WASHINGTON -- United States Institute of Peace colleagues and staff join Russians and people throughout the world in grieving the loss of Galina Starovoitova.

Galina Starovoitova, one of Russia's leading political lights and crusader for democratic reforms and human rights, was slain in St. Petersburg on Friday night in what appears to have been a political assassination. Elected to the Russian State Duma in the December 1995 legislative elections, Starovoitova served as a deputy from a single-member district in St. Petersburg. She was an outspoken advocate of democratic reform and human rights. Recently, Starovoitova led an unsuccessful drive to censure a Communist deputy whose anti-Semitic remarks in the Duma caused widespread concern about the rise of extremism and hate-speech in Russia.

"The Institute is proud to be associated with Galina Starovoitova and her important work" said Dr. Richard Solomon, President of the U.S. Institute of Peace. "We mourn her death. Galina Starovoitova was the model of the scholar-practitioner, bridging the gap between academia and politics. In this she personified one of the Institute's most important missions--to provide policy-relevant analysis."

As an ethnographer, Starovoitova was convinced that Russia must cast aside traditional ethnic hatreds and the legacy of officially inspired ethnic rivalries from Czarist and Soviet times. As a politician, she was able to articulate a vision of democracy that was based on the rule of law and equal rights."

Galina Starovoitova was a Senior Fellow with the U.S. Institute of Peace in 1993-94. During her year at the Institute she conducted an active program of public speaking and research for her Peaceworks monograph published in 1997, Sovereignty After Empire: Self-Determination Movements in the Former Soviet Union. The monograph, based on her experience as a leading ethnographer and an adviser to Boris Yeltsin on ethnic issues, calls attention to the inadequacy of approaches in responding to the legitimate aspirations toward self-determination on the part of ethnic minorities in Russia. Starovoitova calls for creative approaches to break the cycle of ethnic tension and to prevent future outbreaks of violent conflict on the part of ethnic minorities and other secessionist groups in the former Soviet Union.

It is with deep respect and admiration that Galina Starovoitova will be remembered.

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