This chair is endowed in honor of Stephen F. Cohen (1938-2020), who was a renowned scholar of Soviet history and politics who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Indiana University. A prominent and prolific public intellectual, Cohen advised political leaders, often spoke on television and radio, and wrote many scholarly works that stressed possibilities for alternative outcomes in Soviet and post-Soviet history. Some of his most important books were Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography, 1888–1938; Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History since 1917; The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin; and Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War.

Thank you for honoring Cohen's distinguished legacy of scholarship by advancing future research in Russian history! Your generosity is greatly appreciated.

Please note, the name and purpose of the fund displayed on this page constitute the authorized description of the fund by the Indiana University Foundation, Inc. Your gift supports the fund as described herein.

This account is an endowment. Your gifts to this fund will be invested in perpetuity to provide annual income to support the purpose of the account. Per Indiana University Foundation, Inc. policy, endowment accounts which do not ultimately become fully funded at the required minimum through pledges/gifts will be converted to an expendable account supporting the same purpose as the original endowed fund.