How to Kill a Superpower: Episode 2 - History Made Them, and They Made History

How much agency did the signatories of the Belavezha Accords have? Factors outside of their control shaped their behavior in ways that even they could not have predicted. In this episode, Dr. Yelena Biberman and Zachary Troyanovsky seek wisdom from Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy to understand the dissolution of the USSR, as well as their own unusual life stories. For a transcript of this episode and more, visit https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/insights/how-to-kill-a-superpower