Grigory Ioffe

  1. Home
  2. Wiki
Grigory Ioffe
Ioffe in 2013
Born (1951-10-21) 21 October 1951 (age 73)
Moscow, Soviet Union
Academic background
Alma materMoscow State University
ThesisA Study of the Influence of Socio-Geographical Factors on Production Outcomes: (Case Study of Agricultural Regions in the Non-Black Earth Zone of the Russian SFSR) (1980)
Academic work
InstitutionsRadford University

Grigory Ioffe (born 21 October 1951) is a geographer and professor emeritus at Radford University who focuses on Belarusian history and contemporary politics.

Biography

[edit]

Ioffe was born in Moscow in a Jewish-Belarusian[1] family with roots in Mozyr[2] on 21 October 1951.[3]

He graduated from Moscow State University in 1974, defended his PhD in geography in 1980, and started to work at the Institute of Geography of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.[4]

Ioffe and his family left the Soviet Union in 1989 for Austria, where they spent a few months. They later moved to Rome, where he was screened by the American embassy. Due to a petition from his former colleagues who had emigrated to the USA earlier, American officials accepted his application.[5]

Ioffe initially moved to Boston, but settled in Radford, Virginia, where he found a university position in 1990 as an assistant professor in the Department of Geography.[5] He was promoted to associate professor in 1994 and to a full professor in 2000.[4] Ioffe became a naturalized American citizen in 1995.[5] As of 2025, he is a professor emeritus at Radford University.[6]

In 2015, Ioffe met with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.[7]

Up to 2024, Ioffe regularly wrote for the Jamestown Foundation.[8] Among his other contributions are articles in Encyclopædia Britannica,[9] the Wilson Center,[10] the Russian think tank Council on Foreign and Defense Policy,[11] and the Kyiv Post.[12]

Political views

[edit]

Grigory Ioffe stated that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is underappreciated[13] as a politician and that Western media portrayal of Belarus lacks expertise.[14] He claimed that the Belarusian leadership is doing everything possible to preserve the independence of Belarus. Lukashenko especially started to care about it after Putin proposed to incorporate Belarus into Russia as six separate oblasts in 2002. While the Belarusian opposition is suppressed, this is true for both the pro-Russian and the pro-Western factions. Ioffe described Belarus, compared to Ukraine, as a success story.[15][16]

Later, commenting on the 2020 Belarusian protests, Ioffe said that Lukashenko destroyed the reputation he had tried to build in Western circles after the Russo-Georgian war in 2008 and Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014.[14] Nevertheless, he claimed that sanctions against Belarus were counterproductive because they pushed Belarus further into Russian orbit. Ioffe also called the Ukrainian and Lithuanian responses to the protests "childish". He argued that keeping Belarus in its sphere of influence is strategically important for Russia, and it is not only appropriate to talk in such terms, but necessary.[2]

Research

[edit]

Books and reviews

[edit]
  1. Ioffe, Grigory; Nefedova, Tatyana (1997). Continuity And Change In Rural Russia: A Geographical Perspective. WestviewPress. ISBN 0-8133-8992-5.
  2. Demko, George J.; Ioffe, Grigory; Zayonchkovskaya, Zhanna (1999). Population Under Duress : Geodemography Of Post-soviet Russia (PDF). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-8133-8939-4.
  3. Ioffe, Grigory; Nefedova, Tatyana; Zaslavsky, Ilya (2006). The End of Peasantry?: The Disintegration of Rural Russia. University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-4295-X.
  4. Ioffe, Grigory (2008). Understanding Belarus and How Western Foreign Policy Misses the Mark. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-14-4224-212-8.
  5. Ioffe, Grigory; Goldman, Minton (2011). Russia and the near abroad. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-00-7340-147-8.
  6. Ioffe, Grigory (2014). Reassessing Lukashenka : Belarus in cultural and geopolitical context. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-11-3743-674-0.
  7. Ioffe, Grigory; Silitski, Vital (2018). Historical dictionary of Belarus. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-15-3811-706-4.

