The Firebird

2019

University of Pittsburgh Press

ebook

ratings

by Andrei Kozyrev

The Elusive Fate of Russian Democracy

Part of the Russian and East European Studies series

Andrei Kozyrev was foreign minister of Russia under President Boris Yeltsin from August 1991 to January 1996. During the August 1991 coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev, he was present when tanks moved in to seize the Russian White House, where Boris Yeltsin famously stood on a tank to address the crowd assembled. He then departed to Paris to muster international support and, if needed, to form a Russian government-in-exile. He participated in the negotiations at Brezhnev's former hunting lodge in Belazheva, Belarus where the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus agreed to secede from the Soviet Union and form a Commonwealth of Independent States. Kozyrev's pro-Western orientation made him an increasingly unpopular figure in Russia as Russia's spiraling economy and the emergence of ultra-wealthy oligarchs soured ordinary Russians on Western ideas of democracy and market capitalism.

The Firebird takes the reader into the corridors of power to provide a startling eyewitness account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the struggle to create a democratic Russia in its place, and how the promise of a better future led to the tragic outcome that changed our world forever.

"Andrei Kozyrev's memoir is required reading for anyone who seeks to understand where Russia is today, where it has been, and where it may now be headed. In The Firebird, he weaves a compelling personal narrative that spans his country's transformation from the closed Soviet system, to its reengagement with the world in the 1990s, and the subsequent resurgence of its confrontation with the West.
- Matthew Rojansky, Director, Kennan Institute

"Kozyrev's gripping book destroys the simple view that all was well in Russia until Vladimir Putin came along. It describes from the inside how the Soviet nomenclature enriched themselves; how the KGB transformed itself into the FSB while retaining the same views as before; and the conflicts within Russia over the kind of actor it should be on the world stage… It's a major contribution to our unde
- John Lloyd, former Moscow Bureau Chief, Financial Times

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