeachment.
Kozhkin self-identifies as a liberal and has held a position of "critical support" for President Yeltsin. He has remained active in Russian politics and has continued to publish books and articles on contemporary history.
