Description:

Jonathan Brent is a historian, publisher, translator, writer and teacher. For eighteen years (1991-2009) he was editorial director at Yale University Press where he established the Annals of Communism series. His books include Stalin’s Last Crime (2003); and Inside the Stalin Archives (2008). Brent has translated poems of Joseph Brodsky and Vladimir Mayakovsky and teaches history and literature at Bard College. He is currently writing a biographical study of the Russian writer, Isaac Babel, and finishing a novel.  

In 2009, Brent became Executive Director and CEO of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, where he initiated the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project to conserve and digitize all of YIVO’s pre-WWII collections.

Brent lectures widely on Jewish, Soviet and East European history. He has made three documentaries about his work: Stalin’s Last Plot (2009); Stalin: Man of Steel (2003); and Declassified: Stalin (2006). He is now participating a documentary on the life and disappearance of Raul Wallenberg. His books have been translated into French, Swedish, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Polish.

Lunch will be provided.