Political Russian: An Intermediate Course in Russian Language for International Relations, National Security and Socio-Economics

Why Political Russian? It is apparent that the United States and Russia need each other in solving some of the most urgent problems facing both countries and the world. To deal with Russia intelligently, the United States needs a growing pool of people capable of communicating with the Russians in their own language. The current situation where, with the exception of professional students of Russian affairs, almost no American can conduct business in Russian is increasingly unacceptable. It is an obstacle to meaningful U.S.-Russian interaction, and it puts Americans who are engaged in various activities with Russians in a disadvantageous position compared to their Russian counterparts.
Political Russian is written especially for generalists and practitioners engaged in international relations, foreign trade or people-to-people exchanges with Russia. The book is aimed at the development of three basic types of skills: reading, speaking, and listening. We assume that students starting the book have acquired a “first-year” knowledge of Russian and, therefore, have been exposed to a skeletal grammar and lexicon, although we make no assumption about the level of control and expect little more than a novice level of proficiency.