Selected publications

[edit]
  • Ioffe, Grigory (2003). "Understanding Belarus: questions of language". Europe-Asia Studies. 55 (7). doi:10.1080/0966813032000130675.
  • Ioffe, Grigory (2004). "Understanding Belarus: economy and political landscape". Europe-Asia Studies. 56 (1). doi:10.1080/0966813032000161455.
  • Ioffe, Grigory; Nefedova, Tatyana (2004). "Marginal Farmland in European Russia". Eurasian Geography and Economics. 45 (1). doi:10.2747/1539-7216.53.4.527.
  • Ioffe, Grigory; Nefedova, Tatyana; Zaslavsky, Ilya (2004). "From Spatial Continuity to Fragmentation: The Case of Russian Farming". Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 94 (4). doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.2004.00441.x.
  • Ioffe, Grigory (2007). "Culture Wars, Soul-Searching, and Belarusian Identity". East European Politics and Societies. 21 (2). doi:10.1177/0888325407299790.
  • Ioffe, Grigory; Nefedova, Tatyana; Kirsten, De Beurs (2012). "Land Abandonment in Russia". Eurasian Geography and Economics. 53 (4). doi:10.2747/1539-7216.53.4.527.

Personal life

[edit]

Grigory Ioffe is married and has two children. Through his wife, the family practices the Eastern Orthodox Christianity.[5]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Ioffe, Grigory (22 March 2018). "Letters from foreign officials on occasion of 75th anniversary of Khatyn tragedy". President of Belarus. Archived from the original on 21 April 2025.
  2. ^ a b "Профессор из США — о европейском инфантилизме, контрпродуктивности антибелорусских санкций и роли нашей страны в регионе" [A Professor from the USA on European Infantilism, the Counter-productivity of Anti-Belarusian Sanctions, and the Role of Our Country in the Region]. Belarus Today (in Russian). 1 July 2021.
  3. ^ "Иоффе, Григорий Викторович (ученый-географ ; род. 1951)" [Ioffe, Grigory Viktorovich (research geographer; born 1951)] (in Russian). National Library of Belarus.
  4. ^ a b "Grigory Ioffe" (PDF). Radford University. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  5. ^ a b c d Hayden, Betty (10 June 1995). "As citizen, he can go home again". The Roanoke Times.
  6. ^ "Faculty". Radford University. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  7. ^ "Lukashenko: Belarus needs objective opinion of developments in Eastern Europe". belarus.by. 12 January 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  8. ^ "Grigory Ioffe". Jamestown Foundation. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  9. ^ "Grigory Ioffe Contributor". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  10. ^ "Insight & Analysis by Grigory Ioffe". Wilson Center. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  11. ^ "Grigory Ioffe". Council for Foreign and Defense Policy. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  12. ^ "Authors. Grigory Ioffe". Kyiv Post. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  13. ^ "Переоценка Лукашенко – именно так можно перевести название книги «Reassessing Lukashenka»" ["Reassessing Lukashenka"—that's exactly how you can translate the title of the book]. Belarus Today (in Russian). 23 January 2015. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  14. ^ a b Ioffe, Grigory (3 September 2020). "Опять всё заново: путь в Минск пролегает через Москву" [Starting all over again: the road to Minsk goes through Moscow] (in Russian). Council for Foreign and Defense Policy. Retrieved 4 September 2025.
  15. ^ "Иоффе: Руководство Беларуси делает все возможное для укрепления независимости" [Ioffe: The leadership of Belarus is doing everything possible to strengthen independence]. Belarus Today (in Russian). 4 May 2016.
  16. ^ Ioffe, Grigory (24 April 2018). "Две «не России» Попытка сопоставления Белоруссии и Украины" [Two 'Non-Russias'. A Comparative Analysis of Belarus and Ukraine] (in Russian). Council for Foreign and Defense Policy. Retrieved 4 September 2025.