A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed (festschrift article)

For me (Anatoly Isaenko) and my family, Peter Petschauer was and is more than just a remarkable academic colleague. In 1995, Peter and I published a thorough and objective analysis of ethnic conflicts in the post-Soviet space. This publication became the first among similar efforts undertaken by other scholars in English language historiography. The next year, I won a Fulbright Fellowship at Duke University. But when I returned to the Caucasus, local mobsters began a systematic campaign against me and my family for criticism of ethnocentric nationalism. In the winter of 1996, my life was threatened on several occasions, and I decided to contact Peter to find a refuge. Knowing the perilous situation in the Caucasus very well, Peter immediately came to the rescue, like a proverbial “friend in need is a friend indeed.” Since then, with the unstinting help of Peter, I have very successfully adapted to the U.S. and to teaching in an American university.

Over time, we have enjoyed and benefited from working together on several projects dealing with various ranges of ethnic

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expressions that have been published in top-notch journals here in the States. Peter introduced me to Clio’s Psyche, in which I have had the honor of publishing three articles. For the rest of my life, I will be grateful to Peter as my constant partner and coauthor of many articles that helped me in formulating key aspects of an original theoretical model of the regularities of violent post-Soviet ethnic conflicts that also have a universal character. My original theoretical model was published as a monograph last year.

As a former student of Peter’s, and subsequently, as a colleague in Appalachian State University’s (ASU’s) History department, I (Ralph E. Lentz II) have greatly benefitted from Peter’s mentorship for going on 30 years now. Peter’s graduate seminars on Tsarist and Soviet Russian history in 1995 and 1996 first kindled my interest in Russian history and the integral role religion has played in its social-political-psychological development. Significantly, it was Peter who introduced me to Anatoly, who guest lectured in his graduate seminars. Meeting Anatoly has been one of the most positive turns in my life intellectually and personally, for in “Toly” I met a profound intellectual collaborator and life-long friend. He and Peter have been faithful supporters of my work and path as an intellectual historian for the entirety of my teaching career at ASU (1999 to the present).

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