During its June 2 meeting, the AHA Council drafted the following statement in support of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies’ letter to Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak:

The American Historical Association deplores the recent actions of Russian legal institutions to characterize as “political activity” the scholarship produced by any Russian research organization that receives a portion of its funding from sources outside the country, and to label scholars at such organizations “foreign agents.”   These actions will in all likelihood inhibit the research agendas of Russian scholars in a variety of disciplines. The AHA strongly endorses the letter sent by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies to Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak, ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United States, protesting these alarming policies.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.